Blogger’s Block! Ways To Deal With It And Overcome It!

I am sure you must have heard of writer’s block, but blogger’s block? Yeah that happens to us bloggers too when we cannot come up with topics to blog about. I have personally been experiencing it for the past few days and hence no new posts on my blog. I will share what I have been doing personally to deal with it and I hope you will find it helpful and pick up some tips along the way to deal with it should you ever find yourself in the same situation.

1. Pray – I pray a lot in tongues and I always find ideas just rolling off. In fact most of the time I have so many topics and ideas to blog about that I just don’t have the time to blog about them all and eventually have to pick a few topics that I write blogs on and post. I do maintain a list of all the topics that do crop up in my mind and I do refer to this list when I want to write a blog, but this time around even the list was not a help and I could not think of anything to write about. Being a born again believer I turn to Lord Jesus for everything and in this situation too I turned to the Lord and in under an hour I am writing this blog. The next time you find yourself with blogger’s block, my suggestion is turn to prayer. You will find more ideas than you can cope with or handle begin to germinate in your mind.
2. Read Other Blogs – I spend a lot of time reading other blogs and commenting on them. This is not to come up with ideas to blog about though that does happen a lot, but the main idea behind it is because I love to read and learn on a regular basis and blogs are one of the best tools to achieve this. Anyone who puts in time and effort to read and learn will only develop and enhance their skills and the same goes for bloggers’ too. You will find your blogging skills get better and you come up with more and better ideas to blog about. Spend at least 30 minutes to 1 hour visiting other blogs and reading up on them. One downside to this is that you might end up writing on topics that are already in the blogosphere, but even otherwise there are broadly limited topics that anyone can blog on. The idea here is to present things differently. If you can write differently, but interestingly on the same topics as other bloggers’, you will still find visitors who do read your blog for the different and interesting way it is presented in.
3. Write From Inside – The main idea about blogging is to write what touches you. If it does not touch you in the first place, then it’s not going to touch anyone else either. The things that touch us are on the inside of us in our thoughts, emotions and feelings and not in the external world or things outside of us. Blog from within and do not look for ideas outside. In other words develop your thoughts, your emotions and your feelings and write about them instead of looking at the outside world to come up with a post. Of course you can come up with ideas from the outside, but even in such situations personalize the blog by writing about your thoughts, emotions and feelings about such ideas. You will find a personalized blog goes a long way in connecting with your readers.
4. Take A Break – But not a too long one. It is essential to take a break from everything every once in a while. We all look for the weekend excitedly from our daily jobs. We might catch up on a movie, go out with our family, friends and loved ones or just relax at home, but we all need this break from our daily jobs. The same applies for bloggers’ too. It is sometimes a good thing to develop blogger’s block and the break from blogging will do you a world of good so don’t worry too much if you are going through blogger’s block. The break will refresh and rejuvenate you and do you a world of good and you will find that you come back with renewed vigor and energy and lots of fresh ideas. However, to state the obvious do not take too long a break.
5. Maintain A List – As I have stated before, I maintain a list of all the ideas and topics that I come up with as topics to blog about. I generally have quite a few topics listed and always refer to this list when I sit down to write a blog. It is essential that you maintain a list of all the ideas and topics that you come up to blog about and make sure you list them and write them down before you forget them. Referring to this list will give you ideas to blog about and keep you going especially when you are not able to come up with new and fresh ideas and topics to blog about. I always carry a pen and some paper in my pocket and whenever an idea or topic comes to me to blog about, I immediately make a note of it on the paper I carry and once I am home I immediately enter it into the list I maintain on my system. Make sure you carry at the very least a pen and some paper to jot down ideas and topics that you come up with during the course of your day. Carrying a PDA or an electronic diary might be a better option, but the worst case scenario should be a pen and some paper.
6. Expand Your Comments Or Thoughts Into A Post – If you are in the habit of reading other blogs, which let me state once again is a great habit and one you must get into the habit of if you are not doing it already, or even reading news on the internet like Google News, or BBC or any other site for that matter, then one good idea is to take an article or news post that you find interesting from there and post some excerpts from it on your blog with your own thoughts, comments and opinion on it. Make sure you do link back to the main article and also give credit to the source.
7. Blog In Pictures – Post some great pictures and put in a few words about them, coming again from your thoughts or opinions on the pictures. Check my post World’s First Moving Tower In Dubai! Must Check It Out To Believe Your Eyes!.
8. Spend Time Optimizing Your Blog – If you are not able to come up with ideas to write and post about, then take a break and spend time going over your blog to optimize it. You can take a relook at the ads placement, try out a new theme, work on decreasing the page loading time (an absolute essential for any blog) and take a look at other blogs to come up with ideas to optimize your own blog. I personally moved to a new theme with a single sidebar and now have a blog that loads superfast compared to my old theme and also got rid of a lot of clutter from the two sidebars that I had previously.
9. Have Some Fun/Entertainment And Write About It – Writing reviews might not be your cup of tea, but you can go out for a movie and post your thoughts about it, go out to check a new restaurant or a new mall and post your thoughts about it, or just listen to some of your favorite music and post your thoughts about it. Whatever it is, have fun doing what you enjoy doing i.e. watch a movie, do some shopping or window shopping, go for a long drive, and take some pictures while you are at it and then post those pictures and share about your fun moments.
10. Share Blogging Responsibilities – Everyone needs help from time to time. Share your blogging responsibilities with someone else, might be a blogging partner, your life partner, a friend, a family member or a guest poster! There are days when I have only posted recipes that my wife has written down and let me tell you they are some of the most popular posts on this blog.
11. Think You Can And You Will – The human mind is a very powerful tool in accomplishing anything. If you think you can then you can and will. Remove all negative thoughts from your mind and start thinking positive thoughts. Once your mind is filled with positive thoughts you will find there is no dearth of ideas to blog about. One book I recommend to everyone and especially all the people I train is The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. This book is an absolute must read if you have not yet read it. Trust me!
12. Finally NEVER GIVE UP – I used to play a lot of different sports and sometimes I would come across opponents I would not be able to defeat no matter how well I played. In such situations I would harden my mind and not accept defeat and fold up myself or give up. Instead I would make my opponent defeat me to earn a win and many a time I would find that my opponent would not be able to go all out to defeat me and I would end up the victor simply by hanging in there and not accepting defeat and folding up myself. Accepting defeat and giving up yourself and getting beaten by a better opponent are two entirely different things! Many a time you will find that if you don’t accept defeat and don’t give up yourself that your opponent will be the one who gives up and accepts defeat. Make up your mind and don’t give up no matter what and you will find that victory will come to you.

Please add your thoughts and comments and any points to this list that you have found helpful in overcoming blogger’s block. They will be much appreciated!