How you can beat the summer blogging blues

Last month I wrote a post about How to re-discover your passion for blogging that helped some of my readers to generate posts for their blogs. It’s a topic worth revisiting, however, especially during the summer, when the sunshine beckons and motivation to write can flag. Even if you choose to spend your time indoors, it’s easy to become distracted by e-mail, an interesting book, a craft project, online shopping or surfing, or just a general feeling that you want to do something else. You can beat the summer blogging blues by checking out the blogging inspiration links below, reading about better blogging practices, and learning how to blog effectively despite the lack of a standard routine.

Blogging Inspiration

Looking for more topics or ideas for your blog beyond the ones provided in How to re-discover your passion for blogging? No problem! Check out the following additional sources of inspiration:

• The Blog Post Ideas Generator (thanks to reader Lurie Austinser, who suggested this site)
• The Accidental Blog Post—How to Free Your Trapped Blog Content
• 10 Easy Blog Post Ideas to Fill Your Editorial Calendar
• 32 of the Most-Popular Blog-Post Ideas
• 9 Ways to Reclaim Your Breakthrough Content Ideas From Old Posts

Better Blogging Practices

Robert Lee Brewer’s eight-part series on better blogging practices began on June 22^nd and continues to the end of this month. Robert is the Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Community who writes for the online column There Are No Rules, blogs at Poetic Asides, and has a personal blog titled My Name is Not Bob. If this isn’t enough to pique your interest, his Writer’s Digest profile reads, “Robert Lee Brewer writes, reads, and makes babies.” So far this month, the better blogging series includes the following posts you’ll want to read:

• Create a Niche for Your Blog
• Craft an Editorial Calendar for Your Blog
• Put Blog Readers First
• Design Readable Blog Posts

Visit There Are No Rules for the remaining posts in this series.

Another site that provides links to building blocks of a good blog is CoSchedule, which tells its subscribers, “Each week, we strive to give you the Internet’s most actionable content marketing tips for writers, bloggers, and social media marketers.” Especially helpful is its post, How To Write A Blog Post: 5-Point Checklist To Rock The Perfect Post.

Blogging Without a Standard Routine

Is your blogging routine consistent? Do you have a routine? One practice that is useful for all types of bloggers is keeping a blogging planner and editorial calendar. I keep track of post ideas through a blogging planner, and then transfer tentative post titles via narrow sticky notes to an editorial calendar whose blocks are the same width as the notes. This allows me to change the date of the post, or to remove the post and substitute another. The blogging planner I use is from Productive Flourishing, designed by Charlie Gilkey. Each month he releases a new one for free, and you can get it by subscribing to the site. Visit Free Planners to download Charlie’s July Blog Post Planner and Blog Post Calendar, or whatever month of planners is shown, based on when you read this post.

You may find that the simpler the system is, the more likely you will be to use it. CoSchedule has some similar organizational tools in the form of an Ideas Worksheet and Calendar Worksheets that are uncomplicated and work well with a sticky note system. Visit Get Our Free Editorial Templates to download the Ideas Worksheet, Monthly Calendar Worksheet, and Annual Calendar Worksheet. You’ll need to enter your e-mail address, and CoSchedule will send you an e-book with the templates and instructions for how to use them.

What are some other strategies, besides a blogging planner and an editorial calendar, that you should keep in mind if you don’t have a standard routine for writing posts? In Tips for the Writer With No Routine, Erin Entrada Kelly points out, “Some of us are less organized, less tidy. As writers, we are as diverse as our stories.” She says that for her, she equates a rigid writing regimen with worry about the minutes that are ticking away, but when she has something to write (which is frequently), she simply dives in and gets the job done. Erin has some tips for writers who lack a standard routine:

• Keep writing, even if all you are doing is mulling ideas over in your head. That means keeping your senses open, always being aware of what’s going on around you.
• Always keep a notebook or journal on or near your person for when inspiration strikes.
• If you’re not writing, read. The two activities are interrelated and feed each other.
• Resist the urge to share your ideas with others before you’ve actually written them down. The best way to not write is to talk instead about your ideas.
• Figure out what works best for you, and stick to it. For every rule that’s out there for how to write, there’s a good reason to break it.

When the weather is nice, do you find yourself avoiding your blog? How do you cope?

© 2015 Judy Nolan. All rights reserved.