Day 4 of the 30-day Blogging Challenge
By Staingirl Elle
While watching So You Think You Can Dance last night, I got a call from my Staingirl, Kaye. She wanted to know whether I had a post for today. Of course not. I was watching one of my favorite shows. Besides with her new found obsession of David Cassidy (Serioiusly?), I figured she had plenty to blog about. Right? Oh so wrong! Oh crap, what to write about now?
It’s only Day 4 of our 30-day blogging challenge. We couldn’t just run out of ideas for the blog so early into our challenge, especially after having abandoned staingirlz.com for about 1 1/2 months. What to do? Well, that’s one area I think we have covered.
Our blog is a general blog. It is not a niche so we do not have to come up with 300 articles on a microchip. We are targeting “women of a certain age”, and our interests are diverse. As a matter of fact, whenever Kaye and I are speaking about just about anything, we immediately think we have a blog post. Too bad our kids may read our musings. Oh well!
So what do we do? Here’s what seems to work for us, and a couple of additional suggestions:
1. Keep a list of topics to write about. Ideas for a blog post can crop up during a conversation or while reading for pleasure or business. They can also leave that sieve I like to call a brain. So I now keep a log of ideas that I can refer to when I don’t have something that I am burning to blog about.
2. Keep any interesting articles you run across. This goes hand in hand with keeping a list of topics to write about. During my spare time, I love reading magazine articles and surfing the web. The other day I read an item in the paper on different articles of undergarments which improve our appearance. Right away, I thought about the Staingirlz and those women with a shelf. I clipped that article, and will be reviewing the items listed from time to time.
3. Actively research and seek out topics of interest to your blog. I haven’t actually done this because our blog is relatively young and fairly general, and we currently have plenty to write about. But if I had a more specialized blog, limited in scope, which did not have a topic readily to mind on a regular basis, I would seek out trade periodicals and specialized internet sites to assist me in developing new topics for my blog.
4. Subscribe to a newsfeed, whether it’s general or specialized to your topic. A blog on politics isn’t going to get too far if it rehashes old news, but a blog that breaks the news will generate a name and a huge following. A tech blog that reviews or reports on cutting edge technology will pique a lot of interest.
Let us know what you do to fight blogger’s block.
Staingirl Kaye has plenty to blog about; she just doesn’t want to steal your thunder. Besides, aren’t you supposed to be alternating anyway?
One of the reasons I started my blog was to generate discussion about David Cassidy. Sometimes, I’ll just post an opinion about his work and get others to weigh in on the topic. Not every entry has to be the “definitive word” on a subject. I find this mindset makes writing a blog entry less ominous. It’s got to be fun, otherwise, what’s the point?
DD
Hi DD, Thanks again for your support and for your seasoned advice.
Hmmm. Seems like all Elle had to jab me with today was the empty assertion about not having enough David Cassidy to blog about. Well, this should be easy to go up against, no good Donny Osmond videos to top.
Elle: I would have prepared something, but I had no idea that you expected me to be IT for today, even when I talked to you late last night. You’ll see Elle.
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