Check out additional #DigiLit Sunday posts with Margaret Simon here.

How does a post come to fruition?

Here’s an inside look at the content and the process for today’s post.

What’s the focus?

Where did my idea come from?

My idea was to tell how a post originated from one idea/ one tour during my recent trip to Rome. It was a topic that I briefly addressed two weeks ago (while in Rome) under the topic of Motivation here.

Source?

My “S-Notes” on my phone which I used frequently on this trip.

But WHAT am I going to write about the catacombs?

This is the stage where I pour a cup a coffee, add categories and tags, go for a walk with Mya, because sometimes the “ideas” actually work themselves out in my head. I draft in my head multiple times before I begin to put fingers to the keyboard.

I briefly addressed this topic in an earlier post.  I thought I was done writing about it.  But my brain won’t let go.  I bought books at the gift shop.  Books . . . books that I am currently reading . . . curious about the “bits and pieces” that I learned while traveling and now want to add to my knowledge.

Does that ever happen to you?

Google’s response to the word “catacomb” was that they were present in London, Paris and Rome.  Many locations, many purposes, but my connection to “world civilizations” was in Rome.  “Rome Catacombs” led me to some interesting sources including National Geographic and the Vatican.  The Vatican source seemed the most promising as the National Geographic source had already pointed out that the Vatican owned all of the Christian Catacombs (numbering 40 known ones at this time).

(Yes, I went to google first with “Catacombs”, then “Roman Catacombs” and then “Calixtus Catacombs”.)

What specific information was I looking for?

I wanted to know more about “deacon Calixtus, who would later become pope (217-222), the task of supervising the cemetery of the Appian Way, where the most important pontiffs of the third century would be buried.” (Source: Vatican)

Our tour began with story boards and I was hooked.

Picture taken of tour guide and story board. 09.01.16  fgmcveigh

Our guide was amazing.  The stories were riveting.  And now I’m embroiled in learning more about the catacombs. Sixteen different popes were buried in this set of catacombs along with 50 martyrs.  But this was also the burial place for the common persons during the second through fourth centuries.  The oldest tombs are those in the top levels as later tombs were dug below those previously interred.

What was the most interesting story for me?

The story of St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music, who was martyred and who is also revered as an “incorrupt” saint.  Incorruptibility is a Roman Catholic belief that divine intervention allows some human bodies (specifically saints) to avoid the normal process of decomposition after death as a sign of their holiness.

PROCESS REFLECTION:

Today, once I had settled on my topic, The Catacombs of Callisto, I drafted. I did not revise.  I did do some minor editing – especially checking my quotation marks.  I also used the spell check embedded in WordPress.

What’s your digital writing process?  

Is it EXACTLY like your handwritten process?

Draft to publication:  1 hour and 42 minutes (I was lost in pictures for a bit.)