Posts Tagged ‘writing’

For most blogs to be successful, they need to have at least 3 posts a week. There are a few rare occasions that a writer can get away with once a week or once a month, but that is usually because they are already famous and people would read them no matter what. For the average blogger, consistency is key. And, in order to be consistent, a blogger needs to come up with lots of great ideas to share with their reader. Luckily, most blogs have a wide variety of topics they discuss. For example, while this blog is mostly about business ideas, writing, blog design, blog management and social media, it also stems off into funny marketing ideas, news stories, random anecdotes from my life and interesting photography and art. Having this many topics to write about gives me a lot of space to find great ideas and a lot of different places I can search for content. But, after two years of experience writing and coming up with blog posts, I have discovered a couple ways that I can count on to consistently deliver ideas:

Reading other peoples blogs. Other writers work can be helpful in lots of ways – it can give you something to argue against, add to or look at from a different angle. It can also jump start your mind onto different areas of the same topic. I read about 30 bloggers daily, including Ike Pigott, Steve Woodruff, Suzanne Broughton, Ari Herzog, Jon Buscall and The Incslingers. In addition to business blogs, I also read a lot of humor blogs, like Faliblog, and AwkwardFamilyPhotos. While I don’t usually use their posts as starting points, sometimes the topic or idea behind the humor will stem an idea (if not, at least I’m laughing!). In fact, I have used an image from awkward family photos (turned out it was @emilyquestions son!) in a post.

Searching through flickr’s creative commons. You can browse through photos that other people have taken, all over the world, and you can use most of those images as long as you give the author credit for using it (and you’re not making money off it). This one can take time though, as searching by keywords is tough. But, I have definitely wound treasures there and I have written entire posts just because I want to use an image I found. Today’s image is from one of my favorite photographers who shares her work on Flickr – D Sharon Pruitt – I have used many of her shots in past posts.

Taking in a change of scenery. I recommend taking a short walk everyday, outside if you can, to see what is new around you. Are the flowers blooming? Is there a new decoration in someones office? Simple changes in your environment can create a mental release, allowing you to gain a new perspective or motivate a new idea. I also recommend that if you’re going to get out and wander, bring your phone or a camera, so you can snap a picture if something really motivates you to share. It is always better when you can visualize what spurred the idea rather than having to try and remember it all the way back to your office.

While the above three do tend to consistently deliver for me, there are still days that I hit rough patches and even the ol’ standbys aren’t working. On those days, I get a little more inventive. Here are just a few of the things I have tried to get some new ideas for blog posts:

• Call someone to talk about life.
• Listen to music, and sing.
• Take a shower.
• Do laundry.
• Clean the house.
• Go for a drive.
• Garden.
• Watch a stand-up comedian (love Tosh.O)
• Color with crayons.
• Scream. Loudly.
• Ask your twitter friends.
• Don’t write a post.
• Re-organize my office.
• Send emails.
• Change clothes.
• Do accounting.

The most important thing to remember, is no matter where you come up with ideas – keep writing! The more you jot down ideas, notes and potential topics, the easier it will get to turn them into real blog posts.

What other ways do you find blog ideas?

<rant begin> I understand that with age comes wisdom, but age is not the only factor to consider when determining someones experience. I can’t count the number of times that I have talked with people over twitter, email and phone, then met them in person and had the same reaction – shock at my age.

I am young, 25, and as I have learned, this can be a serious disadvantage. In fact, it has been such an interference that I am looking forward to the day I turn 30. When I speak with people over the phone or they read my work, most assume that I am in my early 30′s (I guess I come across older in voice/writing?)…but, when they meet me in person and see that I am not in my 30′s, it is as if a cold wind has blown in and all of a sudden their mood changes. They start asking about my experience again, wonder when I graduated college, how I learned what I learned…all questions that my portfolio and site answer, but they begin to doubt me. Their entire belief towards me shifts in one fell swoop. I can’t prove that this has lost me business – as no one has ever come out and told me “we want someone older”, but I feel like it has been a serious interference, and is definitely frustrating. I hate having to try and explain myself – to try and clarify that yes I am young, but I am the same person that just a day ago you were enamored with and loved my work.

Why should my age matter? If what you are looking for what I would do well, and you had faith in me based on my portfolio, writing and conversation – why does my age change any of this? </rant over>

What do you think about age? Have you had an experience where your age was a problem?

104 weeks, 730 days, 470 blog posts and a lot of lessons later… writing this blog has been one of the most challenging and rewarding pieces of my business, and life. I love this blog, and every single person who has commented, read and lurked here. It is a place for my ramblings, thoughts and business advice. Even more, it is a place for learning. Especially for me. So in honor of my 2 year anniversary, here are the 24 lessons I have learned in writing Wright Creativity (one for every month I’ve had it):

1. Spellcheck doesn’t always work. Six looks a lot like sex when you are reading quickly…proofread closer!
2. If you are getting rude comments, you’re doing something right.
3. There are at least three sides to every topic – and it’s guaranteed you’ll get to hear all of them!
4. Just because you find the topic interesting, doesn’t mean your readers will.
5. The posts that become the most popular will surprise you.
6. The more you write, the easier it gets, but the easier it is to repeat yourself.
7. Use pictures. People like pictures. Especially of cute animals…like this:
   
8. Being funny is not easy. Neither is being clever. So if it doesn’t come naturally, don’t try it.
9. It is okay to decide you never want to write about a topic again…and then change your mind.
10. Archives are forever.
11. Linking to another bloggers site is the sincerest form of flattery.
12. I am never going to be famous from my blog, but that’s perfectly okay.
13. If I can help one person with what I write each day, I did my job.
14. Getting comments is like Christmas morning. Seriously.
15. Ask questions. A lot of them.
16. Narrowing your categories will improve your writing and focus.
17. Take a notepad or your phone everywhere, just in case you think of a blog post.
18. Use plugins.
19. Make sure you save while writing, even if you think wordpress auto saves.
20. Posting 5 days a week is easier said than done. But, it is worth trying every week.
21. Formatting in posts is imperative, and it makes it easier to read.
22. Titles, while they may be obnoxious to come up with, are helpful and needed.
23. If you can make it into a list, it will get more traffic.
24. I will probably keep writing this blog as long as people keep reading it.

Rob Gokee and I met through twitter awhile ago…we then connected through my “free” post and finally met in person about 2 months ago. Rob has done a brilliant job combining his multiple personalities into one website, and one good business. So I asked him to share his story…Take it away Rob!

Multiple Personality Disorder

I’ve got it. But not in the way that you think.

I’m a composer for film, television & webseries. It’s been my job for the last 5 years. It’s kind of a niche marketplace, I’ve got it down to a science: who I market to, where I find them, how I get my foot in the door. Twitter became a big part of that over the last few years, so much so that I wrote a book about the experience.

Being a writer takes a different set of muscles than being a composer. And when you’re writing about yourself… that’s a whole other animal. It was an amazing and cathartic experience, but it opened up a can of worms. When the book was finished, published and in my hands, I realized I had to market myself as an author in order to sell it. Personality Number Two.

Then, because of my experience on Twitter and the book I wrote about it, people started asking me to speak about social media, which then turned into helping people (and small businesses) with their social media. And a third personality was born.

The problem came in the separation. It was important to promote only the parts of me that were related to the work I was soliciting. A director or producer doesn’t care that I wrote a book about social media. And an independent bookstore doesn’t care that I’m a composer. I already had a website for music, and created one for the book, and I was suddenly faced with a dilemma: I needed one for social media work. Keeping up with one blog was hard enough, now I was looking at three blogs that all needed to be maintained, and three sites that needed to be updated, on top of the work itself they were generating. I was feeling overwhelmed and frustrated.

I met Kirsten for lunch one afternoon, and asked for her opinion. She presented a solution that I myself had entertained a few weeks prior: Create a static page that has three buttons, each leading to a different site so that people had one place to go. It was a great idea, but with one flaw. I still had to build and maintain three different sites. That’s when it hit me: I didn’t need to.

I’m a composer. If I wasn’t a composer, I wouldn’t have written the book, which is about my job. I’m also adept at social media marketing, which I wouldn’t have been without being a composer and writing the book. I’m not three personalities: I’m one. What was wrong with combining the three things into one place? So I created one site, with three different sections. I took all three sites and “merged” them over to robgokee.com, and created one blog with 3 different categories. That way, I could separate the posts by job, but only manage one blog. I had a logo created that also became my new business card. On the landing page, I created buttons in Illustrator that took visitors to the section that most fit what they were looking for. And you know what? It worked.

It comes down to what you’re branding. I consider myself a brand; I’m selling myself. It makes sense that I should keep everything in one place where it’s easy to find. If you’re your own brand, you need to build everything else around that, and not the other way around. It’s OK that you do more than one thing, but it’s important that your “brand” isn’t scattered; it needs to be focused. Otherwise, you’ll always be battling with the other personalities, and then no one wins.

A month ago, I wrote a post about how much I despise blog titles and my boycott against the tradition of them. I challenged myself to break the status quo and only use one word in my blog titles. After one month, I have to say I still don’t like blog titles and I love this new approach. It is actually more difficult than I thought it would be, coming up with just one word, but it has allowed me more freedom with my writing and less stress about the titles.

One of the questions/comments I received when I started the plan was to look at my analytics and see how they were effected. While I noticed a small drop in searching, I noticed more people clicking on my posts to read them from twitter – which means that the one word was either more intriguing or easier for people to understand. I also had a few people comment that certain posts really could have used two or three word titles to help them to make more sense. This was a valid point, and I agree that forcing myself to use only one word was stifling my creativity a bit.

Overall, I learned that I prefer one word titles because then the content takes center stage – but that sometimes, one word is not enough. So from this point on, I am going to treat titles in the same manner that I have been in the last month – as an after thought and not as important as the content – but not worry about the number of words that I use. Will I probably try to use less words? Absolutely! But sticking to only one word for every post? Probably not.

What did you think of the one word titles?

As a blogger myself, you would assume I was really good at commenting and adding thoughts to other peoples blogs. Unfortunately, that is just not true. And something I really need to fix.

Don’t get me wrong, I read a lot of blogs…probably about 30 or so posts per day from both blogs I subscribe to and links I click on through twitter. Of those 30, I will maybe comment on one each day…if that.

Why is this such a problem? Because commenting on blogs is one of the key parts of being a blogger.

First, it helps you to build your community. Say someone leaves a comment on your blog, and then you respond to them. They are now more likely to comment again because you have made them special, included and a part of the conversation. People want to feel like they are making a difference, and when you appreciate their comment by commenting back, they will.

Second,  if you comment on someone else’s blog, they appreciate it. Appreciation leads to visitation, visitation leads to comments on your content, and maybe even subscribing to your content. So, if you leave valuable comments on multiple blogs, you will have more people coming to see your work.

Third, comments build your SEO. When you leave a comment on a site, you leave your url as well. If you leave comments on blogs that are in the same topic area as you, and your comment includes that topic, your link is attributed to that comment, and in turn, that content. The more links you have that are connected to your content, the stronger your SEO will be.

Finally, it is just nice. I love when people leave me comments, which means that they probably love it when they get comments too. So if I leave them comments, I am making them happy. Nice, see?

Now the tough question, if I know all this, why do I still not comment more?

I have a couple theories.

My first theory is that I just don’t have the time. But this is a pretty pathetic theory because I can make time, I have time to do it while I watch TV at night, or while drinking my morning coffee. If I have time to read their blog, I have time to comment. I could cut out a bit of twitter and facebook time and do it then, or read 3-5 less blogs a day and use that time to comment. I could just suck it up and stop blaming time as the issue.

If I do that, then I hit theory number two: frustration with other commenter’s. This one is a little more realistic. I get frustrated when I see blogs with 50 comments that all say the same thing: “good content, I agree with you, you’re amazing, blah blah blah”. When I see those comments, even if I have something interesting to say that would add to the conversation (as opposed to kissing the butt of the author) I won’t leave it. Why? I don’t know. But I just don’t like adding comments on top of garbage like that.

Okay, so theory two makes sense, but it leaves out a lot of the blogs I read that don’t get comments like that (or gets a lot less of that). So what about those blogs? Theory three is that I am shy. Yup, me, shy. Stop laughing. Seriously, are you done? Okay, thank you. The reality is, I am very shy with my writing. I actually avoid writing about a lot of stuff on this blog because I don’t want to offend people or don’t want to come across the wrong way (even though sometimes I still do). There are many times I have contemplated creating a whole new (anonymous) blog to share the thoughts and stories I don’t share here. It is the same thing with comments. I either think that I can’t express my point well enough, so why try, or I worry that my comment will offend someone because it is the opposite of what everyone else is saying. So, instead of opening up, I become shy and don’t leave the comment.

What I am realizing, after looking at these theories, is that I really don’t have a good reason at all not to start commenting more. In fact, after asking my readers to de-lurk last year, I should be required to start de-lurking more myself. And I plan on it, starting today.

What say you?

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?

I love words. The problem is, I love fun, mouthy words…ones that make you pause, and re-read them. Words you rarely hear in common discourse but love to say. The problem is, in writing, these are words you should avoid as according to Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Readability one should write for about the 8th grade reading level, unless you are writing technical documents. This past weekend, I was playing scrabble with my hubby and parents…I played the word zeal, and it started a conversation about how people speak, write and the words the choose. For example, I adore words like facetious, acerbic, zealous, whom, cantankerous, dilapidated, etc…words that sound pompous (oh, another good one) but are just so fun to say/read. But, I rarely use these words because when I do, I get called pretentious (and…another good word!).

But, I still think these words deserve their spot in the sun, so, I’ve decided to have some fun: a-z, these are my favorite overly complex, absolutely verbose, but completely fun to use words:

Acerbic
Boisterous
Cantankerous
Dilapidated
Engorged
Facetious
Gregarious
Hoary
Ignoramus
Jovial
Kaleidoscope
Ludicrous
Malicious
Nuance
Obstinate
Pathology
Quixotic
Resplendent
Scourge
Trepidation
Undulating
Verbose
Whom
X (okay, so there is no word I really like that starts with x…)
Yammered
Zealous

What are some of your favorite words? Do you avoid overly verbose words in your writing?

Over the next 25 posts, ending on my birthday, I will be covering an incredibly creative moment or idea from a year of my life AND one creative moment in either the marketing, advertising, technology or media world.

I spent 2005 writing. A lot. Seriously, papers analyzing word choices in public speeches by celebrities, articles by famous journalists and monologues from plays pretty much every week. And then of course, starting my (90 page!) thesis paper on the study of the rhetoric of the NRA and the role they play as both a protagonist and an antagonist to the American government…Almost every day was spent in front of my keyboard, writing as much as I could about everything I read and heard, in hopes that it would come in handy for a paper down the road. While I didn’t see it then, the time that I spent writing down everything was great training for now, where I can turn real life thoughts into future blog posts.

While I was writing like crazy Millionaire Steve Fossett broke the world record by completing the first non-stop, non-refueled, solo flight around the world in the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer. (okay, so I know it isn’t media/tech or advertising…but it’s really cool!!)

Over the next 25 posts, ending on my birthday, I will be covering an incredibly creative moment or idea from a year of my life AND one creative moment in either the marketing, advertising, technology or media world.

In 1997, I was finishing 7th grade, starting 8th grade, and still trying to figure out who I really was (I think we all were at that age). Other than friends, boys and annoying my parents, I had 2 things I knew that I loved: reading and writing. I had a book and my notebook with me everywhere that I went, jotting down thoughts and ideas about every day life. I guess it was my first version of “blogging”. I was not a tech savvy kid, despite going to a school that had a computer lab donated by Steve Wozniak. I mean, I understood computers and knew how to use them, but was never really interested in anything beyond using them for school. I preferred the feeling of writing on paper to writing in Word. Which meant that I constantly had ink on the side of my hand from dragging it across barely dried sentences (one of the pitfalls of being left handed). To this day, I still love writing on paper, but find that I type much quicker than I can write, so my laptop has replaced my notebook (although at night, I do still keep a notepad by my bed for those random thoughts). I think that as long as I keep writing, my creativity will continue. I worry for the day that my hands will no longer cooperate and hope that by that point, there is a solution…

On the topic of reading and writing, 1997 marked the start of one of the most successful book series ever written – Harry Potter. While it wasn’t released in the US until 1998, the book became an instant star in the UK, winning numerous awards and receiving some of the highest compliments from the reviewers. For those who don’t know, this is one of my favorite series of all times and I have actually read all 7 books more than 5 times each. What impresses me most about Rowling (the author of the series) is the drive that she had to write the books, and the passion in which she wrote them. Even more impressive? According to Forbes magazine, she is the first author to become a billionaire from writing books. Now that is a serious accomplishment, and adds a little motivation to anyone out there who has ever been told writing can’t make you rich.