How to overcome writer's block

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(Edited)

From time to time to bloggers face the inevitable - they either run out of interesting subjects to write about or they can not proceed to fully develop an idea.

Here are some tips that can help you overcome this:

1- Scribble a mind map: Start with a word, any word you come across online and scribble ideas around it using the good old pen and paper. For this, there are random word generators, word dice that give you unconnected words to weave into your blog. You can also transfer these ideas in your drafts folder here on ecency or peakd. Having a drafts folder helps you save your notes which can be useful in giving structure to your post.

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2- Outside your comfort zone: Read more posts from different communities. As you go through posts by different authors, you can find out trending ideas and topics or even resonate and give your own take on a proposed idea by fellow bloggers. You do not have to stick to your niche but can expand your horizon into other areas. It might be difficult to create amazing content from the get go for a new community but getting a start helps you explore your own writing limits.

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3- Contest yourself: Contests provide a good stepping stone for building a post since they give guidelines and a starting point. For example the POB WOTW contest gives a word around which you have to build a post. There is also the Ink Well Prompt which is for fiction writers.

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4- Back in Time: Go back to your old posts, is their a post that can be elaborated upon, further improved or continued as a second part? Maybe your views on a topic have changed and you want to create a counter post. Going through old posts also gives the confidence to carry forward in your writing. On a personal note, sometimes I look at my old posts when suffering from writer's block and the good comments make me determined to write well.

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5- Pen down a conversation: Write down the last meaningful conversation you had with someone (including yourself) and refine it into a post. This is actually a good way to to document awesome unique content since these conversations are particular to the participants.

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6- Time crunch : Techniques such as the Pomodoro technique wherein you divide your work into short chunks of time can be useful. You can also give yourself a deadline or ask a friend to randomly act as your boss and give you a hard time if you don't finish.

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12 comments
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Great tips, @diebitch. And I love the memes! Another great way to loosen your writers’ block is to do freewrite exercises — just set a timer and start writing about whatever comes to mind. And of course we have a whole community for freewriters.

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Yes I e heard the timer thing works but it just aggravates my block though.

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It’s good to know what works for you and what doesn’t. The best thing for mine is reading. I am constantly listening to audio books while doing normal daily activities. It sparks a lot of ideas and I stop and type or voice-record them into a Google doc. I make sure I do it right away when the idea comes, or it will be gone in 5 minutes! Then I have this file to turn to when I sit down to write.

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Nice tips @diebitch .
I've suffered from writer's block many times. When this occur, I read. I read tgings written by others or go back to my old write ups.
Writers block is inevitable but it can be overcomes👍

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That’s a good way to overcome it

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I was seriously laughing at the memes... 🤣 especially the one with the rabbit.

anyway, thank for sharing... it was a very informative read, I could certainly use it, thank you!

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nice ti_s

happy new year
let's all together make 2022 a great year

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Content is King making these suggestions a great foundation for building a kingdom. I wrote some of them down, as exploring other communities, and recalling past meaningful conversations are genius and before your article was not in my toolbox thank you for the addition.

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