Break Down Writer's Block - Free Your Mind!
Over the past few months, I've been pretty consistent with having a blog post every week for you guys to read. Last year, when I did my "blog everyday" experiment, I quickly found myself having a hard time coming up with ideas to write about. So now, how do I come up with a new blog post each and every week? This week, I'll share how I've been recently coming up with topics to discuss each week. The ironic part is, I'm writing this post because I couldn't think of anything else to write about this week. Originally, I thought about writing about the PS4 announcement yesterday, but I haven't had enough time to have much of an opinion on it yet. This post is something I've been wanting to write about for awhile, but I've been putting it off for better topics I've had.
If you look at the posts I put up back in July 2012 and compare them to more recent posts, you'll see a difference in the writing. Back in July and again in the November time frame when I decided to try and have one blog post up every week, my mind was stuck in a certain pattern of blog writing. I was writing a lot of "review" posts, reviewing and talking about various movies/comics/games that I had been consuming and letting you guys know what I thought about them. However, when a week comes along where I haven't been playing/reading anything new, that made it pretty hard to try and come up with topics to review. In July, I made up for this by hoping onto Comixology and picking up a comic to quickly read and review, but I don't always have time for that.
I was sitting in front of my computer, having this dilemma with myself over what to write about, when it hit me. As I said, I was stuck in a review blog post mind frame - I never thought about expanding my horizons to other types of blog posts and topics. I forced myself into that mind frame by thinking that those reviews were the reason that people were coming to my website in the first place. Finally, I realized that's not true at all. There are much better websites out there reviewing comics and games and those people do a far better job of it than I could do - mainly because they can do it full time.
People do not come to my website to hear about the latest and greatest reviews; they go to those other websites. People come to this site because they want to hear what *I* have to say. I do not have the time and resources to be a place for people to come to for up-to-date breaking news. What I can do, is provide you guys with something entertaining to read and to add my own unique perspective to what's already out there. I'll still do reviews of various things, but I've starting doing more of that on the OCDtv videos, where you guys can watch me express myself in my words and my body language. Even then, those videos have a large portion of entertainment value to them (at least I hope they do). For these blog posts, each week I try and come up with something interesting that you'll want to click on, you'll want to read, and (hopefully) want to pass on to your friends.
So my advice to anyone else out there who is writing: if you are stuck, open your mind to new possibilities. You might be stuck because you've narrowed your mindset down so far that you've eliminated plenty of great ideas. Also, in the same way that I'll finish up this post, take a cue from your audience as to what they are looking for - you are writing for their eyes anyways.
Am I off base here? Let me know if you guys have ever gotten stuck writing and if so, how have you broken free? Also, what topics have you enjoyed on my site recently, and what would you like to see/read more of?