For some people, blogging is as easy (and fast) as talking. These people are rare – good conversationalists AND good bloggers (or maybe they just appear that way?).
For the rest of us though, blogging is NOT as simple as saying our ideas out loud, simply because our ideas are NOT clear enough.
Blogging, especially good blogging, can be excruciatingly painful when you just cannot transform the thoughts in your head into a post in your blog editor.
There are many reasons why this could happen – stress, whether from being over-worked or just poor health and distractions can jumble up our thoughts and leave us grasping for the thread that can unravel the mixed up thoughts and turn them into a post so we can get it over with and move on to something else.
It doesn’t work that way always, and we get even more stressed out.
The way to beat it is a ‘Duh’ method – one that you’d say is so obvious that I shouldn’t even put it in words (but if it were that obvious, why are we still struggling over what to write?).
The only way to beat Bloggers’ Block is to:
Just Start Blogging.
Don’t fret about the 40 other post ideas you have written down that you want to put up (are you nuts?), or the affiliate code that you have to add to your older posts (is it worth your time?), or that OTHER blog that you haven’t been writing on for the last two weeks and you’ve fallen way behind on your work quota… etc etc.
As a society, we think way too much. There’s a time and place for everything – but when you’re working, you should be working, not thinking about it. At the end of the day, you might take out 3-5 minutes to review and perhaps another 5 minutes to plan for the next day, but apart from that, does it really help you if you go over the same pros and cons 300,506 times?
So the next time you’re stuck and don’t know what to say, open up a notepad file or something and start writing. Take action – put yourself under a deadline and force yourself to get things done before that deadline comes.
We all need to kick ourselves in the backside now and then – it’s good practice, I assure you.
4 thoughts on “The Only Way to Beat Bloggers’ Block”
Quite often I have this monologue running in my head that frames the article for me – it’s good when I’m writing in a good flow but when the words dry up and the tape in my head stops it’s almost time to panic.
Ryan – the cold pool analogy is excellent. Force yourself to write. Just say that you’ll write 100 words in 5 minutes or something, and start writing. Let it be garbage, because within 5 minutes your mind will cold-start that monologue and you will be back on track to write again.
Sometimes it’s distractions, sometimes it’s just a lack of motivation that stops us. Taking concentrated action can remove both obstacles.
Exactly, even if what you write down is something you feel is complete garbage, at least you have something to work with later, versus a blank screen or piece of paper.
I’m going to put this article in my OneNote, thanks Ahmed!
I’ve learned to make peace with a really awful first draft. Create first. Edit later. Whatever it takes, just start writing!
This is totally true. But what if you’re like me and you can’t figure out how to kick yourself in the butt? My problem is “getting started” – and you’re probably right that the only way to get started is to “just do it” and not think about it….sorta like jumping into a cold pool.
Comments are closed.