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September 11, 2014

When you don't feel like writing

by Donna Huber

When you blog 5 days a week, even if you don't actually write all 5 posts, it is time consuming and some days you just don't want to write. So what do you do? There are a few options.

1. Don't post

Unless blogging is your job and you are required to post, you can always decide not to post. There are some downsides to missing a post. One, regular posting keeps traffic high. If you only post once or twice a week a missed post can mean a drop in visitors. You can combat this by promoting past posts more. Posts go live 5 days a week at Girl Who Reads, Monday through Friday. A missed post may not be a big deal, unless it was a Monday or Friday causing no posts for a 3 day period. Two, one missed post may lead to another missed post and before you know it you are no longer blogging. While you are always able to choose to stop blogging and then restarting at some later date, any momentum and following you have gained may be lost (particularly if it is a long absence).

2. Reblog

Take an older post, update it a bit and repost it. If you have a Wordpress blog and are on Triberr you might have people in your tribes that allow reblogging of their posts. This way you get new content without having to write it and the other blogger gets a little extra exposure. Do make sure that proper credit is provided on the post.

3. Promo or Meme post

There are bookish memes for each day of the week. It's Monday! What are you reading?, Teaser Tuesdays, Waiting on Wednesday, Third Sentence Thursdays, Five Friday Favorites... You can see many more for each day of the week here: Book Blog Meme Directory. If a meme is still too much writing, then go for a promo post. It could be a book in your to be read pile or maybe a book you are looking forward to. It could also be a list. Check out Amazon and Goodreads for popular books by genre.

4. Write about what people should do when they don't feel like writing

Truth time! I didn't feel like writing a post for today. Since I haven't been signing up for tours as often due the hassle of dealing with some of them or the lack of decent content, I don't have as many guest bloggers. So that means to continue posting 5 days a week I have to come up with more content. Thankfully with an interviewer, a features writer, and a staff reviewer I do have several days this month covered. But that still leaves a lot of days for me. So as I sat down to write this post I thought about my options. Since Thursdays are tips days I was pretty much left with option 1, 2 and 4. I debated option 1, but I really hate not to post. I kind of did option 2 as I have written variations of this post before. It isn't completely option 2 as I did not go back and pull an older post but wrote this from scratch. But option 4 is a great option even if you don't normally do tips. Everyone deals with writers block and no time for blogging and seeing how you handle it can be valuable to other bloggers.


1 comments:

  1. Thanks Donna. I agree 100% with your first comment. if you don't have anything interesting to say, don't post, is what I'd say. I know we're often advised to put out posts every day to make sure we keep up our profile, but to my mind there's an awful lots of stuff out there that is a waste of time. I'm less inclined to visit blogs that put out lots and lots of stuff.

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