Writers Block and The Difficulties of Blogging

There are times when what I want to express does not form into words, which is very much unlike me if I look back at my journey through blogging. I'm noticing more so than ever that writers block is becoming a regular occurrence resulting in a lack the energy to write my thoughts on subjects of interest.

One blogs not just for others, but for themselves!

I sometimes question if a post is worth the time it takes to write as it might not even be of interest to anyone. This in itself is not the right attitude. One blogs not just for others, but most importantly for themselves! This is what I have to keep telling myself during times of self doubt. I have always had the opinion that if I manage to help just one person from one of my posts, then it's truly a job well done!

Every blogger has a process they go through before publishing a post. I have the problem of just wanting to get a post out as quickly as humanly possible just to see the end result, to the detriment of quality. Over the last few years, this small site of mine has gained traction from both readers and search engines (the stats speak for themselves) and it is during this time I constantly fight to reign myself in to ensure the content I put out is up to the mark. Maybe I am putting too much pressure on focusing on the numbers (Google Analytics, Adsense, etc) than words.

I look at my blogging heroes like Scott Hanselman, Troy Hunt, Mosh Hamedani and Iris Classon (to name a few) and at times ponder if I will have the ability to churn out great posts on a regular basis with such ease and critical acclaim as they do. Do they even experience writers block? What is their writing process?

As for my process, it’s changed somewhat. Writing has become more of a special event rather than on an ad-hoc basis, where I now schedule time within the comfort of my new office setup (still need to blog about that!) a couple of times weekly to write and plan future posts. In addition, before getting into the nitty-gritty detail, I’ve learnt to create a skeletal structure first to outline a posts milestones. I’ve ended up doing this across the initial stages of many posts, as I gather my thought processes.

The new approach has also made writing less daunting and more manageable as I am not just focusing all my efforts on producing a single post alone. I literally have an Evernote notebook created specifically with a collection of post ideas. Some bear fruit, some don’t.

I like to end this post on a positive note. The upside of this situation is I know deep down writing is a release for me and it’s not something I could ever grow tired of. Yes, it can be frustrating at times, but I will continue to write when I can and even more so when I can’t. It’ll show progress and how far I’ve come.