When All Else Fails Just Start Writing
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
I’m sitting here with my laptop in my lap, ready to write but with nothing to say. I sip some wine, grab the clippers and trim a few hard earned hangnails from a day filled with cleaning. Check Facebook, nothing new there since I last checked 45 seconds ago. Back to the blog and…blink, blink. Blank.
So, I guess I’ve got writer’s block. I’m not sure why. I had about a million ideas run through my head today that would be great, but I can’t seem to access any of them right now.
Writer’s block it is, lets talk about that. Off to Google to get some ideas. (wink, wink)
Hmm…found something interesting from Perdue’s Online Writing Lab. The page has a few “Symptom and Possible Cures” scenarios. None of them really sounded good to me until I reached the bottom of the page.
Here is the Symptom that, if I am honest, sounds most likely to be my issue tonight:
Symptom
You’re self-conscious about your writing, you may have trouble getting started. So, if you’re preoccupied with the idea that you have to write about a subject and feel you probably won’t express yourself well…
Let’s talk about that. I don’t normally feel like I won’t express myself well. But, before I started this post I checked Google Analytics for this blog and decided that a solo ad I placed does not seem to be driving traffic like I’d hoped. First thought? “It must have been my post. I must not have done a good job expressing myself, or writing creatively enough.”
Second thought? “What a bummer.” I really love this blog platform and truly believe every blogger should be using it. I guess I didn’t do a good job of making that clear. (If you are wondering, this video will make it clear.)
Here are the possible cures as suggested by Perdue’s OWL:
Possible Cures
- Talk over the subject with a friend or tutor.
- assure yourself that the first draft doesn’t have to be a work of genius, it is something to work with.
- Force yourself to write down something, however poorly worded, that approximates your thought (you can revise this later) and go on with the next idea.
- Break the task up into steps. Meet the general purpose first, and then flesh out the more specific aspects later.
- Try one of the strategies on the next page of this resource.
It looks like I unwittingly (wait, googling that word to make sure I’m using it right), ok, yes, I unwittingly chose #3 under Possible Cures. I just started writing. I started talking to you as though you were right here with me. It seems to be working. I promise I won’t go back and edit this. I will leave it as is. Maybe this can serve as a good example to you and other bloggers that the best thing to do is to just start writing. It seems to have worked out for me. I ended up covering a good subject, I gave you some possible solutions to a problem. Hopefully you were slightly entertained by my thought processes.
I think I am just used to sitting down in the evening with my laptop and wine and working on my blog. Not writing. But actually working on the SEO, building the pages, etc. Until I found Empower Network I didn’t have much time to actually write posts. There was so much to do to make sure my blog would get a decent rank, look nice, have enough ads to monetize well (which it never did). Now, I can sit down and empty my head into my blog. I don’t have to spin my wheels with all of that other stuff I never understood and had to spend hours teaching myself. Maybe tonight was about withdrawal and not writer’s block. Without all of the other stuff I didn’t know what to do.
Anyhoo, I’ll go with writer’s block and include a few more helpful links to help you get unblocked.
–This is what Wikipedia has to say on the subject.
–This website had some pretty good suggestions.
Last but not least, a funny.
As far as the disappointment in my solo ad, truthfully I know I am drawing conclusions way to soon. I have to get past my need of instant gratification and remember that good things take time. Hey, another blog post idea!
Anyhoo, watch this video to learn how you, too, can stop spinning your wheels with your blog. You will be happy you did.
Helping you find freedom,
