Finding Better Ways to Blog

Blogging can be lonely work. You hole up in the office (or a dark corner of the house if an office is not available) looking for the next, great words that will drive your blog to viral success. You know it has gotten bad when you begin having a conversation with your stuffed animals – especially if you have none.

There must be better ways to blog. There has to be user friendly systems to get the words to flow. I refuse to accept that it all has to be lonely rooms and dark corners.

National Novel Writing Month drives writers to do the unthinkable – write and entire novel in one month. I have participated for several years, and the first year I made the 50,000 word goal I utilized the different tools that the groups offered. I went to the launch party. I attended write-ins. I participated in word wars. The enthusiasm of others combined with their encouragement and pushed me to the success.

That first year I experienced the darkness of writing alone with a stronger force in December. All of that encouragement and motivation vanished with the change of the calendar. I felt it and my work suffered because of it. The next year, our writing group determined to carry the motivation throughout the year. On any given day, someone will challenge our Facebook group to a war. Some of them even arrange for a full day or weekend of challenges.

Why not bloggers?

I challenged a blogger group to attend a blog-in. I step up challenges, planned word wars, and invited bloggers to come to the house and experience this intense experience with words. It flooded that day – literally. I had to call all of the bloggers and tell them that they could not get to our house without a boat. We are determined to try again.

No matter what you are doing with words, continue to look for ways to keep the words flowing and the inspiration growing. If you can do a write-in (where you gather with other authors to encourage, write and congregate) then you can do a blog-in or a query-in.

What great idea do you have for helping discover new ways to blog?

Share them here and together we can make the words flood (instead of just my road).

Ideas for a Blog-In Challenge

Create a business plan for you blog – include a mission statement that you can post on your website, a vision statement, and long range goals.

Develop an elevator pitch – a one to two sentence statement that will tell others about your blog.

Write a comment policy – so others can know what to expect when they post on your site.

Create (or hone) your about page: write in first person, be conversational, focus on the readers expectations or needs (what they will get from your writings), tell them about you (one to two sentences if possible), tell them why you write the blog.

Expand your About page: Add your top posts (with links), add a full bio for those readers who want to know more about you, add contact info.

Develop an editorial calendar complete with categories for blogs.

Brainstorm 15 titles for the editorial calendar.

Add five points to cover with each title.

Find five blogs that are related to your blog – make plans to comment on these blogs during the next month.

Connect you blog to your social media outlets.

Write a blog post for each of the May “Rocket City Bloggers Yearly Blogging Challenge”

Review the blogs of each member of the group. Share positives and negatives about the blogs.