Curing the Bored Blogging Blues

Whether you are blogging for yourself or you blog for others as a living, there’s one road bump which every writer will hit: boredom. When a blog is not interesting to write, it becomes a desperate chore and one that many would rather avoid. Blogging at the best of times takes time, creativity and work; when you’re bored of what you’re writing on, it becomes a very specialized form of torture.
The reader can tell. One of the things I’ve told new writers (in all genres and types) is that if you’re not interested in what you’re writing, the reader won’t be either. If you blog for others, you’ll certainly have times where you don’t particularly care about what you’re writing, but you can push past it using a bit of creativity. However, if you keep writing until you’re completely sick of it, the quality you turn out will be poor and you’ll be unhappy.
So, how can you overcome the bored blogger blues?

Change Your Focus

As a writer myself, I often get stuck doing the same topic for weeks, sometimes months on end and believe you me, no amount of creative thinking can make that any easier! Changing focus at that point works so well that I immediately snap back to life and my writing improves multi-fold. What can you take away from this? Do the same thing! If you’ve been writing on one topic for a while and you’re bored of it, change your focus, start a new blog and write on something brand new. Then when you get bored of that, go back to your first topics.
This isn’t as crazy as it looks. Not only will you refresh, but giving the constant stream of content a rest gives your readers and the search engines a chance to catch up.

Take a Break

Stop writing; you’re making us look bad!
If the boredom blues are setting in, take a break. In fact, take a break before the boredom sets in. It can be anything from a few minutes to a couple of hours. Socialize, grab something to eat, read a book or go for a long walk. (Doing something physical works really well for me personally). Do something completely different from writing and then you can get back to it feeling reasonably refreshed. If you have a hard time tearing yourself away from your work, schedule a break. For example, if I know I’m in for a long haul, I make sure to break up my day; work for an hour or so, do something completely else for a couple of hours, and then get back to it. And I always make sure I go for a walk somewhere every day.

Be the Sponge

Good pro-bloggers (and writers of any kind for that matter) will tell you that they get their inspiration from a myriad of places and that means getting out in the world! Read online magazines, read books, read other blogs, catch up on the news and chat with other people. All of these things can become great fodder for your blogs. And if you’re interested, your writing will be interesting and readers will like it. The best way to do that is to give your blogs the personal touch of experience.
You can set up alerts through Google to let you know when new things are written about your topics or just stuff you’re interested in. Take the time every morning to read through it, let it ferment and come up with ideas from that. Discuss your ideas with others and see what they think about it. Not only will this give you good story fodder, but it’s also a great way to socialize, something which all bloggers can definitely benefit from doing more of!

Get Physical

As writers, we spend a lot of time sitting around reading and writing and thinking. And hey, we’re good at it! But it’s also a good way to get stuck with health problems, feelings of lethargy, and difficulty writing more. This is why it’s important to get out regularly and do something purely physical. Go for a walk or a hike, go for a run, hit the gym, play some sports or do something that uses the rest of your muscles. Not only will you refresh your mind, but you can also stave off the common problems of writers such as obesity.
The boredom blues hit every writer and blogger at some point, but they can be surpassed. These tips are all great ways to do just that. Beat the blogger blues and get back to writing!
Speaking of fitness, I do have another blog just for that, and you can visit it here for some great tips in exercise and dieting:  http://attitudeequalsperformance.blogspot.com/