Short and to the point today – How do you other bloggers out there keep a constant stream of writing? I’m speaking specifically to people like Ravyn at Exchange of Realities, Greywulf at his Lair, Uncle Bear, and many many others who seem to always have something useful to say?
Recently I had a wedding to attend and perform at, and the following week I injured by back and was out of commission for several days. It gave me plenty of time to come up with some great ideas for upcoming articles, but now I’m having inspirational problems with putting the pen to paper (so to speak). How do you keep it going? What do you do to get inspired? With almost twenty half-written articles just waiting for me to get off my butt and finish, I could use a swift kick, if you know what I mean…
October 15, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Whenever I have an idea for an article, I jot down a sentence or two about it and save it as a draft. Eventually, when I find myself struggling to come up with a topic, I go back and pick out one from my list of drafts.
Right now, for instance, I’ve got a dozen drafts in waiting.
If you’re having trouble with ideas, period, then brainstorming exercises might help.
October 15, 2008 at 4:17 pm
It’s an old writers trick. You just write. Sounds simple really and it is. Once you get over the fear of writing crap that is. And it may well be that you will dribble on a bit but at least the flow is happening. After that, well, if your any good at what you do then you’ll go back over it all and sort the shit from the fertiliser. Much the same as when your playing sport. If you want to get better, you practice. What do you do when you practice? You do whatever it is you’re trying to get better at.
It’s the same with writing.
Be careful not to fall into the great writers lergy of believing everything you do is bad and what everybody else does is so good. Just write it and let the critics decide. Even then don’t trust the bastards.
October 15, 2008 at 4:27 pm
I just don’t think too hard. Heck, it’s blogging not War and Peace
Write -> Preview -> Post
Done. Also, sometimes I have blogspurts where I’ll write three or four shortish posts all at once then Schedule them to appear a day apart, therefore making it look like I’m busy blogging non-stop every single day. It helps that I crank out 4 or 5 3D renders a day in my spare time too, so can drop those in to pad things out too.
Also, use the Politician Tactic. If you’ve got nothing to say, ask a question. That’s always good for a comment-heavy blogpost.
Key point: Scheduling is your friend! Finish those post you’ve got half-done, then post ‘em up to go out over a period of time and you’ll appear to be prolific too, just like the rest of us
Damn. I’m giving away all our secrets now. Bummer.
October 15, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Easy answer is you don’t.
I was blogging daily at first, and have found a good balance at 1-3 per week.
This is mostly because my gaming schedule has gotten really erratic, when it picks up again, So will my blogging.
October 15, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Sheer cussed stubbornness, a very good muse, and a lot of free time.
One of the things I did back when I was still employed was utilize my transit time: with four hours on mass transit going back and forth, my only choices were to write or to sleep. So I’d start something; if it wasn’t working, I’d start something else; if that failed, I’d try something else, and if I finished, well–I’d start something else.
Another of my favorite tactics is turning things that are too long for one post into series. I first found this when I was writing about conflict and how it affects character development; I started writing, kept going and going on tangents, then when I was finished, realized I had three days’ worth of material and just needed to figure out what order to air them in.
Being as much a writing-blog as a gaming-blog (theoretically; there are a few questions I have about whether things of mine that could apply to play by posts are “gaming” enough for the Network) helps. So do the Generic Villain riffs; they’re easier to write than standard posts, not likely to turn into series on me, and as a result make excellent Friday posts, since the Friday night/Saturday pieces are always about my game whether I actually run or not.
And getting ideas from my friends and family; they’re an excellent group of muses.
October 15, 2008 at 10:22 pm
I tend to have a rush of ideas, then nothing for a while. When I’m able, I take advantage of Blogger’s post scheduling and space out some posts over the course of a few days. These helps keep up a constant stream of posts while I might be sitting back, waiting for a recharge or new topic.
October 15, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Thanks for all the responses everyone. I typically do type several articles at once when I start typing, and set those to post on a predetermined schedule. I’ve done that for my next series, but I’m having problems being inspired to complete my current series. But I’m just going to take the majority of you guys’-and-gals’ advice and just start typing, and hope something good comes out.
Cheers!
October 16, 2008 at 5:58 pm
What X-Man said. Just write. You may not use everything you write, but it may spark ideas, and you may eventually find ways to re-use the bits that didn’t work initially.
I wrote a blog post on this very subject a while back: So You Wanna Be a RPG Blogger: How to Be Prolific
I also subscribe to the Isaac Asimov school of writing. The legend is that he had four or more typewriters in his office, with something different on each one. When he got stuck/bored on one he’d move over and work on the next thing, and go ’round until something was done. Then he’d start something else. Much easier to do today with computers and files, but I’ve always been amused by this image of multiple desks and a single wheeled desk chair and the Good Doctor rolling around the room.