A monthly zine prompt to spark creativity.
Other zine writer/publisher resources I found this week:
Think of a fanzine you might have written. (Maybe you even did write one). After all the issues, the community you may have found, the new things you learned as you published about your favourite TV show, celebrity, type of fruit, grocery store chain, etc. How would you finish it all, a final goodbye?
I thought this was such a great creative writing idea. Writing sort of a eulogy for your creative passion once its wound down. Maybe you ran out of things to say. Maybe you got tired of it. Maybe your opinion about the whole thing changed. Maybe it got to be too expensive. There are lots of reasons a small, self publication, a fanzine, would close down. Would that be part of your final issue, or would you leave it for people to guess at? Leave them wanting more?
You might make a final grand statement, an epic summary of everything you have found and learned. I think I'd try to do that then change my mind when I couldn't make it short enough, or be sure I hadn't forgotten something and then want to write another final issue.
Of course, if you've never written a fanzine this could be your one and only. The one and only fanzine about wilted lettuce... giraffes... bicycle lanes... the evolution of Sunday shopping... there really is no end to the range of ideas and topics. They don't even have to take themselves very seriously.
Keeping a site up and running isn't light work. Writing, scheduling, promoting, proofreading, maintaining, updating, replying, publishing... all of that takes time and energy. Bloggers get burnt out trying to keep up with it.
What can you do to avoid burning out while still being productive with fresh inspiration to go on creating more?
If all else fails, reconsider your topic. Maybe you just don't have a blog niche which really suits you? Make a list of the things you really do love to read about, find out about and above all - what do you like to DO? Chances are something you are actively participating in will be a much better topic than something you watch from the sidelines.
Write Something Different: Interview Troubleshooting - problems with solutions Profile someone or something Quiz or polls Personal stories Quotes Conversations Explain decisions Answer questions Thank someone Round ups Goals Update old posts Q & A Follow up Checklists Trends Controversial Live blogging - report on an event Life streaming - report on yourself Video posts Promotional - talk about your ebook, etc Contests Ask questions of your readers FAQ (Frequently asked questions) Top ten list Podcast Review Editorial Rant Critique Special reports Post in a series, linked together Cheat sheet Infographic Hand drawn post Web comic Art journal Jokes Webinar Repost a discussion held on Twitter Debate Curated links Collaboration (trade posts with another blogger). Historical Future predictions Shopping ideas How-to Seasonal On this day... Whatever happened to... Tutorial Images with minimal text Advice column Hypothetical (What if...) Satire Inspirational/ motivational News Definitions of words/ jargon Directory of links Join in on a meme, blog fair or other project
Stop writing everything like a standard blog post. Look at other formats. If you run WordPress make note of the formats available in the toolbar menu to the right.
Get out of your same old post rut and try something new.
Work on scheduling too. Put together a few posts ahead of time and schedule them to be posted in the days ahead. This way you can actually take a few days off from your daily blogging grind. Do something else. (Besides blog stuff - there is a whole world out there, offline).
Do you always write in the same place, at the same time, with the same tools? Why not make a change, something simple which will give you a fresh perspective, fresh scenery and people to watch.
I especially like writing in a coffee shop. I find a window seat and let myself procrastinate for awhile with a good latte. Once I stop trying to write it becomes easier to think of things to write about.
Another great discovery is the local transit system. For the cost of a few dollars I can spend an hour on the bus (it doesn't really matter where I'm going) and let my mind drift. I keep pens and paper in my purse or backpack and make notes with ideas as I get them.
Write outdoors too. Put yourself under the open sky with all sorts of room to breathe, relax and wander. Just being outside never fails to lighten my mood.
Unclutter your mind. It's funny how much easier it is for new thoughts to seep in once you have given them some space. Sleep (That thing you close your eyes for). People who keep blogs work for themselves, set their own hours and can have the most demanding boss. Themselves.
How many times have you stayed up late to proofread a post? How many times have you worked through lunch to put in time posting on Twitter? How many times have you not taken a day off in an entire week? What job has such poor hours, unless it is also someone self-employed?
Go to bed. Take a weekend off. Take a vacation and really stop blogging. Don't check email. Don't write a few lines to Facebook or Twitter. Don't do anything... except maybe jot down a note or two when you get a great idea you can work on tomorrow when you're done with your day off blogging.
Remember When all this Seemed Fun? I began blogging because I loved it.
In time that gets forgotten buried and lost. There are so many demands we put on ourselves. So many things others tell us we should do if we care about marketing, traffic, SEO, readers, comments, guest posts, advertising, monetizing and the list goes on. It's all pressure. A lot of it is just plain peer pressure.
Consider this... why do you read a blog (other than your own?) In some cases you may be looking for news and information and nothing more. But, even then, why do you choose one blog over another?
Something sparks your interest, beyond the text content. Most likely the blogs which get and keep interest from their readers are the blogs which have some spark of life, a sense of fun or at least of not being anti-fun, all work and a real chore.
Put fun back into your own blog and your work there.
Do you still love your blog topic? If not, what can you change about it to make it interesting and fun for you again?
Is there a new niche you would love to know more about yourself, something relevant to your topic? Something you just haven't taken the time to find out about or dive into?
A stale blog can't be fun to write. Bring something fresh to your blog and to your time and energy spent on it. Don't be afraid to boldly renovate and go forth in a new direction. Better to make progress in a new way than to burn yourself out and have nothing at all left to say and no real desire to say anything.
No matter what we tell others or deny to ourselves, we all want to be one of the popular people. One of those blogs which seem to have endless faithful readers. One of those blogs people are commenting on almost as soon as a fresh post is published. One of those blogs you know everyone will link to, refer to and praise as being so great, wonderful and fabulous.
But, how do you get from here to there? How do you become one of the popular bloggers?
It isn't something anyone or everyone can do. A lot of it takes personality - if you are introverted the social part with be hard for you. Still, there's nothing keeping you from trying and seeing how close you can get to reaching your lofty goal. Don't get discouraged. Not everyone can find fame and fortune. You may get to the point where you find your plateau and realize you are happy right there. Goals should never be so rigid you can't change them to suit yourself. They are after all, your goals, for you.
Getting a site off the ground takes time. Even if your site is a few years old but you have not been active in the niche community of your site, you are going to need to give yourself time to find your feet and build those social connections.
Take a weekend sabbatical because you shouldn't push yourself so much that you burn out too soon. But, don't give up too easily. If you take more than a weekend off you will lose momentum. Treat blogging like a job with a regular work day. Once you have done your 9 to 5 take the rest of the day off and keep your weekends free.
Pick a niche and stick with it.
You may fear not having enough to write about. So, take paper and pen and brainstorm a list of ideas in your niche. Give yourself an hour or jot down notes over the day as you go along. How many ideas did you get? Review them and see which are not as relevant, which are related to your niche and which are just what you want to write about. A niche can be flexible. Consider seasonal posts which are still relevant content but have a seasonal spin.
A niche does not have to be restrictive. But, it may seem that way if you don't have enough knowledge or really love the topic, theme or niche. Over the long haul you need both knowledge, resources and passion to sustain a blog. You also need the focus to keep on topic so readers will know what to expect and come back for more. If you stray too far out of your niche too often you lose credibility and that nice predictability readers are looking for.
Having said that you really do need a great writing voice. Your own personality should shine through your words. Your own experiences, opinions and ideas will engage readers and make them feel they are connected to a real person. You need to become your niche and don't be afraid to show some humour too. Think about the blogs you read versus those you just skim.
Engage readers and encourage comments.
Remember you are writing to people. Think about others as you write. Ask them questions, encourage them to give feedback. Leave open ended posts where readers have something to add rather than just the bland, good post, I agree, sort of comments. Stir things up in some way to give people a reason to leave you a note.
When someone does comment follow up on it. Find out who they are, check their own blogs (if they have one) and find them on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and so on. You can choose to follow them or not. Don't automatically follow everyone. Be sincere in who you follow and stick to people you have a reason to want to get to know or find out about.
Get writing and then make sure your posts are easy to find on your site. Promote your own links to relevant and related content on your posts. In the sidebar you can gets lists of your most popular posts, most commented on posts and even your posts from a year (or years) ago. Give people more to read and they won't read one post and move on so quickly. Also, you are showing your own knowledge and authority in your niche.
Don't forget tags and categories. These are a great way to build an index to the content on your site. Tags can cover more ground, smaller and more focused topics. Categories should be limited to the main ideas you want to write about. Think of categories as a table of contents in a non-fiction book. While tags are more like the big index in the back. Both categories and tags, and the search you should also use, give readers the ability to find more of your related content.
Make sure readers can follow you and repost your links too.
There are a large variety of widgets you can add to your blog for social media sharing and getting followers. What's a great way to get someone to follow you back? Let them know you followed them and why you did. Everyone likes to know you actually followed them for a reason (other than wanting to beef up your own numbers). Plus, people who have a lot of followers usually don't notice the addition of someone new. So announcing yourself, in a positive way, is a great way to get followed back and likely get your blog noticed too.
Get to know other bloggers and those who work for other sites and social media.
This is not easy for me. I'm very much an introvert and I like not being too social. However, if you set yourself the goal of becoming a big fish you need to be a joiner and keep your accounts active. Not just Twitter, the odd repost to Tumblr or StumbleUpon. You need to jump right in there with both feet and become a social butterfly.
Build up your small talk skills. Learn more about the art of conversation. Even though the medium is not face to face your sincerity will show through. So work on becoming socially skilled and do your best to shine.
Of course, there is the other extreme, the troll. Know where the limits fall. Don't become the person who has to have something to say about everything, always has to make their opinion known and makes everything about themselves. If you find yourself taking over too many conversations in the forums step back and take a full day off. Decide to not even read a few of the forum threads. Set limits you (and others) can live with.
Not everyone will want to try things like blog fairs, carnivals, memes and such. But, these are a great way to break the ice and meet your fellow bloggers.
If there is a particular blogger or group you want to notice you, write a review of their site and talk about what they do and what you like about them. Share the link via social media.
Guest blogging gets a lot of mention but I'm not wild about it. As a blogger I tend to get awful posts in the name of guest blogging. People ask me for space on my site before knowing (or caring) what I post about. I have had amazingly terrible submissions. Never accept a guest blogging post unless it really works for your niche and you actually think your readers will want to have the information or the point of view the guest blogger is promoting. Of course, check any links they want you to post. Check them at the HTML level to be sure you aren't getting more than you expected.
As someone trying to find a place to guest blog... it isn't easy. Most bloggers have not had great experiences with guest blogging. Many won't even read requests because so many of them are useless. So, you have a real up hill battle to get your foot in the door and even be heard. Start by leaving comments (good comments) in the blog you want to guest blog for. Get noticed for something you are doing right and then, when you do have your foot in the door, suggest writing a post for them.
An alternative to guest blogging is to write for networks. They do seem to be disappearing but HubPages and others which are still pretty new, are still around. Get your feet wet, create a profile you can link to with good posts. Build up a readership and direct them to your own site as a source for extra information and more resources.
Both guest blogging and network blogging will give you links to your own site from an outside source. As you write more posts on outside sources you will be giving yourself a nice selection of links back to your site and the search bots (and actual human readers) will find you.
Today when you talk about personal websites what do you first think about?
Not so long ago people would think a personal website was a page (or a full site) they built on a free web host service like Geocities, Tripod, AOL or their own space on the ISP (Internet Service Provider) they were paying to connect to the Internet. Geocities was one of the best places to have a personal site then. There were good options and features and you could be part of a large community or the bigger community of all of Geocities too.
Not much point in talking about it now. Geocities is gone. Bought by Yahoo and later closed down. As for the rest, they are mostly full of abandoned personal websites. If you search you can find them. But, it's like wandering around the ruins of a ghost town now.
Your personal website can be anything: a blog, an online journal, a photo blog, a podcast, a wiki community or your own hand-made HTML site. Once you have an idea for the site, the next thing is to choose your media - the method to your madness. Build your web empire, but decide on how it will be constructed and where.
Have you ever run your own site? Yes, a personal blog. Yes, an online journal. Yes, a photo blog Yes, a podcast. Yes, a microblog. Yes, a wiki community. No, but I'd like to. No. I don't want a personal site. No, I don't want a web presence.
Of course, you can build your own site, from scratch using HTML, without using a service like Geocities to give you a start and some basic elements to cut and paste. Most people rush into starting a blog, rather than working with the nuts and bolts of HTML and creating a site. But, it is a great experience. You will learn a lot and feel pretty good about having built something. Your personal site can be as simple or complicated as you want to make it.
Pick up a book about HTML, CSS and PHP code, or something simpler for the personal web site creator. Once you get the hang of it, creating a personal site is really empowering and you really do get the feeling of being active and a real part of the online community - not quite an expert geek but for sure qualified to be among the geeky realm.
Of course, you aren't alone among the code with nothing but a blank Notepad in front of you. There is very good software which can get you started and help you figure out what goes where. Most of the site building software will show you a version of your site as you work on it. Microsoft has recently made their Web Expressions software free. Pick up the Design software too so you can create your own images/ graphics for your site too.
I know almost no one will go this route when creating their personal web presence. It has lost popularity due to the quick and easy methods of just putting up a blog, but there really is nothing else like it.
A personal site doesn't have to be extravagant. This is my personal domain, thatgrrl.ca. I used to have more on this site, but now it is an index to my other sites as my mighty web empire grew.
LiveJournal has done a better job of hanging on than most of the other old personal web places. It began as a site for online journals/ diaries (back before people were calling them blogs). You can still create a site there, free. Or buy more features, options and space for your site if you want them. LiveJournal has a good community, a good taxonomy if you want to find people by their interests, hobbies, careers, etc. Even after all these years, I would still suggest LiveJournal as a good place to begin your personal site and start dipping into social media.
I don't use LiveJournal a lot, but I have a personal account which you can see as an example.
Blogger was one of the first and simplest places to run a personal blog site from. Google bought it at one point. For awhile it seemed to be sink or swim, but someone took notice of it again and began updating it, giving it new features and allowing people to use the Blogger software as a CMS to run their site on their own domain even. You might find yourself on a Blogger site and not even know it. They have broken out of the original restricted design. But, you can still see traces of it, especially when you comment on a Blogger site (if you don't have a Blogger/ Google account yourself).
Blogger is still free and you can do a lot with creating a site and using social media. I would suggest Blogger first to someone who wants to start their first personal site. The instructions for getting started are very good. The service is well supported by the company and the community. You can easily find WordPress fanatics who will put Blogger down (taking it too far) but the fact is, you can run Blogger and it is still fairly simple to make custom changes to your template (theme) and the code itself if you want to add features or change the look and workings of your site.Don't rush into being an elisties snob about Blogger, it is a really good starting place for a personal website. A free Blogger.com site will give you more flexibility than a free WordPress.com site.
Note: If you pay someone for a custom blog (Blogger) template, make sure you are paying for more than just a background and header image. A lot of people offer services as a blog designer for Blogger. Not all of them are selling original creations you couldn't just do yourself, for no cost at all. However, if you really don't want to DIY, try Etsy as a starting place to find blog designers.
Another option for creating your own personal website, is a wiki. A lot of people have not heard of wikis, but they will know Wikipedia. Did you ever wonder about the name? Wikipedia is intended as an online encyclopaedia But, a personal wiki is about your own topic focus and the resources you can bring or find. However, you do not work and maintain a wiki alone, it's a community effort.
A wiki is like creating a mega site about a chosen topic. Often a personal hobby, interest or something you know a lot about and want to share your knowledge and resources with the online community. The idea is to gather others to add their own content, resources and knowledge too. If you want to get deep into a topic and find others who share your interest, starting a wiki is a good choice. A wiki has many branches of information stemming from an index - it will also be searchable.
However, you will have to use social media and online promotion to bring people in to find your wiki site. (Not so different from any other site, but people seem to think once they build it other people will just come, show up magically). it can happen, but that takes a lot of time and you could get feeling pretty lonesome and discouraged before they find you.
WikiWikiWeb - Where the wiki originated.
Then there are the tumblog sort of sites. Tumblog is another word for microblogs. These are not meant to be full service sites. Instead the focus is on short entries to the site and using social media to share your entries, photos, text, quotes, etc. I like Tumblr and Twitter, but there are a lot of them out there. If you choose Tumblr the only downside I have ever found is the change they made to commenting on Tumblr sites.
Whatever their reasoning you can't comment without using extra, outside software. The site owner (that would be you) sets it up. Not a tricky thing to do, but I've never understood why it was changed. Anyway, the focus of a microblog is shortness, brevity and sharing content. If you don't want a personal diary sort of site - just quick updates and keeping up with friends, consider a microblog.
You may not think of Twitter as a blog or personal site. It's become very fast paced, more like a forum than a site. But, Twitter is a microblog. A very successful microblogging and social media site. You can find me on Twitter.
Get started Using Twitter.
Next up, photo sharing. You may not want to write much at all. If so, take a look at Flickr. You can post your photos, illustrations and videos too. Free, up to a set limit, or get a paid account and post as many photos as you like. I use Flickr because I like the groups. You can upload your own photos, add descriptions, give them a title beyond the one the camera spits out with them - then look for people on Flickr.
It is amazing how many communities/ groups there are on Flickr. You can find a group started for anything you can imagine. If you can't find a group, you may just need to search again with a different phrase, because everything under the sun is at Flickr. However, Yahoo took over Flickr, made changes people didn't like and a lot of people abandoned their accounts. Some are back, some are not as active, some have left groups started and not maintained. But, Flickr is not a ghost town. I'm there myself.
Another clever and creative way to use a photo site, like Flickr, is to make and show off an art journal. All your own art can be scanned (or take a photograph of it) to create an image file. Then the image can be loaded to your photo blog. You can create your own art gallery with your personal creations and a commentary about each of them.
Get started using Flickr.
Podcasting is another way to create your personal presence online. Instead of images, podcasting is all about sound. You may have some images loaded for eye candy, but the focus is on sharing your music or giving your own web radio show. You can create a podcast and have a live show, or store the files online and let people run them in whatever order (chronological or subject) they choose. BlogTalkRadio is one site which offers the set up for running your own live podcast.
I haven't done much podcasting. I listened to a friend who was a professional DJ and put on her own live radio show through a site for an online game, Kingdom of Loathing. Also, I assisted Bev Walton-Porter with finding guests for her live show. I was a guest on one show too.
If you are interested in creating a live show, the world is your oyster. Get out there and do it.
Content Curation Something a little new still is a merge between photo sharing and social media, content curation. The important thing with using content curation is to remember you want to keep the links you share looking like something someone else will read. Don't shortcut and leave extra text, use an image which doesn't match the content and don't scrimp on writing a little description or note of some kind.
A content curation site, like Scoop.it, gives you a lot of social media focus. If this is really what you want, to build yourself up in Twitter, Facebook and the other social communities, content curation is the highway on your path. Don't forget, content curation is very visual - often it is the image which people will 'read', even before the headline. Once you create your quick post to the link you have chosen send notice to Twitter (my favourite) and the other social media sites where you will be building up followers due to your great links through content curation and you own personal ideas, thoughts, suggestions, research and knowledge on the topic you are focusing on.
Originally published on HubPages. Laura has been writing online since 1996. Her first content was sold to a print zine. She is a solo publisher of her own sites.