Web Writing Tip: Never Write Directly in Your Blog Platform Because You May Lose Your Blog Post - and What to Do if This Happens

Sure, it’s faster and pretty darn easy to write your blog post directly into your platform, whether it’s WordPress or Blogger. It’s faster to get the post done and published and out on the web — and it’s so much easier to insert hyperlinks this way.

I get it. I wrote directly into the little box on the screen for Blogger or WordPress for several years.

Until I was happily writing away, inserted a link or two, and hit the publish button only to have the platform crash. Crash, as in lost.

Everything was gone. The content, the links, the image.

Irritating, obviously. So I heaved a heavy sigh, and rewrote the darn thing. (Google History helped here.) It wasn’t as much fun this time, I didn’t write with as much zip, but the re-creation was not that difficult.

I made sure I saved the stuff a couple of times, to be on the safe side. No worries. I hit publish.

Everything disappeared from the screen. I saw the dreaded “404” error message.

So, I made a phone call to the designer ….

And learned this lesson that I would like to share with you.

Never, and I mean NEVER, write directly into the blogging platform.

Write your blog post in Word, Google Docs, or Scrivener; collect your hyperlinks; get your image ready to go, and then open WordPress or Blogger.

Here are some things I do to make this smoother since, yes, it’s not as fast and speedy to create your post in one place and then transfer it into the platform as it is to do everything in one spot.

1. I write everything into a content draft so I can “select all” and easily drop everything into the blogging platform. I use Scrivener for this, although many of my clients use Word to write their stuff. This is an easier thing to accomplish with WordPress than Blogger for Scrivener pastes — in Blogger, I have to take the time to insert paragraph breaks, etc., and I have to make sure that I’m inserting into “html” and not the “compose” block or things are even more hopper-jawed. It’s a pain, but not enough to make me stop using Scrivener.

2. Links are important in blog posts. I insert hyperlinks into my content as I go because I’ve found that it’s easier to remember what phrase you want to use with the link when the hyperlink is closer to the chosen text than if all your links are listed in a group at the end of your document (or bookmarked or tagged in Pocket, etc.). My practice is to insert the hyperlink immediately below the paragraph I’ve written, and if there are two links, then I insert them in the order they’ll appear in the content.

3. It also helps me to write the title and place it into the top of the content. Not as the title of the Word document or the Scrivener file, but as the first sentence of the post’s content.

4. As soon as I cut (or copy) from Scrivener and paste my entire block of content into the platform, I save it. No categories, no tags, I just save the inserted content immediately.

5. AFTER I save the post in the platform, I take the title I’ve written from the top of the content block and insert it into the title bar. Why? WordPress has given me problems a time or two with crashing when things are placed into the title bar. This way, if there’s a crash, hopefully that content is safely saved. I save again now.

6. Then I edit the post title’s file name (for example, see that little spot in WordPress right below where the title appears) because the platform will save something without a good description like “834” - and unless you change it, that’s what will appear in the hyperlink for your blog post.

Hyperlinks Now Required in Briefs Filed Before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

This is cool.   A new procedural rule becomes effective in December 2013, and now attorneys filing briefs before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit must include hyperlinks in their citations.

New Fifth Circuit Rule 28.2.2 states:

28.2.2 Record References. Every assertion in briefs regarding matter in the record must be supported by a reference to the page number of the original record, whether in paper or electronic form, where the matter is found, using the record citation form as directed by the Clerk of Court.

CLERK OF COURT DIRECTED RECORD CITATION FORMAT

For multiple record cases, parties will cite “ROA” followed by a period, followed by the Fifth Circuit appellate case number of the record they reference, followed by a period, followed by the page of the record. For example, “ROA.13-12345.123.”

In single record cases, parties cite the short citation form, “ROA,” followed by a period, followed by the page number. For example, “ROA.123.”

RebelMouse Review: What is RebelMouse, Anyway? Is RebelMouse Worth My Time - or Yours?

A notice hit my Gmail inbox today: BisnarChase, a California personal injury law firm, has joined RebelMouse.

Now, I recall joining RebelMouse, too, several months ago. And I’ve never gone back to the RebelMouse since then.

RebelMouse is a Social Media Aggregator.

 However, this notice made me think I might want to give RebelMouse another looksie, so today I went over to RebelMouse and looked at my RebelMouse page.

This afternoon, I added my Pinterest feed to RebelMouse as well as my LinkedIn feed. (I had originally added only Google+ and Twitter). I added my blog feeds, too.

What does this mean? RebelMouse Collects Your Social Media Stuff

It means that when you go to my page on RebelMouse, you will see a nice display of all the things that I’ve added recently on all these sites: my pins, my tweets, my G+ posts, my LinkedIn updates.

Which seems like a nice thing to have all in one place, I suppose. I get why it's being described as a "social aggregator."

Yes, I can go to other RebelMouse pages and see what someone else (or something else - like HuffPo) is posting on these various social media pages - but will I?

Posting on RebelMouse - It's a blog, too?

RebelMouse also offers the opportunity to post on RebelMouse. So I did. And I shared that RebelMouse post on Google+ using the RebelMouse share feature.

However, I’m not sure what I’m suppose to get from RebelMouse. It’s easier for me to post on Google+ and have that post automatically appear on RebelMouse than vice versa (I had to enter new text for the shared post to G+ from RebelMouse).

Also, there’s not an option to share to LinkedIn from RebelMouse, a decided disadvantage but understandable given LinkedIn’s reclusiveness, social-media wise.

Will I return to RebelMouse?  That’s a big question.  I'm not tempted to do this; there is no siren's song akin to Pinterest.

I’m going to play around with RebelMouse for a couple of days or so. However, I’m not breathless with anticipation of a Great New Find here.

Maybe I’ll learn more this week to change my mind. I’ll keep you posted.

Here’s what RebelMouse explains about itself:

RebelMouse organizes your social presence into a beautiful, dynamic and social site -- in seconds. It's based on the idea that people are proud of what they share on social networks, but are starting to feel embarrassed about their websites. RebelMouse is your social front page and automatically updates as you post on social networks as well as when you blog directly on your site.