This is by far the worst part of blogging. Being so...lost that you can't figure out what to blog about. I don't know if it's just lack of inspiration or something else, but I'm seemingly stuck in this state where I can't figure out what to post. Hence the sudden drop in postings over the last 6 months or so.
The annoying part is it's not really that I have no idea what I want to blog about. I have tons of ideas floating around in my head, but I either forget about good post ideas or I can't put them into words. Often times when I'm not at the computer I find myself even writing a post in my head, but then when I want to write it...like I said, I forget it.
I wonder if part of the problem is stress from work, which has been very aggravating as of late. I don't know...hopefully this writer's block passes soon...or dimensional portal opens up so I can go and explore some strange world...ok...I'll just hope the writer's block passes...don't want to stuck in the strange world and never blog again...and now that I think of it...our world is pretty strange itself...
5 comments:
Jason, I know what you mean, believe me I've been there many times! I think you hit on part of it: stress at work. I know that one as well. . .but it will come back, it always does. Soon you'll be posting away as usual.
I'm sure you've tried all kinds of things to help; maybe keeping a little memo pad so you don't forget stuff, just playing around with books, materials or on-line as an exercise, not without any goal in mind of writing, etc.
But these things seem to go in cycles, and it will pass.
I know what you mean by having an idea in your head but not knowing how to put it into words. It may be hard to describe the idea, or it may be that trying to get your idea across to others is difficult because the reader would need to know the context you are coming from better. In other words, I guess sometimes it can be hard to summarize an idea. The idea in your head might be the result of combining prior knowledge and connecting dots, but unless the reader is familiar with that same knowledge already, then your new idea might not make sense to them. And including every intricate detail as to how you came up with your idea may result in a blog posting that is too wordy. Not every idea is easy to summarize. So yeah, sometimes putting an idea into words can be difficult.
I know what you mean about writing a post in your head too. I do that sometimes too. When I get one in my head, I typically try to start typing it up the first chance I get. If you get an idea and don't have much time to type it, you might just want to start typing what you can and then save it and come back to it later.
I keep a folder in word documents labeled Blog. I just write one or two words to remind me what I wanted to do a post on some day. So, I'll have documents inside the file with titles like "human dogs" or "silver saucers" "ghosts hair pulling." Some time, when I'm surfing on the internet, I just pull up one of those documents, do a google search, paste and copy the address and quote and put it into the document. When there's 3 or 4 sources, I'm ready to write it. I've found that opening a dialogue is something most people appreciate. So, just bring up a subject and ask people what they think of it. Have them participate. Maybe just do a post on people who've witnessed UFOs and let them tell their stories. The comments end up being the story. I agree that stress makes it hard. Your mind is anywhere but in the creative world. But, I've found that diving into my favorite subjects perks me up. If all else fails, go to a place like Weird USA and find some crazy town's little secret weird place and write about it. Remember, if you thought of it that day--there'll be hundreds of folks out there who have wondered about the same thing.
For me, I scour my Google Alerts nightly -- a sometimes daunting task. Sometimes an article will pop up that I will want to write my thoughts on, or I'll see an article that triggers and idea to write about.
When I come across stuff on days I'm not feeling up to actually writing, I'll store them in a special folder on my bookmarks bar.
Also, keeping a little notebook with you at all times is handy for a number of reasons, including blog ideas. Or, you can send a phone text to your email when you have a thought but are out shopping or something. I can't tell you how many times that has come in handy!
Thanks for the support everyone. I'm going to apply the advice everyone has given (some of which I've already been doing)and try to get past it faster. Thanks again.
Post a Comment