No Fear Blogging

August 22, 2008 :: cbensen

Do you log in to your blogging software & it strikes fear into you? It causes you to sit & stare at the white space & all of a sudden you can think of a number of other things you’d like to be doing?

Here are 10 ideas to alleviate & dispel those fears:

1. Write down ideas when they occur to you. Many people have a tablet dedicated to blogging ideas. I use Evernote (a free app) & jot the notes in there.

2. Use publishing software. There are many to choose from. I use LiveWriter (but it’s not available for Mac’s). Using a publishing program allows you to start articles & return to them later. I can also work offline.

3. Have many drafts prepared & in various stages of completion. This allows you to choose the topic that you want to address.

4. Start with a list - it’s not necessarily an outline, but it definitely helps get things going. If I can’t do that, then I write in a more prose style & go back and put it into bullets highlighting the main points.

5. Have set times where you sit down & know that you can be productive. Sometimes we set ourselves up for failure by trying to write when there will be lots of interruptions.

6. If you’re a new blogger maybe you’re worried about perfection. Be a recovering perfectionist! You’ll find out soon enough that sometimes you don’t have hours to write a post & it needs to get published as it is.

7. Establish a weekly routine - for example on most Fridays I post a list of links that I want to share with my readers. I’ve found that people love this! During the week, I toss links that I want to share into a post with a sentence or two about them. It eases the stress too..

8. Write less and remember that simple is fine. When I started blogging I thought that I had to write long incredibly profound posts. That’s not true at all.

9. Quality vs Quantity - Don’t feel like you have to post every day. If you post about 3 times per week or so that’s fine.

10. If a post feels like it’s getting long, break it into a series. It will give people something to look forward to!

What do you fear when you sit down to blog? What are your best tips for overcoming that fear?

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