Blogging Classes @ LVS Online

Daily Life Blogging: How to handle writer’s block

It happens to every writer. There are those days when your creative fountain of ideas has run dry and you are confronted with an empty screen.  Journal or diary bloggers could just detail their errands and comings and going, but that tends to bore the writer not to mention the reader!

On Problogger today, Darren Rowse wrote a post titled “5 Ideas to Come Up with Blog Content from Your Daily Life“.  Although I could see how his five ideas could help generate content, I was more intrigued by his diagram that showed Daily Life - Capture - Repurpose. Instead of just telling your readers that you ate your favorite Indian dal for dinner, share the recipe with them and/or tempt them with a photo of your feast.  Darren is correct in stating that sharing your “latest meal” is probably not going to be appropriate for most topic bloggers like those that blog on collector cars or wilderness photography. It is totally appropriate for the journal blogger or the blogger that focuses on food or delectable delights. Capture how you do things and what they look like. Web surfers are used to a multimedia experience and if you incorporate images and video, you will cater to their surfing expectations. You could type out an anecdote that you want to share with your readers, but think of how much more engaging that story might be with your vocal inflections and facial expressions in a video. There is a reason that You-Tube is as popular as it is. Humans like to watch!

Recapture can be viewed as recycling your blog content in a fresh and innovative way. Using a guest blogger to respond more in depth or to give their point of view on a prior post can encourage additional dialog. Your guest doesn’t even need to be actually written by another human. If you have been blogging about your toddler on your parenting blog and feeling overwhelmed, try writing a blog post from the perspective  of your two year old. It will probably be amusing and maybe even enlightening. When I worked on a blog for an organic farm, and we were too busy farming to actually blog, I would often ask customers if I could share their emails on the blog. I could post their rapture over the fresh luscious organic raspberrries that they got from us last week and attach a brief note about berry status this week. It allowed me to consolidate my time, provide another point of view on the berries, and answer questions about berry availability, all at once. Another way to recapture content is to provide updates. In another blog, I frequently post about bills in the local legislature. If they passed or failed, got vetoed or signed, I can provide update to my readers and allow me to voice again my concerns or congratulations on how the government is handling an issues.