Sometimes we get stock for topics. To be fair, it’s not that we can’t think of anything to write about, it’s that we can’t think of anything interesting or exciting to write about. Often this just means we’re having a blah kind of day. When that happens to me I find that lists are my friend.
1. Best Of
I love reading these posts, especially if they’re titled: The 10 Best Free Apps I’ve Used This Year.
Best apps, best blogs, best books, best writers, best vacation spots (for writing research and inspiration, not to mention a bit of R&R), best writing programs, best classes, and so on.
2. From The Heart
I believe the key to great writing is being able to evoke emotion in one’s readers. We’ve all had setbacks and—the overwhelming majority of time—after we get knocked down we get back up again. We cope.
One thing we can be sure of is that our readers, being human, have had setbacks, have suffered loss. This is likely why most of us love reading about others triumphing over adversity. If you have a personal tale of loss, followed by struggle and victory (or even partial victory), that might be something you would want to share.
3. Practical Advice
Who have you learnt from? Who do you follow on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and so on. Are their tutorials you’ve benefited from?
I love Scrivener but it took me a long while to feel comfortable with it. One tutorial that helped enormously was Garrett Robinson’s series of articles, How To Format A Perfect Novel. I also liked Joel Friedlander’s article, How to Publish Your eBook from Word to Kindle in under Ten Minutes.
(BTW, if you’re thinking of getting Scrivener but aren’t sure if it’s for you, they offer a free trial for 30 days.)
4. Links
I love it when writers share links to interesting articles. So, in that spirit, let me share a links to a couple of posts I found useful when researching this article:
101 Fabulous Blog Topic Ideas, by Molly Greene
32 of the Most-Popular Blog-Post Ideas, over at The Blog Stylist
That’s it for today! Thanks for reading.
Photo credit: Owl Family Cute Clipart
Hey Karen, great tips here! I'm really into trying new tips and ideas, so I keep a spreadsheet of every idea I think of, and when I'm stuck for a blog post I pull up the sheet and see what takes my fancy. I often have scraps of paper with basic ideas scrawled on them whenever ideas pop into my mind which I'll later transfer to the spreadsheet.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing some of your ideas :)
Spreadsheet! Great idea Carl. It sounds as though you're much more organized than I am. :-)
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