Writers block?

Chris Brogan gave Bryce from A Bite of Sanity some advice on how to stay interested in blogging. I visited Bryce's blog. I have to say, Bryce is quite prolific. I wonder if he was being sincere when he asked Chris for his advice. Maybe he was just handing Chris a good topic to write about.

From my read of Bryce's blog, if he was looking for inspiration, my question would be, "Are you suffering from OIO?" (Overwhelming Information Overload) Occasionally, one has to give one's mind a rest. Let your head stop spinning for a moment. Allow yourself to get your focus back.

Secondly, I would ask, "Are your expectations for blogging too high?" If you have unrealistic goals for yourself, you could be sending your brain into writers block.

How do you stay inspired about blogging? Remember what Chris said about blogging is a relationship with your readers. Don't all relationships have an ebb and flow? It could be you have fallen out of the honeymoon phase. You could be in the "once appealing characteristics are now annoying characteristics" phase. You could be in the "we have been together so long its boring" phase. Once you identify the phase of the relationship you are in, you can decide where to pull your inspiration from. You might need to list all the things that are irritating you about blogging. A purging of your soul, if you will. You might need to make your blog interesting to you. If you are bored, your readers will be too.

I think I have "Dr. Phil'd" you long enough. These are my thoughts as an outsider looking in.

clipped from chrisbrogan.com Keeping the Blogging Fires Burning Bryce from A Bite of Sanity asked me about how one might continue to care about blogging once the fires have dimmed a bit. I’m not sure of Bryce’s specific circumstances, but I will tell you about how I keep up such a prolific schedule of blogging and give you some tips on how to keep it moving. Write for Your Audience Writers are Readers Keep a Text File of Topics See What Mainstream Magazines Do If It’s Because You’re Feeling Unheard Keeping it Burning For Me

So you want to start a blog

Courtney Tuttle gives detailed description of how to blog

clipped from courtneytuttle.com clipped from courtneytuttle.com 5,263 Words On Starting A Profitable Blog clipped from courtneytuttle.com I want people to be able to get started after reading a single article, and there is no such article that I know of. This is the most thorough article on this subject I have seen anywhere on the internet. Where I Would Start If I had to start my entire business from scratch right now, I would start a blog. (I actually did start this blog recently, although I already have some profitable websites.) Why I Would Recommend Starting A Blog Instead Of An E-commerce Site (or any other type of site) Another reason I would start with a blog is that your blog will do some of your marketing for you. The program that I’m going to tell you to use will automatically alert some blog search engines when you post a new entry. These blog search engines will create links for you, and people will be able to find your site. The more you post, the more exposure you will get with the blog search engines.

31 Days to becoming a better blogger

Action item list!

clipped from northxeast.com Make the next month your best blogging month yet — one day at a time. Day 1. Write a better ‘About’ page. Day 2. Start using more images in your posts. Day 3. Write a week’s worth of posts in advance. Day 4. De-clutter your sidebar. Day 5. Highlight your most popular posts. Day 6. Start making friends on a social media service like Digg or StumbleUpon. Day 7. Pitch a guest-post idea at the most popular blog in your niche. Day 8. Craft a great resource-list. Day 9. Offer a free service to your readers (without expecting anything in return). Day 10. Pitch a link to one of your blog posts to three other blogs in your niche. Day 11. Add social media links to the bottom of your posts and to your feed. Day 12. Participate in the comments on one of your own blog posts. Day 13. Work out an editorial calendar for your blog. Day 14. Prune your feed subscriptions. Day 15. Write a 10-page report or mini eBook. Day 16. Try adding a new income stream to your blog. Day 17. Think up 20 post ideas you can use.

The power of blogging

lawyers....they think they can keep things contained...they underestimated the power of blogging in this case

clipped from www.massively.com Lawyers representing gold farmers threaten Lum the Mad by Michael Zenke Feb 15th 2008 @ 10:30AM Late last month Scott "Lum the Mad" Jennings put up a post on his well-known MMOG blog site about an ongoing legal battle. It involves former IGE (yeah, the gold farmers) CEO Brock Pierce and co-founder of the company Alan Debonneville. Lum's excellent post, which quotes heavily from the lawsuit documents unearthed by the site Virtually Blind, does little more than sum up the case in one location. Not only have we been following the case along with the VB site, but numerous others have as well. harshly worded note has prompted responses from other MMOGbloggers, such as these posts from Ryan Shwayder and Matt Mihaly. Perhaps Pierce's team should have considered the impact before they asked Lum to take down his post about the lawsuit. This one, over here on his site. The one about the IGE vs. Hernandez suit. His post concerning Brock Pierce and Alan Debonneville. This post right here.

Creating Good Content

clipped from www.doshdosh.com What is Good Content? A Working Definition and Some General Principles Every successful blogger recommends the same thing: Create great content and learn how to market it. The whole crux of the matter lies with the notion of good content: What exactly is it? And if it’s so important, how do you create ‘good content’? Let’s examine this idea of content quality in this article. For all its lauded benefits, I’ve not yet seen a working definition for it. Can we crack the content code and determine some general rules or guidelines for its development? After some thought, I’ve made a list of three general principles on content quality, alongside a definition of what I consider to be good content. Principle #1: Content Quality is Subjective Principle #2: Content Quality is Comparatively Determined Principle #3: There Are Guidelines to Determine Content Quality Creating a Goal-Oriented Definition of ‘Good Content’

Isn't that what clipmarks is for?

perhaps I missed the point

clipped from rohitbhargava.typepad.com IdeaBar: Statlicious & Quotelicious The main problem with del.icio.us is that most of the content for a particular link lies behind a click.  While the tags describing content are often strong, the description that people enter is usually not as useful. The end result is that you follow a link, but then are forced to scan the entire text of the page to find the one small piece that you were looking for.  The two situations this has become most evident for me is when I was seeking a stat or a quote.  Both situations are essentially a search for a single relevant line of text, instead of a full page of material.  So this leads me to the idea for this edition of IdeaBar ... what if there was a version of a tool like del.icio.us just for stats and quotes?  People would still save links for original source material, but the text of the quote or stat would be included automatically in the description.  The keywords would also describe the context of each quote or stat, making it easy to find.

Does emotional state effect blogging?

interesting conclusion from Caroline Middlebrook

clipped from www.caroline-middlebrook.com The ‘Secret’ To Successful Blogging? January 31, 2008 Posted under: Blogging by Caroline Middlebrook In the middle of November I split up with my partner of 10 years (not my choice) and at first I was devastated. I could barely function. I’ve already blogged about this so I wont go over it all again but the effect it had on the blog is that all through the latter part of November and the whole of December I just blogged in maintenance mode. I didn’t do any real work on any of my projects. I read my emails, responded to comments and managed to find a few affiliate programs to promote but I was basically blogging by the seat of my pants day by day and it showed in the numbers! In January it started to change. I got back to work, I released my ebook and I started blogging in a way that was more in tune with my usual self and again, this has been reflected in the subscriber numbers! The growth of my subscribers has been an almost perfect reflection of my personal state of mind.

Blog email listserve

clipped from www.blognanny.com BLOG-L: What it is There are lots of blogs about blogging, but I didn't find much in the way of email discussion lists on the subject. Since email discussion lists have certain advantages over blogs for quickly accessing the collective wisdom of a large number of people, it seemed like a good idea to create one for blogging, so I did. BLOG-L is an email discussion list about blogs and blogging.  Email messages addressed to the list are received by all subscribers to the list. Subscription is free. BLOG-L's mission is to provide a quick and easy way to share information about blogs and blogging. Subscribe to BLOG-L Email: Visit this group

Define success for your blog

clipped from www.problogger.net From 0 to 2000+ Subscribers in 120 Days I often get asked how I did it, and I decided to compile this article as a record of my experience with hope that others might benefit from what I’ve learned. I want to show you that it is possible to achieve your blogging goals starting from scratch, using my case as a live example. I’ve learned that there are no real secrets to blogging success, all it really takes is a deep desire to do so, along with an urge to action. I have three important reasons why my blog has been successful: Concrete Goals & Focus - You can’t get what you want if you don’t know what you want. Content Creation - Where I spend most of my time. Content and understanding your audience is king. Getting the Word Out - Actionable tasks I did to market my blog. All are easily reproducible by anyone. But only focus on this after area 2 have been in place. Without content, all your marketing efforts will be ineffective.

23 Questions for Prospective Bloggers

clipped from www.problogger.net Please note that these questions are in essence a list of qualities of successful bloggers that I’ve come across over the last few years. If you don’t have some of these qualities it’s not the end of your blogging dreams. The list is idealistic and the questions are there to help potential bloggers enter into blogging with open eyes and making good decisions about whether a blog is right for them. It also might help potential bloggers to think about what type of blog they might start and what type of skills they might need to develop: Without further ado - here’s my 23 questions: Do you enjoy writing? What’s your Message? Are you a good communicator? Are you better at writing or speaking? Do you want to be the central voice on your website? Are you a self starter? Are you disciplined? Do you have time? Are you thick skinned? Are you willing to be in the public spotlight? Do you have any technical ability? Do you enjoy reading? Are you willing to work hard?