I started blogging in January 2012, and other than a few brief hiatuses, I haven’t stopped since. According to WordPress, this is my 1,154th post. I’ll take their word for it—I don’t have the patience to count up the posts. But I do know that starting in August 2014, I began drafting my posts in Scrivener. I now have about 900 blog posts—roughly 450,000 words, or the equivalent of several novels—saved and organized in one place.
I started writing my posts in Scrivener to learn the software program. I had written my first three novels in Microsoft Word, and I wanted to understand Scrivener’s ability to combine research, notes, and manuscript in a single file. Drafting blog posts in Scrivener helped me get comfortable with the program, and I even used it to create ebook versions of Lead Me Home and Now I’m Found, which I had already written By the time I started my next novel, Forever Mine, in 2016, I was ready to draft it in Scrivener.
Over the years since 2014, I’ve developed a system to archive my blog posts—I organize the posts by date and label them by topic. I usually use a post template I created to remind myself what to include in each post. I don’t use all my template features anymore as I’m drafting, and I still do a final edit of each post in WordPress before publishing. But because my close-to-final drafts are all saved in Scrivener, I have a large archive of content—organized, searchable, and mine.
So now I’m asking myself: what can I do with it?
The most obvious idea I’ve had is to compile themed anthologies of the existing posts, which shouldn’t require too much editing. I’ve written extensively about the Oregon Trail, and those posts could become a guide for today’s travelers along the trail. I’ve also shared many family stories on this blog—some humorous, some poignant—that could form the backbone of a memoir-style collection. Because the posts are already grouped by topic in Scrivener, I could gather, rearrange, and edit them into something cohesive without too much effort.
Beyond anthologies, I could repurpose old blog content into blurbs in my newsletter and social media posts—and I’ve done some of this already. I could create podcast scripts or YouTube videos. I could update older posts with new insights and re-release them as part of a “From the Archives” series. If I ever decide to write a formal memoir, I could use my blog archive as a research base. With 900 posts, I’ve noticed some recurring themes such as personal growth and learning to write. I might even find myself writing a “how-to” book about writing a novel.
Scrivener’s flexibility makes it easy to experiment with formats and structure without losing track of the original material. Ultimately, having this archive isn’t just about nostalgia or record-keeping. It’s a creative asset. I’ve already done the hard work of writing. But at some point, I should decide how to breathe new life into it.
Readers, what would you like to see me do with this blog?
