When was the last time your mind went blank?
Nothing to say, nothing to write about.
You fire up your blog and stare at the screen for what seems like eternities on end.
All bloggers face this one time or another. Rather than continuing to bang your head on the table, there’s always something you can do.
It’s not easy to force creativity. Awakening genius when you feel empty is a nightmare. It usually just results in crap.
So what do you do? Give up? That is a viable option; however, I recommend trying something else before you go that route.
Establish Creativity Catalysts
Rather than trying to come up with something cold turkey, develop a list of of creative catalysts.
A creative catalyst is simply a direction to focus your creativity. It helps you get started.
Here’s my list:
1. Look at search terms
This helps me not only figure out what to write about, but it also shows me what my readers want to know. Check your stats program to figure this out. It’s genius. Might I add, it can also be quite humorous to see how people land on your blog!
2. Blogstorm
After going through 31 Days To A Better Blog by Problogger Darren Rowse, I was struck by the effectiveness of this exercise. Blogstorming involves writing a list of your 5 most recent blog posts. Then under each one, think of as many possible follow ups to each post. Write down whatever comes to mind. You’ll be surprised how many ideas come out of this.
3. Examine at your life
What are you going through? What struggles are you experiencing? The solutions you find to these problems may just be your very best posts. It’s easy for we bloggers to get mechanical – churning out content like a robot. It’s important to stay human, be personable, and to write out of your life experience.
4. Expand on another’s post
When another blogger writes on something that interests you, consider expanding on it with your own original ideas. Never just copy and paste their entire post into yours. You can do better. Provide a link to the original post, and write your own response.
Not only will this help with new ideas, it could also increase your traffic through trackbacks & pingbacks. That other blogger will notice as well and may just leave a nice comment. Go ahead, link to one of my posts and see what happens 🙂
5. Write a series
I love doing series posts. Not only does it force me to do a lot of research, but it gives me tons of post ideas. What’s a series that you can introduce in your niche? Series posts create buzz, increase pageviews, and provide you with plenty to write about, which is a good thing! Check out my blog series’ here.
6. Ask your readers
There’s nothing wrong with the good ole’, “What the heck should I write about?” If your readers enjoy your blog, they will have topics for you to tackle. They have questions and are looking to you for the answer. If you don’t know the answer, figure it out. You’ll build more loyal readers and strengthen your community in the process.
7. Try a compilation
Jeff Goins recently did this, celebrating his 200th blog post. In a single post he linked to 20 of his past posts on writing. Not only is this an easier post to write, it also brings back some of those great posts that may be buried in your archives.
Creative writing blocks are a part of blogging. But do yourself a favor and try these creativity catalysts to get your ideas flowing.
Question: what would you add to this list of writing helps? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
Thanks for the love, David. I think that we need to become curators of our own content, constantly revisiting and re-sharing stuff from our archives. I love these other ideas. I, too, feel stuck at times.
I like that phrase “curators of our own content”. Great post, David.
Only Jeff Goins would coin the phrase “curators of our own content”. Well, maybe he didn’t coin it. But he’s still brilliant 🙂
Do you have a particular system for sharing your archives or reminding yourself of certain posts? Like, what made you think to do the 200 blog post thing? Brilliant.
Good list — I hadn’t thought of a couple of these before. I would add: let someone guest post. Sometimes its good to allow someone else to write within your category set to give you a little inspiration. PLUS it gives you a day of rest to think through your ideas.
I need to put together a system for guest posts. Good addition, my friend. You just increased my to do list 🙂
I dont have a system either, so when you finish spending all that time working on it, let me know and I will steal it from you — maybe we can just talk Goins into writing a post about it and we can both steal from him.
Let’s go with option 2 🙂
Great points!
David,
I enjoy your blog. Your posts are always a “kick in the pants” to me. Thanks for the inspiration!
Hopefully it’s a nice, soft kick in the pants? 🙂
Reading always seems to help generate post ideas for me.
Me too. What does your reading diet look like?
Just finished Radical by David Platt. Starting Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and me by Ian Cron. Also have some summer fiction going with Clive Cussler’s Crescent Dawn. not to mention the countless blogs I follow…
Ironic. I just finished “Radical” and am hoping to start Ian Cron’s book very soon. Great minds think alike, wouldn’t you say? 🙂
Have you seen Platt’s follow up book – Radical Together? It’s a similar theme but more about the church. I’m thinking of picking it up.
Great stuff man. This happens to me and have a hard time finding ideas to get some words out.
The search term thing is huge. I have done that in the past and it seems to help.
In some ways though I often just let it sit. Sometimes I think if i am empty and have nothing to say maybe I need to let me content sit as well.
I’m not so good at that. I’ve committed to blogging 5-6 times a week, which makes me ship stuff even if I feel it’s not 100% ready. Sometimes I wonder if my posting schedule is too much for people? What do you think?
I wonder the same bro but someone super smart once said their traffic tripled since they’ve been blogging consistently [cough cough you]. I tried it and it is crazy how much more people are stopping by.
But yea, I sometimes feel like an annoyance especially to the people who get emails from me 5-6 times a week. But then there are always people who feel like God spoke to them.
Perhaps as Andy Stanley would say; its a tension to manage and not a problem to solve?
Yikes, you got me. You’re right. It’s true how much my traffic has grown and continues to grow because of it. I guess I’m just imagining something that isn’t true 🙂
Yep – tension to manage. I’m convinced. Thanks bro!
I like all these…i’m try them…
I’ve been on blogging idea over load…
I started teaching myself…that anything and everything…can be made into a blog post….”Anything”…
for example…
An Apple….ooookkkk….uh…ooooo The fall with adam and eve post…
cookies….hmmmm…lets see….Top 5 tuesdays…what’s your top 5 favoirte desserts of all time…
hitting deleting on computer….hmmm..it would be nice to just hit delete on mistakes in life…but we can’t…but God….so and so…
I had to wash dishes yesterday….man…how Christ washes our sins away…
SEE WHAT I MEAN?…..IT JUST EASIER THAT WAY….FOR ME…
Look at you, Arny. I feel like I was just blog coached. Brilliant.
I guess this expands on #3. LIVE your life. Get away from the blog and do something significant. If you’re empty, go do something you wouldn’t normally do. You’d be surprised how many ideas come when you break your normal routine.
So true, man. God forbid we just make stuff up for an online reaction. The best blogs come from those who live remarkably. Love it!
Great advice! I have used many of these. Another thing that I find helpful is watching videos in the area of the blog. (I write for two, and they are different.) The first three points are great! Keep up the good work!
Burl, what exactly do you mean “watching videos in the area of the blog?” Like watching other videos in your particular niche?
David,
You have definitely inspired me so much bro… I have been a worship leader for my church over 10 years, just became worship director 2 years ago… And often I spend time getting inspired, through different avenues- blogs have found a way into my routine. I will say yours is my favorite. Simple, efficient, effective. It’s your content that I gravitate toward.
My husband is a web designer so I ended up talking to him about “what if ” and lo and behold theworshiplounge.com was born. I appreciate you much brotha! Continue to shine, and thank you for your being obedient.