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This morning as I teetered between awake and asleep, I envisioned my coffee cup in my hands, but could not yet actually get out of bed to make it a reality. So instead, my mind wandered. I starting thinking about the post I would write today along with a few dozen other things to do on my list. Now, keep in mind my mental status at this point. It was still dark, my babies were cuddling with me and we were all drifting in and out of dreamland. No algebraic equations were being calculated quite yet; my thoughts simply ran on instinct. Pure creativity. The kind we try to find throughout the day, but that often evades us.

What did I come up with in this moment of pure creativity and mental freedom? Bread. Why? No clue. What kind? Dunno. I just had this great dialog in my head about the similarities between the process of writing a blog post and the process of baking bread. Unusual, oui? The thing is, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The similarities passed through my head over and over again, even after I was up and about for the day.

So here we are. I figured if I didn’t actually write about this, it would take over all of my brain work-y-ness.

I might channel Julia Child here for a bit. Bear with me. Oh, and possibly Emeril. BAM!

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Proof the yeast. Make sure the yeast is alive. Will it serve its purpose? You can’t have bread without good yeast. It will never rise properly and neither will a blog post if you don’t start out with a good topic. Do your research and find something to write about that will engage your readers.

Mix your ingredients. Baking is a science. Every ingredient is essential. If you forget the sugar or salt, it will taste awful. If you put in too much leavening agent (baking powder, yeast, etc.) you might have a big mess on your hands.

The ingredients in a great blog post are equally important. Rich content, such as pictures or videos, will make the post taste and look better. Repetitiveness (a.k.a. overusing your ingredients) will make a mess of your writing and readers will look to other bakers. I mean writers. I mean…uh…you know what I mean.

Knead the dough. The most iconic image of bread making is of the kneading process. This takes real elbow grease. You must work the dough until it is no longer sticky but instead has become smooth and elastic.

Kneading is like editing what we write. You cannot have one without the other. We must proofread our posts and tweak them until the flow is smooth and there is consistency in the finished product.

Allow the dough to rise. Biting in to bread that has not yet risen would not be a very pleasant experience. There would be no fluffy air pockets to sink your teeth into. Not very bread-ish, right? This step takes patience.

Patience is also needed when blogging. There are days when you won’t know what to say, or how to say it. There will be days when no one is reading. There will be days when you are stumped. Don’t give up and don’t rush yourself. If I write something I feel no passion for the writing, well, sucks. There is nothing there to hold it up. Nothing to sink your teeth into. The essential step in good bread making is allowing it to rise properly. Similarly, we must allow our writing to grow and change and be authentic. Not forced. Patience will make it grow. You even might grow as a person in the process.

Punch down, divide, and shape the dough. Gases build up in the dough as it rises. In order for the bread to have an even texture, you must punch down the dough to release some of this gas. If you are frustrated, let it out on the dough. It won’t fight back, I promise. Now is the time to divide it in to loaves and shape in to the desired form, whether it is a round loaf, rolls, a special braid or traditional rectangle.

This is your chance for any last minute edits and for tagging and categorizing your post. The right tags make all the difference in making sure your post gets to your target audience. You are shaping your post further with these tags by making sure they will be the right fit for your readers.

Baking the bread. Last but certainly not least, it is time to stick this baby in the oven. Bake it at the perfect temperature for just the right amount of time, and you will start to smell the aroma of success wafting throughout your home. Don’t overcook it or you will have a crusty, charred, unsavory mistake. Undercook your bread and you will be faced with a doughy, tasteless, ball of gunk that has raw eggs in it. Salmonella! Not good. Just follow your recipe and you will be fine.

In the same way that bread must bake properly, not too much, not too little, your post must be finished just right. Once you hit the “publish” button, you can sit there and do nothing but your post could become stale after a couple of hours. Networking is a vital part of blogging. Share your post with the world. Tell your friends about it, post it to social networking sites and don’t forget to comment on other blogs. This is good for both parties since they receive the support we all want/need and you receive more traffic and some valuable support of your own. On the other hand, don’t kill your self doing this. Don’t lose yourself in networking. Too much of a good thing can leave you burned out on blogging, with a bad taste in your mouth. Nobody wants that to happen.

Enjoy the finished product. I don’t know of anything that tastes better than fresh bread, hot out of the oven. Warm and gooey, sweet and satisfying. There is nothing quite like it. Enjoy it while it is fresh and you will see why it was worth all of the hard work involved.

When your blog post is a success, enjoy that too. Take comfort in knowing that you touched someone with your words today. It might have been just the thing they needed. A virtual hug. I have met some amazing people in the blogosphere who always know how to make me smile.

Now go out there and get cooking! Enjoy your craft and work it according to who you are and what you want to be known for. My blog is my canvas and my escape. What is blogging to you?

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