Posts Tagged ‘writers block’

Unfortunately, even after listing 10 great topics that any blogger can use last week, I still didn’t feel motivated today (what? I’m not perfect!). So, I decided to ask for some help from my friends and posted the above status update to facebook and twitter. Thank goodness for great friends, because in just 10 minutes I had the following great ideas! And now, I have some awesome ideas for next week

Ideas from Twitter:

@ParagonMoon: Blog topic: I can get over having done something I shouldn’t have. But to pass by opportunities is deeply regrettable and soul-damaging.

@Hagre: do a how-to of something you’re good at, or go explore someplace new and write about it! Just a couple thoughts!

@Sn0wSurF3r gave me two: How about, “you don’t have to blog just for the sake of blogging?” OR I want 2 read about how people should use lawyers at the beginning of contracts so they don’t need them after things go south

@influxx: take a break and come back fresh tomorrow. Dont force it. It will show.

@healthOC: I want to read about how the market has positively or negatively affected your business and/or others in your field

Ideas from Facebook:

What ideas do you have to add to the mix? What would you like to see me write about?

Sometimes, I can’t get inspired to write. Like today. Writing was just not in the cards and I spent all afternoon working on everything but my blog post. And now, it’s 2:30 in the afternoon, I have tons of work left to do, and I still don’t have any ideas what to write about. But, I figured maybe if I let my fingers start walking, I might come up with something to talk about and poof! a blog post would emerge. Unfortunately, the more I am writing, the more I am realizing that this writing really has no direction. An idea has not come to me, and all I can think about is the pile of emails waiting for me and the client projects that need to be worked on.

I know that I want to write about writing tips for bloggers who are short on time. I want an article covering planning for the next 6 months, and I want a social media based post. I am hoping to complete another great list post, and share a new image that has given me creative motivation. But none of those were getting written today.

Today, my brain hates words. Even tweeting was too much writing for my brain (I got about 7-8 sent today, when normally I tweet about 30-40 times).

Apparently it wants colors and sound. It wants pure creativity with no limits. It wants to stay away from spell check and proof reading.

So this is what you get from me today, random ramblings about my brain that doesn’t want to write. But hey, you know what? It felt pretty darn good AND qualified as a blog post!

You should try it…

Simplify tasks

Seeing that today is the 10th two-word Tuesday (wow, time flies) I have decided to take a step back and re-evaluate. Sometimes you create something that you think is going to be incredible, and not everyone gets it, or you create something you think will be just okay, and it turns out phenomenal. In this case, I am not sure whether to continue two-word Tuesday as it is, or maybe change it up a bit. I like the idea of having a once a week thing, since the rest of the time I am pretty random. It gives me something to plan for each week, and stability for my readers. I contemplated adding more words, changing it to be something like “Tuesday Tips” that are short, interesting tips on writing/social media/blogging. Or maybe Tuesday Tutorials. Find fun/unique/creative tutorials on different tools or programs. I’m just not sure yet, and I don’t know what you would want to see!

So, your two words for today (and what I am hoping to get from you) is…
Your Opinion

On Monday, I posed the question: “What makes writing so important“. I was attempting to make the point that writing is a freedom that we are given, and that we often take it for granted, forgetting how we got to where we are. I examined the difficulty that it used to take to get your writing seen, and wondered whether the difficulty made that writing more important. I concluded that the importance of writing had nothing to do with how it was written, but simply that it was written.

After talking with my mom about the article, she gave me a new question to ponder: “What makes words so important”? She explained that words are the beginning of writing, and therefore must be thought about before questioning the writing itself. She reminded me that words are not just sounds that we make, or inanimate objects to toss around, but words carry emotions, memories and evoke feelings. She reminded me to think about the words that are used on an individual basis and judge their importance…before attempting to judge the importance of the act of writing. She recommended going back to the process I used through college (I was a rhetorical communications major in college, which meant I spend a lot of time analyzing words and deciphering the hidden meanings behind them.) I love getting my mom’s thoughts on things…she always gives such a great perspective.

Anyway, after chatting with her, I began to really think about words again, and I got lost.

I started thinking about words, like creativity, which are so important to this blog. What does it mean? Creativity. By definition it means one thing, but to each individual person it means something too. To me, creativity stirs the emotion of passion. It means openness and color. It stands for freedom of expression and creates my livelihood. But to someone else, it may be scary and evoke terror. Some one who is afraid of reaching outside of the box, or being free to come up with their own ideas without restraint could be terrified of the idea of being creative.

And this is where I got lost.

I started to question every word that we use, and  how someone else can interpret them. No word is really safe from this process, even a word as simple as “word”. Say it to someone stuck in the 90’s, and they might think it means ‘right on’, talk to a Microsoft exec and they think computer program, an author thinks of it as a tool, and still someone else may see it as a source of frustration, as in being unable to think of the right word to use.

Now I was completely lost.

What’s your take on words and their importance? Am I reading too much into this?

Writing. The simple act of putting symbols together to form words, sentences and paragraphs on whatever surface and with whichever tool you have available. Writing is not impressive because of the tool you use or the way that you get the words to paper. The power of writing is in how you combine those words. The power is in what emotions you inspire and what thoughts and ideas you create. Writing is one of the most important gifts we are given. The ability to put a sentence together, connect it to the next and send it to so many so easily is a power many take for granted.

Did Greek Papyrus used so many thousands of years before make words…

…any more important than those written by Shakespeare with a quill and ink?

Or did the typewriter Mark Twain used to give us Huckleberry Finn make the words…

…more memorable than those typed on the laptop I use to write with everyday?

I’ve never felt a typewriter stick below my fingers halfway through my article, the frustration of ink spilling over half the page, or the brittle touch of papyrus as my writing crumbled in harsh hands. I don’t know what it was like to have to cross out words or get new paper because I didn’t like where the article was headed. I can’t imagine what it was like trying to get a 300 page story to be noticed, with only one handwritten copy to show off. What I can imagine is the heart that it took to continue writing even when no one wanted to read it. I understand the feeling of words falling on deaf ears. I know the desire to give up writing forever only to find someone who convinces me to keep going. I can completely comprehend the need, desire and passion that writing drives into you. Writing gives us the ability to share whatever we want, in whichever words we choose.

Writing gives us freedom.

Celebrate Today

Just tuning in and not sure what it’s all about? Check out the launch of two-word tuesday.

Remember Rebus Puzzles from elementary school? They were a great way to get your brain going and your mind creative…and still are!

Below are 10 rebus puzzles.

Put your answers to all 10 in the comments. Everyone who gets all them right will be entered for a chance to win a free Twitter Background designed by me (or service credit with Wright Creativity of equal value)!

I will choose the winner on Thursday, July 30th at noon, so make sure to get your answers in before then.

Good Luck!

Over the last few months, I have received some great comments and questions on my collection of writing tips blog posts. One of the reoccurring question is how I manage to keep my blog, organized and filled with enough material. Well, it isn’t easy, but I will let you in on a few of my secrets:

1. I write a lot of really crappy stuff. If you read some of the posts that I created as drafts that never saw the light, you’d be flabbergasted. I certainly am when I look back at it… but some of my best posts (ABC’s of creativity and 4 people in your life that can make you more creative) came from really awful first, second and third drafts. I think I worked on both of those articles for over 2 weeks before they were actually posted.

2. I keep a notepad, pen or my Blackberry (which has a note feature) on hand at all times. I’m hoping to add a tool like this voice to text recorder to my arsenal as well… I can not even try to count the times we have been at dinner, or I have been falling asleep, and thought of a great idea. They all go into my BB or into my notepad. Half of them never see the light of day again, but a few have become really killer posts.

3. I don’t believe in mistakes. I don’t believe in ‘bad topics’. I don’t believe in ‘too out there’. At least not on the first draft of anything. Many people have read the first draft of something I write and have commented on spelling errors, grammar mistakes, etc. Damn right there are! Because I use my creativity and my freedom to just start writing…I clean it up later.

4.  I use (and passionately love) Outlook. It’s where I read my rss feeds, and where I manage my calendar, my email and my clients calendars. There are so many things that I can do in Outlook that help me to manage blogs…honestly, “it slices, it dices, it julianes…”. There is nothing I need that Outlook can’t handle. It has taken me almost a year to get it exactly how I want and working like clockwork, but now, I couldn’t live without it.

5. I forget business. Many writers and bloggers I know talk about all the great business blogs and books they read. They rave about how they changed their lives and that those were what made them better writers. While I don’t disagree with reading business blogs and books (I read quite a few), I also put a lot of stock in reading blogs and books purely for fun. Different writing styles are what make you improve! If all you ever read what marketing/sales/business writing styles, that would be all you ever knew. Reading short, snappy comedic writing and passionate romance writing is what gives my writing more spice. It’s what lets me start a sentence with And, and end it with a preposition.

I also use these same techniques as a blog manager for my clients. It is time consuming, and a lot of work, but it is what makes the difference between words on a page and content people will read. It is what makes your blog worth reading.

How do you manage your writing? What works for you?

A successful blog takes more than just writing down ideas and hoping someone reads it. Successful blogging takes consistency and requires material that people are going to want to read. It also includes a bit of repetition. People expect certain topics when they visit certain blogs. Every once in a while, all bloggers stray off topic, but for the most part, Chris Brogan is always going to be talking marketing and Perez Hilton is always going to be talking celebrity gossip.

Wright Creativity is a blog about creativity. This is a much broader topic, and many people have criticized me for not ’sticking to one or two basic subjects’. But I think creativity IS one subject…just with a lot of uses. Some days I talk about creativity and business, others are creativity and real life, and some are just random. But, a bit of randomness is to be expected when talking about creativity, right? While I do love having my freedom, I have begun to see some of the ‘other side’ and have decided to bring a little more balance and consistency to the blog. I am not going to narrow my topics on creativity, but I am going to create a new reoccurring type of blog post. The idea originally came to me from reading Angry Julie’s “Wordless Wednesday“. Each Wednesday, she posts a single picture, and lets it speak for itself. I loved the idea of the same type of post one day each week – and one that lets the reader react/comment/create their own ideas from an image…but because I love words so much, I decided to let them reign. Originally, I thought of picking one word, but of course then I had to come up with a creative name, and no days of the week rhyme with one… so I doubled the words and Two-word Tuesday was created!

Best part? It’s all about the readers! I am giving you a bit of creativity, an idea, and you can turn it into what ever you want; use them as the start of your comment, writing a tweet with the words in it, link to a post they make you think of, or use the words to start your own post and then link back! It’s all about the community – creating an online brainstorming group. Who knows which words will stem your next great idea?

From this day on, all you will see on Tuesday’s is 2 words. Do with them what you will – and don’t forget to share!

Now onto today’s two words:




Beginning now




(perfectly apropos, right?)