Collectible autos: writing the article

I'm nearing my 30^th collectibles article here at /dev/null and I figured that instead of just writing the post (as I usually do), that I'd also write about writing the post. Writing about writing? Why heck, that sure sounds like excitement to me!

Step 1: Get the ball rolling. In almost all cases, I actually start the article (with nothing more than the title—in this case Collectible autos: the Mazda Miata) a day or two before I actually post it. I started the Miata article this morning just before 7am, which has given me most of the day to think about it.

Step 2: Form a conclusion. My experience is that it's impossible to start writing an article until you've finished it in your head. There have only been two situations where doing the fine detailed research for the article has made me change my mind halfway through: the Chevrolet Chevelle SS and, to a lesser extent, the BMW 2002. So in this case, I start writing the Miata article by surmising that it's a brilliant little roadster whose only real drawbacks have been its popularity and how effeminate it is. It's about the cheapest modern thrill-ride you can buy and you can get a good one for between 5 and 10 grand, depending on what you want.

Step 3: Write the introduction. Here's where the actual work begins—in this case, I've decided to take the high road and make jokes about hairdressers in fabulous footwear. Read it, and you'll see what I mean.

Step 4: Pull up the Wikipedia article. This is where I usually get the numbers for the history and technical overview of the car—usually the best info I get here are the years manufactured and what options were available.

Step 5: Write the technical background. Easily my least-favorite part of the article to write, but I like to make sure that everyone has enough information to understand the article itself. If I'm really disinterested in a car, this section saves my ass and gives me something to drone on about.

Step 6: Assess the collectability. At one point, I had considered rating cars on a scale of 1-5, but it just seemed too mechanical and required too much explanation to really like. Instead, I try to give a "poor" to "excellent" rating and a one-liner that best sums up how collectible it is.

Step 7: The (+)s and (-)s. I don't believe any car is without drawbacks and similarly, I don't believe there exist any cars with absolutely no value whatsoever—except, of course, for the 1981 Chevette. I generally try to mix one or two glaringly obvious points with a handful of ones that would make most people say, "well, I really didn't think about it like that." Sometimes I even pull it off. Sometimes.

Step 8: Come up with pricing and "what to look for." I usually try to hit the middle mark based on my experience, numbers on sites like Craigslist and ebaymotors, and pricing guides like Kelley Blue Book and NADA. I've found that NADA is a fantastic resource for pricing vintage cars—they have a "Classic Car Guide" that goes waaaay back. The "what to look for" is generally a pile of tips accumulated when doing background research. It seems like the quality of this section varies most dramatically with how intimate I am with the car—it ranges from just a few points on a car like the Buick Grand National up to an entire damned book if I ever wrote a collectibles article on the Eagle Talon.

Step 9: Add links and images. Every car I mention in the article gets a picture or, if I've written about it before, a link to the article. I've actually got a little C# app that downloads images to the right spot, resizes them, and generates the HTML I need to paste into the body. This makes linking in images really damned quick. Easily the best tool I've written (outside of work) in the last year.

I've put a screenshot at right that shows part of the app. It's slick stuff. The app was used to resize and generate HTML for the image at right, too. Meta-resize action.

Step 10: Read it. Once I've actually posted the article to the site, I read it end-to-end and comb out any problems—which means that occasionally you can catch a pre-edited version posted before I've fixed the errors. I don't use a spellchecker, but I don't think it's ever been a problem for me, either.

Step 11: Enjoy.