Any writer can have a slump once in a while. If it happens to you, you can always just walk away from the computer and get back to it tomorrow, right? But if you’d rather get your blogging mojo back and actually make some progress, take a look at the following tips.
Have a purpose
Have a purpose beyond just getting another post out. Don’t worry that it’s been a little too long since your last post. If you’ll write a better post by spending more time planning and writing, that extra time will pay off.
Set a timer
Set the timer for 10, 20 or 30 minutes and just start writing. You might come up with parts of a few good posts, or you may come up with a list of random thoughts. If you complete an entire post, that’s great. If you just vent to yourself and get some ideas flowing, that’s worthwhile too.
Fix up an old rough draft
If you have an old draft that you got stuck on, take another look at it. You had enough ideas for it at one point, maybe doing some editing will bring back those ideas. It might be a quick way to finish a quality post until you think of your next great topic.
Offer a solution
If you can entertain your readers with great writing, you can give them even more motivation to come back and linger on your blog if you can help them solve their problems. Even personal blogs that don’t try to sell anything can be useful to readers who relate to you. They may come for a fun distraction from their day, but they’ll stick around longer and come back if your post also help them in their daily struggles.
Make it timeless
If you’re looking at current events to find a potential topic, keep one thing in mind. It’s fun to read other people’s opinions on current events, TV shows, political debates, trials, reality shows, talent contest finales and celebrity gossip. It’s especially fun the day after the event. But if you want your post to get emailed, tweeted or Facebooked for longer than a day or two, keep in mind that your post might have a limited shelf life.
Treat it like a job
Blogging really is a job and you’re fortunate to have found a way to be your own boss. Plan to work for a certain number of hours each day, and you can use that “on the clock” mentality to just sit down and start making things happen. You’ve already done so much work to set up your blog and find your own voice and audience–put in your time and you’ll get paid back in one way or another.
Change your environment
One way to change your environment is to move your laptop (or good old pen and paper) to another location. It could be a coffee shop, the library, a park bench or your patio. At home, if you can turn off the TV or music, the silence might allow more creative ideas to come forth and be heard. Getting rid of piles of papers, books and post-it notes filled with miscellaneous notes and usernames can clear your head and make you feel ready to dig back in to your writing.
Don’t wait until you’re in the mood
If you wait until all the chores are done, the emails are read, appointments are made AND you are in the mood, you might not post for several months. Sometimes just sitting down and starting to write will get you into a creative zone, even if you thought you had no good ideas for a post.
Finally, if the mood to do some creative writing does strike, don’t turn on the TV or go get a snack before starting. That bowl of ice cream will taste even better after you hit “Publish.”
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Blog Rehab provides blogging tips and grammar lessons for writers. You can connect with Blog Rehab on Twitter and Facebook.
I set aside 30 min to 1 hour each day (at a minimum) to just sit and write. This doesn’t include editing and publishing. I have to. And I’ve been doing it for months. If I don’t, it throws my whole system out of whack. I also use the timer, I set it in 12 minute increments. Then I pause for 2, and start over again. This really helps keep me focused.
So far, I’m up to one post per day on my company blog and 2-3 posts per week on my personal blog. That doesn’t include writing elsewhere (guest posts, newsletters, my subscription community).
Sure, I hit a mental block sometimes. I don’t know where/what to cover next. But at that point, it’s really just a matter of changing my environment (like writing at the bookstore or coffee shop) and reading what I’m writing out-loud. See, it isn’t for a lack of ideas. It’s really, just knowing how to start an idea on paper.
Ricardo, it looks like you’ve got a good system to deal with writing for multiple blogs and newsletters. Sometimes creative people don’t want to be constrained by the timer, but if that’s what it takes to get the creative ideas actually written, it’s worth a try. Thanks for the tips!
While I am working at 2 jobs, I have a difficult time finding the time to sit and am often chomping at the bit to sit down and write. I am very much looking forward to the day that I can just sit and write daily for myself or for others.
This whole working for a living is definitely getting in the way of doing what I love.
Lucie, what if you kept a notepad with you all the time to capture ideas and phrases that come to you? Then maybe at least once a week you could take an hour to put the ideas together. Hopefully you get more time than once a week, but working two jobs, you’ll have to squeeze it in somehow.
This is one thing that I am constantly suffering from… Especially when I am forced to write about something that I do not really like. If I just write about things that I love to talk about, it would be a different thing though. But since the job requires me to go out of the box and write about things that I do not really enjoy writing about, creating content becomes more difficult.
Maybe just starting with an outline or using the timer (like Ricardo in the other comment) can get you started on the stuff you don’t feel inspired to write. Then you can reward yourself with some time devoted to writing about whatever you want.