Another question nobody asks me is "Red, where do you get your ideas?"
That's not because I (sort of) answered the question way back in 2013 when I participated in the Newbie Blogger Initiative (NBI), but because it's not something that anybody ever asks these days. The presumption is that you have a method for coming up with ideas, because otherwise you'd not be blogging in the first place.
Well, I'm here to tell you that it's not true.
You might not start out with an idea problem, but sooner or later your pile of writing ideas will dry up, and you're staring at the blank page, saying "Now what?"
If you come up with a foolproof method for generating ideas, let me tell you that you could sell that and make a ton of money, because everybody hits dry spots when they can't come up with something new. Even my own method of jotting down whatever comes to mind into a text file or a notepad doesn't help when the ideas are obsolete a short time later.
So, what do you do?
Well, this is a gaming blog, so that means you do two things: play games and read other blogs.
Playing games for inspiration isn't exactly new territory here, but perhaps trying something new, or out of your comfort zone, will result in a few ideas. Or maybe you end up in a particularly memorable instance run. Or, to turn things on their head, you have a completely boring and predictable run; why was it so boring and predictable, and what kept you from dropping from that "boring and predictable" run? Or have you been reading Gen Chat, and watching the conflagration of lunacy over petty topics? Now is your chance to get the entire thing off of your chest.
That last idea leads into the other big source of ideas: other blogs. Those fellow gamer blogs aren't going to all mimic your own; people have different opinions than yours, can you can't tell me that those opinions won't clash to an extent that you'll want to write a "YOU'RE WRONG!!" post.*
Even if you do agree, explaining why you do is worth a post. Or perhaps the post inspires you to delve down a similar matter and approach things from a different angle.
So there are plenty of potential posts out there, you just have to be open to finding them.
Or, if worse comes to worst, have a pic of a cat in a box.
Not what you expected, is it?
#Blapril2020
*Hopefully nicer than that.
That's not because I (sort of) answered the question way back in 2013 when I participated in the Newbie Blogger Initiative (NBI), but because it's not something that anybody ever asks these days. The presumption is that you have a method for coming up with ideas, because otherwise you'd not be blogging in the first place.
Well, I'm here to tell you that it's not true.
You might not start out with an idea problem, but sooner or later your pile of writing ideas will dry up, and you're staring at the blank page, saying "Now what?"
If you come up with a foolproof method for generating ideas, let me tell you that you could sell that and make a ton of money, because everybody hits dry spots when they can't come up with something new. Even my own method of jotting down whatever comes to mind into a text file or a notepad doesn't help when the ideas are obsolete a short time later.
So, what do you do?
Well, this is a gaming blog, so that means you do two things: play games and read other blogs.
Playing games for inspiration isn't exactly new territory here, but perhaps trying something new, or out of your comfort zone, will result in a few ideas. Or maybe you end up in a particularly memorable instance run. Or, to turn things on their head, you have a completely boring and predictable run; why was it so boring and predictable, and what kept you from dropping from that "boring and predictable" run? Or have you been reading Gen Chat, and watching the conflagration of lunacy over petty topics? Now is your chance to get the entire thing off of your chest.
That last idea leads into the other big source of ideas: other blogs. Those fellow gamer blogs aren't going to all mimic your own; people have different opinions than yours, can you can't tell me that those opinions won't clash to an extent that you'll want to write a "YOU'RE WRONG!!" post.*
 |
| Yes, I'm old enough to remember when Saturday Night Live --and Dana Carvey-- spoofed the PBS political show The McLaughlin Group. (From Gfycat.) |
***
So there are plenty of potential posts out there, you just have to be open to finding them.
Or, if worse comes to worst, have a pic of a cat in a box.
 |
| From ohmagif.com, ~2014. |
#Blapril2020
*Hopefully nicer than that.
I pretty much never run out of ideas for posts. As you say, just playing games and reading other blogs generates all the ideas I'm ever likely to need. At times (this is one of them) I have the mirror image of the blank page problem: I have more ideas for posts than I have time to write them. Also, I have become quite wary of posting more than once a day, particularly during things like Blapril/Blaugust. I know I'm already strugling to read all the posts in my Feedly and blog roll right now and I'm aware that if I want anything I post to get looked at I need to give it space to breathe. I have two days of pre-written posts banked, which is very unusual for me, and just today I've noticed two more things I'd pop up a short post on in normal times, but I'm holding off to give the post I already published this morning some time to get traction.
ReplyDeleteThis is a fairly extreme example but in all the time I've been blogging, honestly I have had a lot more times like this than times when I couldn't think of anything to write. I think the real reason for that is that my primary hobby is writing rather than gaming so it feels more normal to me to be writing than not writing.
I was about to ask about when you run into writer's block, but I guess if you've got a ton of posts banked you're not going to run into those issues.
DeleteOne problem I've struggled with over the years is that I used to compose at the typewriter --like you, I'm that old-- and try not to have to edit another draft. Saves on paper, but it means I'm frequently attempting to make the perfect sentence the first time rather than simply letting my brain take a dump on the page. I've gotten better at it over the years, but especially when writing descriptions I run into issues.