Behind the Scenes at Red-Soled Fashionista

My friend officially started a Youtube channel yesterday (congrats!), and throughout these past couple days, has been keeping me updated on what it takes to get that first video out. I keep up with a couple of vloggers, and just seeing them sit in front of a camera and talk, I don't end up realizing how hard it actually is to vlog. Especially with the Sochi Olympics going on, the idea that true skill is making something look easy is really resonating with me right now.

Then I turned the attention to myself.  As a blogger, I play the deception game too.  There's a bit more to it than the string of words you see on the page.  So I've decided to give you a behind-the-scenes look at what it's like being Red-Soled Fashionista:

1) Inspiration

This is actually the easy part.  Every post is born from an inspiration, and that I have plenty of. Inspiration comes from something as simple as a word someone says, something I happen to glance at when I go through daily life, or something I experience. Literally anything can trigger a flood of ideas (especially when I already have so much to say about everything fashion-related), and once I'm inspired, my mind turns into an engine, pumping out sentence after sentence, which leads me to...


2) Writing

I have a bad habit, or lack thereof, of not carrying around a pen and notebook like writers do. Once my brain kicks into gear and sentences start forming in my mind, those words are lost to me forever unless I find a way of immortalizing them.  Considering my creative phase is at night when I'm in bed trying to sleep (my mind produces its best work when I'm laying there with nothing else to think of), I've lost many a good sentence by the time I wake up the next morning.  Sometimes it takes A LOT of effort and motivation to get back into the groove of a topic and bang out a solid piece of writing I'm happy with. Some unfortunate ideas have been left unwritten in my Drafts folder for years.  One day, they will surface, I promise.  But when I catch those magical moments where my laptop is right by my side during a burst of inspiration, I end up with a post I know I'll be proud of for years to come.


3) Images

I like to disperse images throughout a post to break up dense blocks of text.  This phase ranges from very simple, to very difficult.  For example, if I'm looking for an item that I tried on in a store, or a specific photo I happened to see in a magazine, it can sometimes become an incredible quest across the plains of Google Images.  Let's just say I now have a gift for choosing the best keywords to use when finding obscure images online.  Also, the process of crediting the images I use is quite tedious. That is all.


4) Editing

Writing in itself is difficult enough.  Writing in an organized, coherent manner is a marathon. And oh, don't forget adding personality and cleverness so that people actually find you interesting.  Although the writing process is easier for me since I have honed this passion for the past 5 years, the editing phase never changes. Even the best writer needs a good, heavy dose of editing.  I'm incredibly meticulous with editing (as people who have worked with me on group reports may know), and hate submitting a piece of writing until I know every letter and punctuation mark is perfect.  In this phase, there is a lot of reordering and rewording of sentences until I feel completely satisfied.


5) Title

Every post needs a good title.  While some bloggers will go for the all-caps, sensationalist titles that prey on your curiosity, and others will go all hip with a song lyric, I usually go for ones that are either informative or short and clever.  Coming up with a good title is pretty difficult, and oftentimes, I have to settle for a mediocre one for the sake of time.


6) Labels

I only started using this feature during my second year of blogging.  As my database of posts grew, I thought it would make sense to label and categorize my posts to make looking back easier.  For example, this post is labelled "Musings", and "Musings" is also where I consider some of my best posts to be located.


7) Publishing

At last.  This is when I finally let my child go, watch it navigate the vast world of cyberspace, and hope it meets some good people along the way.  There's anticipation, there's hope, and there's pure, pure happiness. As a writer, I'm addicted to the adrenaline rush of being published.

So there you have it.  My goal is to take my inspiration, infuse my passion, and hope that once I click that "Publish" button, I manage to inspire you too.  And then I do it all over again.

Image Source: Photo1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7