Thursday, August 8, 2019

What Do You Do When You Can't Find a Topic You Want to Write About?



When I decided to once again participate in Blaugust, I started making a list of topics that I could write about during the month.  Those ideas were meant to be a backup for the times I couldn't find a topic for my daily writing.  I have only used one of the topics since we started and that was because I felt the time was right for that topic.  However, today I am finding myself topicless...and I'm just not feeling the topics on my backup list.  So what do I do now?

It's strange that I don't have a topic for today.  I usually don't have any problem picking something.  During the day, I stumble on an idea that percolates in my brain until I'm ready to sit down and write the day's post.  Not Today!!!  I'm wondering if I'm just discouraged, because I'm not getting much traffic on my blog or maybe I'm just not into writing today.

I know that I don't necessarily fit what most of the Blaugust participants are writing about.  My intention is to focus on topics of aging and technology most of the time.  My goal is to write every day in August, and it's a challenge that I enjoy!  So I'll just count today as one of those days we all encounter when we hit the wall or just aren't in the mood.  I'll be kind to myself and just try again tomorrow, but I'm open to any suggestions my fellow bloggers might have for these type of days.  What do you do when you can't find a topic you want to write about?

Have you found your tech joy today?

#Blaugust2019

3 comments:

  1. Outside of Blaugust, I'd just let it sit a day or two.

    During Blaugust -- or outside, but I thought it had been carrying on too long -- I'd likely do a post exactly like this one.

    Acknowledging the problem or the feeling you're having I've found to be crucial in getting past it and carrying on. Even though I've only been back at this for 6 months now, I've had to do this to get past the feelings going on around the Christchurch (NZ) shootings.

    Stats can be a cruel master though if you let them. I'd be a huge liar to say I don't view them or consider them important. I do. But the best advice I think I can give here is to make them at most secondary to all else.

    Do this blogging thing because you enjoy the writing, or that you enjoy and value creating your own personal journal of your tech discoveries and what they mean to you.

    Finding a 'Why' for blogging that isn't stats orientated I think is super key in carrying on over the long term. At least this is absolutely true for me.

    If you're finding though that the content itself is not as engaging to you, personally, as it once was, and that's a state that drags on a while, maybe even consider broadening the scope of what you let yourself talk about here. :)

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  2. Thanks a lot, Naithin! I haven’t felt encumbered by a topic. I love the writing process so I’m just going to concentrate on that. I appreciate your comments.

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  3. Stats are the bane of blogging. For the first few years I used to watch mine closely and read all kinds of things into them. Then, with an ironic twist, I started to get huge incursions from bots which spiked my stats from an average monthly pageview of around 15-20k to somewhere in the 60k region.

    That never really settled down, although these days the bot spikes are fewer and further between and the numbers are lower. It did, however, have the glorious effect of making me disregard those stats entirely. I can't trust them so I no longer pay any attention to them.

    Now I just read the monthly Google analytics report, which seems fairly accurate. That tells me I have about 1k-1.5k unique visitors a month, which seems like a solid number to me. Based on return visits maybe a third of those are regular readers. After eight years, I feel I know what and who my readership is and I do now bear that in mind when posting, although the blog is still my personal platform and I write whatever I want to write.

    I think many non-pro bloggers, those who do it for fun or as a hobby, not for a living, would say that the most important "stat" is the comments you get. For personal satisfaction, nothing beats a lengthy discussion among a number of readers in response to something I've posted.

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