Help for authors timid about technology
Finding something to blog about can be hard. Writer’s block can be a serious condition that cripples authors.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Especially when you are working on other writing projects and every ounce of your creative juices have already been squeezed out of your body.
Your blog is the first draft of your book. It’s what agents and publishers look at before they sign you on as an author.
If you write fiction, try blogging about one of these topics to kill your writer’s block:
- The inspiration behind your work in progress
- A story you uncovered while searching your novel
- 10 Authors who inspire you
- Your first rejection letter
- 10 Movies that inspire you
- The worst moment in your life
- Books you wish that you had written
- The best way to track your site statistics
- How your faith interacts with your writing
- Interviews with one of your main characters
- The moment you decided to be a novelist
- How to survive the holidays as a writer
- The moment your writing started to pay off
- How you deal with stress
- Writing conferences you recommend
- How to carve out writing time while maintaining a social life
- How to write a novel while working a full time job
- Common misconceptions about novelists
- When the worst time to write is
- How you use Pinterest
- How to make your characters come alive
- How to avoid lame author portraits
If you write non-fiction, try one of these posts to cure writer’s block:
- Research tips
- How to find someone to interview
- How to set realistic writing goals
- How to request an interview
- How to fact-check after an interview
- How to avoid libel
- Elements of an effective newsletter
- 5 non-fiction writers that inspire you
- 10 true stories you want to write about
- Organizations that support the causes in your book
- How to build your author brand
- How to narrow your focus
- Myths about nonfiction writers
- Finding historical sources
- Why people should read more nonfiction
If you are a public speaker, you can always blog about one of these topics:
- The most unusual person you’ve met through your speaking engagements
- How to track your message online
- The strangest venue you’ve spoken at
- 10 tips for mentally preparing for a speech
- How to know when a speech is ready for delivery
- How to write for the web
- Memory of your first speaking engagement
- How to find speaking engagements
- Essentials for your online press kit
- How to send more traffic to your website during a radio interview
- Leveraging social media to connect with your audience
- Finding your audience
- How to increase your speaking gigs
- 5 productivity tips you use
- Speakers who inspire you
- What makes some speeches great and others terrible
What do you write about when you are faced with writer’s block?
If you know someone who is fighting writer’s block, feel free to share this article with them.
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I disagree with several of your “fiction writers” post ideas – simply because some of the writing-centered ones would appeal more to other writers rather than potential readers.
If your audience for your fiction is simply other writers, then it makes sense to blog about writing. But not all of your readers (I imagine) are wanna-be writers.
That said, blogging about yourself is great and it lets your readers get to know you as an author and person. Sharing parts of the writing process is also great and non-writers do tend to find that fascinating.
But there must be a fine balance. If you write historical fiction, you want to write stories that will appeal to your readers – people interested in that era of history. Keeping connected to special interest groups and blogging about relevant, newsworthy topics in that field can provide blog post fodder.
I love Author Media and love all these ideas, but I wanted to throw in a reminder that as authors, we have to stretch ourselves and not just blog to the other writers we’re surrounded by. Go after your target audience!
On the other hand, a lot of readers (even those who don’t plan to write themselves) enjoy reading posts written by authors they like about the writing process. It gives them a little glimpse of life behind the camera, so to speak. I probably wouldn’t make that the sole focus of a writer’s blog, but from time to time I think most readers would find them fun.
Fantastic points, Nicole.
It’s easy to get myopic as a writer – something my post is definitely guilty of in spots.
I should have made a list like this –
If you write historical fiction, continue to invite readers into that world.
If you write issue-driven fiction, explore why you are driven about that issue. What are the stories that make you want to write?
If you are writing a biography, what made you choose that person? What is so fascinating about them? Why should people care about them?
Again, great reminder. Thanks for speaking up!
Really appreciate this post, Caitlin. I’ve saved it to my Evernote “ideas” notebook and will refer to it when I need something to get me started. One thing that’s really helped me break loose from a block is the (almost) daily discipline of writing at 750words.com. There’s lots of neat stuff on the site (like analytics about your posts), and there’s a bit of a community there if you want to participate, but the main feature is a basically blank page for you to write whatever you want to on. The idea is to write at least 750 words each day. The page tracks your word count as you go and flashes a little note at you when you reach the 750-word target. The site tracks (privately) how many days you’ve written there each month, and you can set it to email a daily reminder to you to log in and write. I generally just free-write on whatever pops to mind, but I’ve used it to free-write for specific purposes, such as a scene I’m thinking of for my novel-in-progress, or blog post ideas, or whatever. You can download your stuff from there to your computer, and I’ve taken some of the freewriting stuff I’ve come up with and pasted it into Word to develop further for a blog, or into Scrivener for the novel.
Anyway, 750words.com has really helped me develop the habit of carving a little bit of time out of each day to put words “on paper” (so to speak). I plan to use some of the topics you suggested in this post as focuses (foci?) for my 750 words in days to come. So . . . thanks!
Laura
That sounds like a great way to break through writer’s block. I’ll have to try 750words.com for myself! Thanks for stopping by and letting us know about it.
Great advice, Caitlin!
I’ve had issues with Writer’s block over the past few weeks, so I’m definitely going to give some of these tips a try.
Thanks, Clint! Glad they could help!