There comes a time when we bloggers hit a wall. This wall is a little thing called writers block, and the best way to beat it is to smash right through it. How though? How can writing beat it when it is keeping me from writing and blogging in the first place?
Have no fear. The trick is to get yourself going, which in and of itself can feel like an insurmountably difficult task, but it is not impossible. Difficult, but not impossible.
Here are three little tricks that I use to smash my head through writers block when I have to deal with it.
1. Tell me about your grade school lunches.
This might seem like a really dumb thing to write about, but it is easy. Remember how a lot of kids had those plastic lunch bags with cartoon characters while you might have had one of those big plastic boxes or maybe even a brown paper bag? Remember how everyone made fun of you for having tuna and not peanut butter and fluff? Remember what that felt like? Write about it!
Maybe blogging about your personal memories might not work on your niche sit that features blogger news, but this writing exercise can act as the grease on the creative cogs in your head. It can put your blogging muscles into motion, and once you have momentum, you can smash through that writers block.
2. What are your thoughts on some weird news items?
Blogging news items from the twittersphere or wherever else can help you spark a discussion on your site, which in turn also boosts the stats of your sites. But maybe without realizing it you got bored with blogging about local news or political news.
Try something fresh! There are tons of weird news stories out there, and blogging your thoughts about some of these might bring in some new visitors or spark new discussions. You might even get to try some new style of writing and blogging.
3. What was the single most emotional moment of your life?
This was the first writing exercise from a creative writing professor of mine. Of course, blogging about this could seem mortifying to most. Who would want to write a post about the time when they were most fragile and weak and let strangers know about it?
However, there is probably a rich cache of emotion that you can mine. Blogging about it might seem like an asinine idea, but writing this moment down can get the momentum built to help you through that writers block and get back to blogging about cooking or whatnot.
I hope that these three blogging ideas help you get through any writers block you might have. Even great blogs have to work through writers block, too. If you have any other ideas, share them in the comments! If you try any of these tips, post comments about how well they worked for you!