Writer's block?

Anyone who writes regularly will tell you this: There are times when you struggle to write something worthwhile ... or even anything at all. Call it writer's block, call it the white page syndrome (or white screen in the age of the word processor), call it whatever you wish - there are times when the words won't come, and there is very little you can do about it. At such times, I tend to either write rubbish and then ditch it (boy, you should read some of my rejects - you'd laugh yourself sick), or more likely, walk away from the page/screen and go and do something else instead.

Blog posting is a very immediate kind of writing, so you need to make sure you have done it correctly. Once you have clicked the Publish button, your ideas are out there for the whole world to read. It's publish and be damned. Lawrence Lessig said about blogging that it is 'the most important form of unchoreographed public discourse that we have.' Counter this with Katie Hafner's wry parodic comment 'never have so many people written so much to be read by so few' and you will see that there are ups and downs to blogging (the patron saint of ups and downs is St Francis of a Seesaw). No matter how good your blog post is, no matter how incisive, devastatingly witty or profound your points are, if there is no audience for your writing, you may as well be whistling in the wind. Just how you drive people to your blog though, is beyond the scope of this particular post (phew, escaped from that one).

So how do you start off writing a blog post, and avoid the writer's block syndrome? More importantly, how do you write something that is worthwhile writing? My advice is to just start writing. Write about something you know about, have an opinion on, or feel passionately about. You can also be controversial. Draw on evidence that supports your viewpoint, but also find those who argue against and include those too, for some balance. Use language that is accessible and easy to understand. But don't compromise on your own writing voice, which is often the one tool you can wield with devastating effect in any writing genre. Most importantly, try to engage your reader. Address them personally. That's something that makes you want to keep reading, isn't it?

There are all sorts of bells and whistles you can put into a blog post, but I have elaborated on several of my own ideas already so I won't bore you again. Ultimately, you should write blog posts because you want to share your ideas and receive comments and feedback from your readership. When done correctly, blogging is not just writing - it's a conversation. As always I welcome your comments on this post.


Image by Daniel Gies


Writer's block? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.