I currently have 84 drafts of posts in Movable Type right now. There’s also another entry that is a draft that has over 100 ideas for entries that weren’t developed enough to create a draft from them.

Does anyone else do this or am I alone in my draft-happy state?

My basic method is this; whenever I see an interesting link, or think of something I would like to learn more about or write about, I create a new blog entry containing a rough draft of the idea.

When I make my daily post (well, most weekdays at least), I search for all draft entries and pick one to work on. Depending on the content, the research required and the length of the post, it usually takes 15 minutes to an hour to finish it off. Then I spell check and send out a notification.

The reason I have a backlog is that it only takes 30 seconds to add a new draft and I’ll sometimes create three or four drafts in a day. However I usually post only one entry a day, so you can see how they can accrue.

Why not post all of them on that day? Two reasons.

First, I don’t like to post multiples a day. I want each entry to get the attention it deserves and I don’t like to bump a new entry from the prime real estate at the top of the page before anyone has even had a chance to read it . If I make one post a day, each post gets to sit at the top for a day, and people can read it and comment on it without having to scroll down to see what’s new.

Second, it takes time. I don’t usually have the time to post more than one entry at a time, but I don’t want to forget my idea, so I use the drafts as a storage mechanism.

My dilemma is that today marks the one year anniversary of the oldest blog entry. That’s right, I created a draft on May 20, 2003 and it remains a draft to this day, one year later.

I’ll have to keep thinking about what I can do to alleviate this drafting problem, because at my current rate, I’ll have enough drafts to fuel my blog for six months. Then there’s the issue of drafts going stale.

Any suggestions would be welcome.