Although we occasionally have an easy time writing our blog posts, we sometimes get stuck and have trouble getting anything down on paper. Yes, those times when inspiration strikes us and the blog post effortlessly flows out of our fingertips are wonderful indeed, but those times are few and far between.
So we have to use various pre-writing strategies to make sure we get our blogging done on time and keep fresh content rolling out for our readers. If you’ve ever used pre-writing strategies before, then you can probably attest to their worth; however, if you haven’t, then you might want to give the following strategies a try.
1. Draw Out Your Ideas
If you’re someone who really works well visually, then you should definitely look into sketching out your ideas. Most famous artists made preliminary sketches of their paintings, so you should try to sketch out your blog posts. Use an idea-mapping strategy to give yourself a new perspective on how your ideas fit together. Put your main topic in a bubble in the middle of the paper and then start scribbling away!
2. Make an Outline
A great way to organize your thoughts before you start writing a post is to outline them. Using an outline can actually really help you keep everything ordered, and it also provides a pretty solid template of what your post ought to look like, which allows you simply to plug in relevant information and key points. If you’re someone who struggles to keep track of everything as you’re writing, then an outline is the perfect tool for you.
3. Do an Idea-Dump or Brainstorm
Call it what you will, an idea dump/free-write/brainstorming session can be extremely productive for your blogging. Any sort of forced unconscious writing down of ideas can help you create a week or so of really solid content. It’s really easy to come up with the content ideas, which is why brainstorm is so useful. The hard part, obviously, is then figuring out what you have to say about the topics!
4. Schedule a Daily Free-Writing Session
For a long-term pre-writing strategy, you cannot go wrong with settling into a daily writing routine. If you start a daily journal, for example, and write in it each evening before you go to sleep, you can actually create a rough source of content for your future posts. Then, when you need to start a new post, you can simply turn back through your journal and pick out some ideas that you thought were interesting.
This guest contribution was submitted by Pamelia Brown. Questions and comments can be sent to: pamelia.brown at gmail.com.
I never run out of ideas but sometimes getting the thoughts from my head onto the page takes more time than I have.
I think what I need to do is dedicate a day or two every month to write first drafts of blog posts. Then when I only have a short time to write and post I can flesh out something already started.