Jan 19 2008
Searching for Inspiration
I have spent the better part of the day (ok, all day) online, reading blogs, searching for new blogs, stumbling, and basically farting around looking for something to blog about. I did find some sites that help bloggers find inspiration for posting, but they all seem geared towards metabloggers. What do all you personal bloggers do when you want to post, but are uninspired? I’m not talking about posting the minutiae of my day because I feel like I have to post. I really want to post about something, to keep my blog current, to draw readers in. I just have no idea what.
Where do you find inspiration?
You could try for ideas from that book — Nobody Cares What You Had For Lunch.
LiveJournal also always has a new “writer’s block” question of the day.
Thanks, Puppie, I’ll look into those. BTW, still waiting to see what happened with your neighborhood excitement!
For me the best posts are about the lives of the people who blog. There is inspiration in everyday things if you care to search for it. And I think you’re doing fine
If I want to write about myself but have nothing to say, I wait a few days. By then, something’s happened that I can write about. It’s simple, but it’s kept me going.
Loz, I think a lot of it, for me, has to do with the fact that Boyfriend reads this and because of that I’m not baring my soul as much as I want to. That’s making it really hard sometimes.
Jordon, waiting a few days is always an idea. I just need to watch that a few days doesn’t turn into a week or more!
I keep lots of notes of ideas, links etc so if I am short of an idea I can fall back on that.
You could maybe do a reading list of interesting things you have found online - always a good filler. Photos and videos always go down well - I really enjoy your Vegas ones. Join in a blog carnival that specifies a topic maybe.
Think about the things you enjoy, things that bug you, post about yourself. Find a topic that has had the most interest or the most comments and write about that.
A few ideas off the top of my head there
Sue, those are all great ideas. I really need to keep the blog and posting ideas at the forefront of my mind.
Now if I can remember even a fraction of the bookmarks I used to have I might be able to put a reading list together!
True, keep in mind that not every post needs to be an essay. I think some of my most entertaining posts are the super-short funny ones. Like the time it took me a couple of hours to realize that the whole world couldn’t possibly smell like fabric softener, and therefore it obviously must be me (duh).
Or posts where I take a picture of something ridiculous and make fun of it.
Nothing ended up happening with that apartment that I could see — I guess they must have apprehended the guy through the front door. I left a comment to update cuz I didn’t want to post again just to say nothing else happened.
Puppie, you do have a point. I did get quite a few comments regarding my sister’s idea of cold!
I look in my own blogroll, usually people will give me ideas because of their awesomeness. If that’s a word.
Alynda, awesomeness is a word (my spell checker isn’t flagging it for me, so it must be!) Usually I can get ideas from reading other blogs, but when I wrote this I was so not feeling it. I think Jordon has the best idea - when there’s nothing to write about, just wait a few days.
I have of late had absolutely no inspiring content. Right now, it is just about me vs a roof that I have to shovel, how I keep getting stuck up on the roof in freezing temperatures.
I know my content has gone down the shitter, but honestly, sometimes nothing of interest happens in my life. So I just write about how mundane I am.
Lisa, I liked your roof story, and The Adventures of Button Boy is always amusing. Sometimes daily life is a great story. I just don’t know how to spin the daily adventures of Boyfriend playing WOW and me surfing the internet into a new and interesting story on a daily or near-daily basis.
Hey Kirsten,
Guess what, I was just responding to you on my blah blog, and guess who should stop by. . .Button Boy. He has been playing with the lock Adam installed.
You know, sometimes when I lack content, I use my dear husband or my father as a springboard. Which is not very nice. My father was so mad that I said “he talks through his mustache”, that I had to remove the post, and even after that he didn’t speak to me for two weeks.
That’s funny. I wonder if you can rig up some electric shock thing to the thermostat? Either that or make it like one of those trick flowers and squirt him in the face.
Boyfriend isn’t always keen on me writing about him, but as long as I’m not mean about it he can usually laugh. Doesn’t stop him from trying to give me a hard time!
Excellent question - the trick to being inspired for me is to just write and see what drops out. But if I am really stuck and am wanting to Blog I trawl back through old photos - that usually prods the muse awake. But that means a post usually should have the photo to accompany it. Which in turn made for a new blog design - which in my case is an extra incentive to write since I can now see on one screen what has not been updated for a while!! Otherwise known as a rod for my own back.:-)
Nice blog by the way. And good to see you linked up on Aussie Bloggers - alway nice to have honoury Aussies!
Pickle, thanks for visiting! The night I posted that, I guess I just wanted to post something for the sake of posting.
When I get stuck, I turn to one of my product-related blogs and talk about something I want to buy. That usually gets the words flowing and they don’t stop when I turn back to my more personal blogs.
When that fails, I usually search stock photo sites like morguefile.com (free) or istockphoto.com and try to figure out what the pictures make me think.
Sometimes all I have to do is go outside and people watch. This is such a great town for that sort of thing! Problem is, between work and Boyfriend, I don’t get out much.