How to Love Your Blog Again
Every relationship can grow stale at some point. That's why partners go into marriage encounter weekends, or why self-help books suggest dating your spouse as if you had just met for the first time.
For bloggers, the relationship between you and your blog can also grow stale. What was such an exciting adventure when you started it now seems ho-hum, or worse still, a daily chore you just want to get over, like brushing your teeth or making your bed.
Here's how to fall in love with you blog again.
Rekindle the Spark: Breathe New Life Into Old Blogs
Reinvigorate, rekindle and rejoice. Breathe new life into an old blog with these tips:
- Enter a blog challenge: Blog challenges can give you a reason to blog again. Blog challenges are online fun contests centered around a theme. "30 posts in 30 days" is one such theme, the A to Z blogging challenge is another. Each time you enter into a blog challenge, you're pitching your blogging talents against the contest rules. For me, entering one of my four blogs into the A to Z challenge helps get my creative juices flowing again.
- Enter a contest: Another fun thing to do is to enter your blog into a contest. You'll find awards competitions from magazines and websites as well as popularity awards given from one blogger to another like the Liebster Awards. It's all in good fun, and the added excitement can make you fall in love with your blog again.
- Start an idea file: Back in the days when I wrote for magazines, I kept a clips file or an ideas file. It was essentially news stories that sparked my interest. When I encountered stories like that, I'd clip them and keep them on file. Sometimes just going through my ideas file would spark new, fresh ways of looking at a topic. Then I'd go off and tackle my own research and have a new story at hand. You can use internet bookmarks to keep your own online clip file or use Pinterest to make a file for future inspiration. Just remember not to rewrite or reword an existing post from someone else. It's still considered plagiarism even if it's in your own words.
- Talk to your readers: By this I mean get out from behind your computer and actually mingle with the folks who read your blog. If you write about antique cars, go to a car show and listen to what people are talking about at the car show. If you're a recipe blogger, visit a cooking supply store or try a new restaurant. Get back to your roots and find the inspiration among your readers and target audience who inspired you to start your blog.
- Make an idea calendar: The creative well can run dry just when you least expect it. One way I get around this is to have an idea calendar for each blog. It's a printed blog planner (I like Sarah Avilla's planner at My Joy Filled Life. It's $4.95 but well worth it). I have posts noted for each week, so if there's a week when nothing immediately comes to mind to write about, I can flip through my binder and choose an idea. You can accomplish the same thing using a notebook. List the months of the year and ideas for posts that come to mind for those months. Maybe April is spring, Easter, new clothes, shopping, and September is back to school, new year, whatever. Having ideas at the ready can be a lifesaver when you feel like you just don't want to write anything more
Fall in love with your blog again. Find ways to rekindle that passion you once had for writing.
