5 Ways to Refuel Your Blogging Efforts

Posted March 19th, 2010 / By Kiesha Easley in Persistance

Stop to refuel if you must, but don’t quit blogging!

At various points of any worthwhile endeavor I’ve ever undertaken I get this nagging feeling. It’s sneaky and creeps up on me when I least expect it. It’s as if someone is whispering in my ear, probing me, asking questions, and spreading negative thoughts such as “what’s the point?” “you’re not going to make it…” “just quit…” “who really cares anyway…?”

Depending on how overwhelmed I am feeling at the moment, I may even entertain the thought for a few moments and then my stubborn resolve kicks in and talks some sense into me. Reminding me that I’ve come entirely too far to just quit, and the potential rewards are far too great to forfeit.

Have you ever felt this way about your blogging efforts? Do ever feel as if you’re running out of fuel to blog?

My advice is this, no matter what just don’t quit. Take a break and refuel if you must, but don’t give up. You never know when your day is going to come. Everyday puts you one more day closer to your goal. What if you were to quit today, and then you found out that the next day would’ve been your golden day?

What if the very next day after you closed all of your affiliate accounts was the very same day that all those visitors with those 90-day cookies returned to make purchases? What if the day after you shut down and deleted your blog was the day you discovered that several expensive requests for advertising on your site had been swirling around unread in your spam folder?

It’s these questions that give me the fuel I need to keep blogging. I can’t quit because I would always wonder what would have been if I had just kept on blogging. I’m certain that would drive me to insanity. So whenever I’m feeling a bit blogged-down (that’s way beyond being bogged-down) I find ways to refuel and re-engerize so that I can continue blogging.

Whenever you find yourself in this same rut, here’s what you can do:

• Brainstorm and research new issues brewing in your niche. Visit some forums and see what the recurring questions or problems are and consider new ways to solve them.
• Get ahead by writing at a time of day when you feel like writing and then write several posts at a time. It’s okay if they are imperfect, you can always go back and edit and add to them.
• Plan ahead. Decide on a sort of editorial plan for your week. It’s easier to write when you have a framing structure to go by. I try to divide up the various issues surrounding my niche and devote a separate day to each one so that I’m covering a variety of topics throughout the week. On most Mondays my readers can expect a link list post on WeBlogBetter and a post about marriage on Highly Favored. I wouldn’t be able to function if I didn’t know what type of post I needed to write ahead of time.
• Check your reader and review your subscriptions daily. I find that when I’m constantly reading other blogs related to my niche, it fuels my writing by providing me with a cue about what things I need to be writing about and which topics I need to stay away from. If I see too many bloggers writing on the same topics, if I can find an angle that hasn’t already been beaten to death, I avoid those topics altogether.
• Take a break. Take a day off. Take a nap. Take a load off. When I find that I’m stressed out, it really affects my ability to write effectively. I can’t concentrate and I often just end up procrastinating for hours anyway. Don’t force yourself to write, most likely what you’ll produce will be crap anyway. (or maybe that’s just me…)

Do what you need to keep going – you’ll thank yourself for it in the long run.

Kiesha is the author of WeBlogBetter and Christian Blog: Highly Favored. She’s a writing instructor, writer/editor, and blog consultant for small business owners. If you’d like to know more, read her extended bio. Connect with her on Twitter and subscribe to Weblogbetter for blogging tips & tricks.