Blogging
Gold Dust

Sooner or later everyone finds themselves coasting to a stand still.  All your brilliant ideas have been worked to death. It doesn't matter if you’ve been blogging 10 minutes, 10 weeks, or 10 years, eventually you’ll find yourself with absolutely nothing left to say.  Of all the crushing, miserable emotions to wallow in, this is the absolute worst pig sty in the world, for a writer.  It's like you've lived all winter in a cabin high up the mountain.  Bitterness brings out a snarl instead of a smile. You never want to read the label on another coffee can for as long as you live.  You have told yourself all you want to hear.  You can't dredge up one more topic.  It's all gone; you are washed up!

Or that's the way you feel anyway!

So what in the world do you do when you’re stumped?  Actually, there is still a whole world out there for you to talk about.  Your brain has been stretched taut for so long that you need to give it a rest.  Seek a change of venue.  Turn your horse out into a greener pasture.

Waterfalls never fail to inspire me, riding out a winter storm on the open ocean is good for 10 or 15 new topics.  If all else fails, I go climb a mountain; that surge of joy juice is guaranteed to set my proportions right to the notch of vivid adventure.  Then I can look at the same old things from a different angle and there find new strength.  "Take THAT, you 98 pound weakling."

Friends laugh at me for carrying 2 pens and a ream of index cards in my shirt pocket.  That's okay, when a new thought flashes through my brain I'm ready to capture that dude even if that first pen runs out of ink.  "Don't lose that thought!"  No, and don't lose that dream either as your thoughts rise to dizzying new heights. 

"If a racing pigeon was writing this post, what angle would she see differently from than I do?"

It may be necessary to perch securely on her right wing and prepare for lift-off..  "Clear the runway there; Peggy Sue,  Pigeon Blue is my co-pilot today and she intends to blister your heels down to size if you don't hot foot it out of her way!" 

For a tired, old writer, a string of words is more precious than a strand of cultured pearls dipped in 24 Karat Gold!  That's why I pay attention to billboards along the highway.

Billboards are full of pitch.  Or, take a stroll through the checkout stand and study those top-heavy tabloid headlines that can jolt a writer's mind with visions of crisp, tried and fried subjects proven to grab magnetic eyeballs.

Things aren't always that easy to fix.  When I have a piece that just isn't working no matter what I do then I'll turn what I do have upside down and see how many jokes I can fit in.  Each little joke is good for a hundred words worth keeping because I'm just having fun.  After I have produced the number of words allotted for that piece then I will remove the jokes and all the little cutesy remarks that kept my thoughts fresh and clean, and usually I've got a pretty good masterpiece.

Stick around and you'll find 5 more golden methods to drop kick your brain into high gear. 

1- Pick a topic you’ve gone over before and give it some spin.

There are dozens of ways to write about the same thing.  Try a new angle, like playing devil’s advocate. For example: if you are a search engine journalist, and last week your position was that most mainstream sites need Google traffic to survive, try proving your point from the “con” perspective, instead of the “pro” position.  Or take a look at what has suddenly changed because of a new birthday.  With 17 grandchildren having at least one birthday this year, how do I disguise the gifts I give them so nobody will feel slighted and I'll still have enough left over to pay off my share of the National Debt?

"Oh, you're 65 now?"  All of a sudden you need a different brand of inoculations   That milestone birthday also means you need more exercise, an excuse to get out of the house where only yesterday your friendly family physician assumed s/he had to tie you down into the bed at home before you'd get well.  How about planning a garden for old cucumbers?  By putting your point another way, you might even give one of your readers something that a client of mine referred to as an “Ah-ha!” moment. That's when they realize the true value of your message for them and their business.

2nd method - Discuss what someone else is talking about.  You need not and in fact, must not be belligerent about the matter as you pursue this method.  If you want to have a popular blog, find other bloggers in similar areas, and talk about what they said in their posts. Friendly debate can often spark the soap-opera like drama that will have both your audiences visiting both blogs to see what “the other fella” had to say.

As an added bonus, if both of you are using Trackback in your blogs, you’ve got yourself a mini-link party that other people who are speaking on similar topics will want to join..

3- Have yourself a good old rip-roaring rant

The intimate nature and voice of blogs lends itself well to the highly opinionated, angry rambling rumble. But as a professional, don’t let yourself get too unfocused, and remember to back up your opinion with with what you at least hope are solid facts.

4- Feature someone, something or somewhere

I like to call mine my “Best - - of the Day” award.  As I zip around the Net conducting my business of fun and games research, if my attention is called to a resource or tool that my audience might find useful, I hit my blog bookmarklet and save that bad boy for later.

Then when I got too busy for a full blown topic, I would crown the resource, feed, tool, download or freebie with the featured “Deal of the Day”, changing the preceding word deal to something else more appropriate as needed.  After a while, my audience started to look for it as being a main feature, as opposed to being upset at the interruption in my mad, mad rambles.

5- Let someone else talk for a change

This isn't as wild as it might sounds.  It's okay to invite a guest blogger, or to just post an article that offers bloggers free reprint rights, the same way you would in a newsletter. Of course you want to leave the resource box intact, or let the guest promote their site, which brings me to the precise point where I hear the most common complaint against this tactic:

“But I don’t want to send people away from my site.”

Guess what, Bebo? You’ll never believe what I found out when I researched this subject. Are you Ready to hear this?

In a recent startling discovery, I’ve found that just slightly over 100% of my visitors eventually turn off their computers or take other drastic measures that causes them to leave my site. Apparently this statistic is beyond my though, though if I danced real hard while standing on my head I might could stall them for hours with good content.

Of course you don’t want to send them on their way prematurely, but if you’re a good blogger, and have done what you can to make sure they sign up to your blog's email updates or site feed, they will be back. Just be sure that you’re giving them a good enough reason to sign up and return.

In the meantime, since they’re going to leave anyway, you might as well get the credit for helping them find a great site to leave to, a place that gives you some direct or in-direct benefit. 

So there you have enough mental stimulation for five more days of inspiration and writing production.  More is available.  Keep reading.