Blogging – What To Do When You Get Writer’s Block

June 3, 2015 / in Blogging / by Jason Terry

Post author: Jason Terry

Ok, I can’t believe it’s June already.  Where did May go?

I was sitting down to write this week’s blog post and realized I didn’t have an amazing, interesting, earth-shattering story to tell. Not having something to talk about is actually fairly rare for me… there’s usually a lot going on in my world personally and professionally, and when it’s my turn to write a blog post, there’s a story I want to share.

(We help companies form a blogging team so that no one person is responsible for the blog posts every week… it can be overwhelming. Mic and I take turns every other week writing the Blue Gurus blog posts.)

But today I was experiencing writer’s block. So I do what I normally do in this situation and stopped to think about what’s happened in my life over the last couple of weeks.

Here are some of the thoughts that went through my head:

1) My wife Trista and I went to Mic and Missy’s Prairie Village Art Fair party on Saturday.

It’s an annual event that’s always fun. Great food, clients and friends. And I forgot to take pictures. Dang it!

Networking events, charity events and more are great things to blog about.

2) We launched a redesigned homepage for Blue Gurus with client testimonials and added a few new websites to our portfolio pages.

We’ve got more work to do on the portfolio and services pages, so I better not mention that until it’s ready for prime time.

Giving an update on your team or spotlighting some great work you’ve done for a client is “blogworthy”. (Yep, just made that up.)

3) Trista and I recently celebrated her ability to put up with me over five years of marriage. 

I thought about sharing that our anniversary was May 22nd, but I’ve already gotten a lot of “congrats” through email and Facebook. Oh, and I’m not sure you want to read about how much I love my wife. Sappy.

I think it’s important to share important personal events in your blogging. Getting married? Baby on the way? Fun family trip? Go for it.

4) I took a picture of myself experiencing writer’s block. And noticed the LEGO in the background.

I thought of writing about why people young and old love building with LEGO. I was going to try to tie that to the fact that you should blog about the things you’re passionate about. So I tried to have Trista take a picture of me holding my LEGO Tower Bridge and we just couldn’t get a good shot. Back to square one.

Sometimes, all you have to do is look around your office. See that sports memorabilia on the wall? Or that award you got? Write about it.

5) The sermon Scott Chrostek gave at Church of the Resurrection this weekend was about God and baseball.

I’m not a huge baseball fan, but the sermon was moving. There were a couple of quotes that stuck in my brain. George F. Will said, “Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona.” And Wes Westrum said, “Baseball is like church: many attend, but few understand.”

But after considering telling that story, I realized that it’s definitely one of those things you need to be careful talking about… religion and politics. When done right, it can be a powerful message, but it’s prudent to be cautious about going there.

And then I realized…

And then I realized that talking about how I come up with content every other week for our blog might be helpful. Was it?

When I write, I want to challenge you. I want to make you laugh. I want to educate you. I want to encourage you. I want to inspire you.

And this week, I hope you laughed at the picture of me struggling to come up with a good blog post, and learned a little more about what’s going on in my world.

That’s really the point of blogging, right? To allow the people that you’re closest with feel like they just had a conversation with you.

And now you’re all caught up and my blog post for this week is done.  Yay!