One of these pieces of advice that I constantly hear regarding blogging is that bloggers should post on a regular schedule. If you’ve read my blog for any amount of time, then you know I am terrible at this. The excuse that I use is that I have a day job and sometimes I am just too busy to write a post.
The reality is sometimes I know I need to write a post but I can’t decide what to write about. Some people call this writer’s block. I call it a lack of inspiration. I think perhaps the best name for this problem in this context is blogger’s block. Do you have bloggers block?
Here are a few ideas for beating bloggers block:
1. Keep a list. The best way to defeat bloggers block is to maintain a list of great blogging ideas. Any time an idea occurs to you, you should add it to the list. This means you need to keep the list with you in the shower. I will leave it to you to figure out how to manage that.
2. Steal from other bloggers. Very seriously, one of the best ways to create blog posts is to write about other blog posts that you have read that you consider to be valuable or just plain incorrect. The blogs that you are discussing will appreciate the back link, and your readers will appreciate you passing along pointers to other valuable information.
3. Write in a series. People really like ongoing series where blog posts build on each other. For example if you are working on a major project, and the project is interesting to your readers, discussing how you’re getting that done on a day-to-day basis can make for excellent blog posts over time.
4. Simple How-To. Simple articles describing how you did something interesting are great for your readers and make excellent search engine food. If you just work for an hour to figure out how to get the brand-new XYZ plug-in to work in WordPress 2.7, you can save 1000 other people one hour by writing a post describing your experience.
5. Completely off-topic personal information. Did you have a terrible day or great day or did something crazy happen to you that makes a great story? Tell your readers. people love to hear about the personal experiences of people they are following. This is the very phenomenon that makes twitter so popular.
Do you have great ideas for how to get unstuck when you have bloggers block? Be sure to leave a comment and let me know.
Regards,
Mark
Photo: photo credit: Vince Kusters
