How I Will Be Rich

Lately I’ve been going through this phase of writer’s block. I sit down at my work station at the end of my work day, close my door and make sure that I won’t be interrupted. I open up Google Docs to start laying out my thoughts and I just go blank. I can’t explain why I go through phases like this but it seems to hit me for about one week every month. Most of the time stuff just comes to me but every once in a while I find myself staring blankly at my computer screen wondering what I can write about that people will actually want to read. On weekends I tend to link to interesting articles that I find and I think my readers would enjoy. That’s just not my style for the mid-week posts.

Today has been one of those days. I keep setting aside time and nothing comes to me. I think my mind is already getting excited about my upcoming four day weekend. Anyway, I’ve come up with a little remedy to this problem that usually works pretty well and gets me thinking. So, today, instead of writing something related to personal finance, I’m writing about how I get over writer’s block. I’m beginning to realizing that a lot of the people that read my blog are actually fellow bloggers themselves. So, with that being said, I am hoping nobody minds that I’m taking an even larger step away from my normal writing topic to explain, on a day the I have writer’s block, how I get over writer’s block.

What I have started doing recently is something that has really helped me a lot. First, I go around to the other blogs that I really enjoy and that have become pretty popular. Blogs like Get Rich Slowly, The Simple Dollar, I Will Teach You To Be Rich and Consumerism Commentary all come to mind. Then I go back to the very first post that they ever did. From that point on I just start reading forward. I really like to see what various bloggers wrote about when they first started. I love the writing style at the beginning and watching it progress as you follow through all the posts. You’ll notice that they become much better at getting their points across and they really start to find their voice. You can also really start to get an idea, based on the comments, about what topics worked for them and what stances they took on the topic. If you really want to become successful as a blogger, it’s a good idea to use these popular blogs as a blueprint. If you model your blog after the ones that have managed to become successful, your chances are that much better of making something of yourself.

Another tip that I recommend when that dreaded writer’s block hits is that you look at bigger blog’s popular posts. Most blogs tend to have some section that lists off their most popular posts. They do this because they want to provide a place so that first time visitors know where to start. Scan through all the popular posts that they’ve written. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking that topic and making it your own. I don’t condone stealing their idea and their point of view and rewording it but I see no harm in taking the topic and elaborating off of it. If you use your own unique blogging voice and put your own spin and opinions on the topic, you are basically elaborating off the original writer’s ideas. In fact, link back to the site that you received the idea from in your post and not only will the original poster have no problem with you using their topic, they will probably even appreciate it.

Hopefully these little suggestions help others that find themselves in the position that I constantly find myself in. Writer’s block is frustrating but there are a lot of blogs out there that have been doing this for years and years now. Somehow they always managed to keep their blog going. I am hoping that, one day, my blog is one of those that people are going back through the archives of because they want to gain the amount of success that I’ve gained.

-M

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