Ebbs and Flows
Photo via LettersofNote.com
All writer’s experience ebbs and flows in their writing. In fact, the photo above is a telegram from the writer Dorothy Parker to her editor, apologizing for being unable to finish her work. As we move into the second half of 2012, you may be feeling a bit like Ms. Parker herself or or looking to infuse your blogging goals with a new zest for life. If so, take a look at these tried and true tips for working through a writing lull.
Write, without expectation: Whether you’re completely at a loss for words, or just feeling blasé about blogging lately, keep writing. Writer’s block most often comes from the pressure we put on ourselves to write something profound every single time we click on that “Add New Post” button. If you allow yourself to write freely and without expectation, you will stumble upon a new thought or phrase that is just the trigger you were looking for.
Read other writers: Reading other blogs, articles, or books offers a break from feeling pressure about not knowing what to write or how to finish a piece, and simultaneously stirs up new ideas and thoughts. You can always use the WordPress.com Topics pages or the Find Friends tool to look for new blogs. If in-person interaction helps get your creative juices flowing, search Meetup.com for a local book, blogging, or other creative club. (Or start one yourself!)
Mini-challenges: When you’re in a rut, it means you’ve grown beyond your original goals. Think of where you can take you’re writing next, and how you can get there. Using mini-challenges can help break up your goals into smaller, more attainable practices and are a fun way to spur new writing ideas.
Want more resources? Take a look at these blog posts from other writers on writing when the words aren’t there:
- Writing Hacks, Part 1, Scott Berkun
- Talker’s Block, Seth Godin’s blog
- Lost for Words, The Independent
- Don’t Feed the Writer’s Block, Second Lunch
Have you been meeting your blogging goals? If so, what are you tips for staying focused and productive? Will you be making any changes to your goals for the next half of the year?
Comments are closed.
My best tip, and one I fall back on repeatedly, is to begin blogging with 100 posts ready for “those days”. I’ve not begun to use them up, yet, although have dipped into that cache a few times. The fun part is they were written very carefully, since I never dreamed the level of casualness acceptable in the blog world, until I entered it.
So I have these scholarly gems I must freshen a bit and then I can go play. But in the process, I think of a hundred things I should have included, so there are my next few posts!
Works for me.
Thanks for this, though. I do planto reap whatever golden eggs are hiding in the links above. Hope you have a great day, Ericka!
I do love WordPress! <3
Ar-r-rgh! ERICA!
Thanks for the great resources and tips to overcome the lull in writing.
Thanks for the good encouragement!!!
think the main problen I have my head is so full of ideas i dont know where to start and worry to much about things like grammer when it is my thoughts i should bre concentrating on !! better a head that is full then empty I suppose
I think the best way to deal with too many ideas (a good problem to have!) is to just start writing everything – you’ll either find a flow or be able to edit later
Great post. Love DP’s telegram too.
I find the best way to keep writers block at bay is to just keep writing.
Thanks for the encouragement and great tips. When I think I have nothing to say, I realize that I’ve left much unsaid. I turn to lists of story ideas and random notes. Hopefully they will contain the spark to get me thinking creatively again.
I carry a notebook with me and use it to jot down ideas as they spark my interest. I have to write them down because I know I won’t remember them when I get home!
Great tip!
Even her apology for writers’ block is brilliant, funny, and bitterly delightful.
Agreed
Yes to all the above, but I keep wondering if writing on the blog counts as “real” writing. I’ve written two novels and each took about ten years to complete. I’m not saying my books are literary classics, but to me writing involves more work than just spinning out random thoughts every day, and a finished work should be more than a personal diary.
Well Bumba, I have to say that all of us(and I mean me) are not noted literary writers,so we need to take the steps that are neccessary for us to write what is of interest to us and our readers. You know start at the bottom and work our way up? Thanks for your tip,though.
Reblogged this on KREUZBERG´D and commented:
BECAUSE DOROTHY WAS HERE
We like to put up even just a sentence with a picture we like, something that makes us smile. The core of blogging for us is fun, not work, so keeping things flowing is so important. Telegrams make my mind swell up with possibilities – an epistolatory blog? Awesome…
I’ve had success with going back and resurrecting old drafts. Looking an old draft a few weeks or months later gives me a new perspective. I’ve made a few silk purses from those sow’s ears.
Reblogged this on with a hint of nonsense.
In PAGE AFTER PAGE by Heather Sellers, she speaks to solution to these dry times as being simply, write every single day. For every day off, it “takes three more” to get back into the groove with the muse, so that’s incentive enough for writing daily.
As a bonus, the back cover of the same book says, “YOU ARE A WRITER” and so I have this side facing me as I sit at my keyboard waiting for the tardy muse….
Wonderful advice
Have just discovered your daily post for the first time today. Strangely, I wrote a post called Just Keep Writing yesterday. Great tips. Thank you.
sorry to say, but there is always enough to write about:
actually: theatershooting in Colorado …
Reblogged this on ℱractal♥ℒịf℮lịn℮.
I can relate to the ebb and flow of blogging… I’ve ramped things down this summer due to illness and just my need to put my energy elsewhere. I have lots of topic ideas but I don’t want to just add anything to my blog. I’m at peace with the days I chose to not add a post to my blog. It was intentional and that’s okay too. Thanks for this post Erica, as always, you inspire!
Eliz
Love your insight.
Expose’ of the Secret Vatican Vault by Michael Ashbury
Christianity and the Holy Bible are thought to have resulted from divine intervention directly from God. Little reference is given by religious leaders or scholars to the numerous historical saviors that have bee revered but summarily dismissed as mythology. Or, the fact that the Christian story is so similarly compared to other past saviors it might have been plagiarized. Or, rather accepting the new faith it had to be imposed by edict and the threat of the sword. Or, how millions died and continue to die believing in a different faith. Deep in the Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, the official library of the Holy See, is a vault that houses church secrets available only to the select few. It has been said that these secrets are so volatile they cannot be released to the general public. Secrets that may challenge Catholicism, even Christianity.