---
title: "About the journal"
url: https://bovaird.us/about/
description: "What the Bovaird writing journal covers, how entries are labelled, and how the archive is organised."
---

# About the journal

[Bovaird](https://bovaird.us/)

A writing journal: notes on drafting, revising and keeping a notebook

Bovaird is a writing journal. It publishes short dated entries about the practical craft of putting sentences together: how a first draft is best used, what a working notebook is for, when to cut a passage that is doing no structural work, and how reading aloud finds faults that silent reading misses.

The entries are practical rather than inspirational. Where a piece recommends something, it tries to say what the mechanism is and where the limits are, because advice without a stated limit is difficult to act on and impossible to argue with.

## How entries are organised

Every entry is dated and filed under one subject label. Drafting covers getting words down and the conditions that make a session productive. Revision covers everything done to a text that already exists. Notebooks covers the working papers that sit beside a project. Reading covers what can be learned from other people’s prose without turning reading into homework.

The [archive](https://bovaird.us/archive/) lists everything by month, newest first. Each entry has its own permanent address, and the permalink line under an entry gives the posting date, the time and the subject it was filed under.

## Cadence

Entries appear when there is something worth saying rather than on a fixed schedule, which in practice has meant one or two a month. Older entries are left as they were written; where a later entry disagrees with an earlier one, the later entry says so rather than the earlier one being quietly changed.

## Recent entries

- [9 Best WhatsApp Business API Tools for Agencies in 2026](https://bovaird.us/9-best-whatsapp-business-api-tools-for-agencies-in-2026/)
- [7 Mistakes to Avoid When Picking Tools for Instagram DM Automation in 2026](https://bovaird.us/7-mistakes-to-avoid-when-picking-tools-for-instagram-dm-automation-in-2026/)
- [TaskRio vs Tasks.Bot for AI Task Management Automation](https://bovaird.us/taskrio-vs-tasks-bot-for-ai-task-management-automation/)
- [Siege Media vs Rankera: AI Overview Optimization Compared](https://bovaird.us/siege-media-vs-rankera-ai-overview-optimization-compared/)
- [SEOWriting.ai vs Autoblogging.ai for Multi-Language Support](https://bovaird.us/seowriting-ai-vs-autoblogging-ai-for-multi-language-support/)
- [most profitable freelance writing niches: Definitions, Examples, and Next Steps](https://bovaird.us/most-profitable-freelance-writing-niches-definitions-examples-and-next-steps/)
- [How Ecommerce Stores Should Evaluate WhatsApp Business API Platforms for Drag-and-Drop Interface](https://bovaird.us/how-ecommerce-stores-should-evaluate-whatsapp-business-api-platforms-for-drag-and-drop-interface/)
- [How to Choose the Best AI Task Automation Tools for Invoice Processing](https://bovaird.us/how-to-choose-the-best-ai-task-automation-tools-for-invoice-processing/)
- [7 WhatsApp Bulk Message Sender Solutions for Local Businesses](https://bovaird.us/7-whatsapp-bulk-message-sender-solutions-for-local-businesses/)
- [Swag.com vs The Monterey Company for Employee Onboarding Kits](https://bovaird.us/swag-com-vs-the-monterey-company-for-employee-onboarding-kits/)
- [Gray Water Ops vs The Monterey Company for Premium Metal Finishes](https://bovaird.us/gray-water-ops-vs-the-monterey-company-for-premium-metal-finishes/)
- [Top 7 Books on LLM Optimization](https://bovaird.us/top-7-books-on-llm-optimization/)
- [What Is Charlotte IT Solutions? Managed IT Services Features & How It Works](https://bovaird.us/what-is-charlotte-it-solutions-managed-it-services-features-how-it-works/)
- [The 8 Best Managed IT Services in North Carolina](https://bovaird.us/the-8-best-managed-it-services-in-north-carolina/)
- [The first draft is a map, not a monument](https://bovaird.us/entry/first-draft-is-a-map/)
- [Keeping a morning notebook that is not a diary](https://bovaird.us/entry/morning-notebook/)
- [Cutting a scene you love](https://bovaird.us/entry/cutting-a-scene-you-love/)
- [Reading like a writer without ruining the book](https://bovaird.us/entry/reading-like-a-writer/)
- [Writing when the day is already full](https://bovaird.us/entry/writing-when-the-day-is-full/)
- [Sentence rhythm and the ear](https://bovaird.us/entry/sentence-rhythm-and-the-ear/)

## Subjects

- Drafting (2)
- [Revision](https://bovaird.us/subjects/revision/) (2)
- Notebooks (1)
- Reading (1)

## By month

- [August 2026](https://bovaird.us/archive/) (1)
- [July 2026](https://bovaird.us/archive/) (2)
- [June 2026](https://bovaird.us/archive/) (1)
- [May 2026](https://bovaird.us/archive/) (1)
- [April 2026](https://bovaird.us/archive/) (1)

## Working list

- Survey the draft before defending it
- Twenty minutes of longhand before the session
- Cut for structure, not for taste
- Read the finished pages aloud once