I think I may be a lost cause. My day job is with Automattic, the company behind the WordPress.com software that I and millions of others use for blogging. I am doing a great job at not working while I’m on vacation: I turned off Slack and email notifications on my phone, ensuring I don’t look at work stuff.
However, I can’t seem to keep myself from blogging.
My husband and I visited family down in Florida for Christmas, and while we are here, he and I took a two-day sailing course: ASA 101, Basic Keelboat Sailing. On day two, our instructor, Captain Sara, encouraged us to keep logs of all of our time on the water. We asked what to log, and she said “Anything! ‘Winds were calm, heard a loon, ran out of gas.’”
Being a writer, I got very excited about the prospect of a log. I even have a new navy blue WordPress Moleskine to use for it. As I wrote out my first entry in ink on a page, the blogger in me kicked in, and I thought “If I blog this, maybe it will help other new sailors.” Plus it will be searchable when I try to remember something years from now and I can’t recall which log book it’s in or what year it happened.
So I created sail.andreabadgley.blog, my online boating log. Most of the entries will likely be sailing, but my husband and kids are building a canoe, so maybe I’ll log those voyages as well. And when I go to my folks’ house in Georgia and go out in their power boat, I’ll ask my dad to teach me some things I never did myself growing up — like docking the boat — and I’ll log those as well. As it will be log entries, and since we won’t be in sailing season when we return home, it won’t be the most exciting blog, but if you’re into boating, I’d love to hang out with you there.
Also, I’m now a certified sailor! Not that that means anything to real sailors, but it’s pretty fun to have passed all the practical tests and the written one as well. The only thing I missed was the difference between a Genoa and a jib (a Genoa is a large jib used for light winds).
I have another blog. It’s called Andrea Reads America, and it chronicles my reading tour of the United States. Until yesterday, I had abandoned it.
I didn’t like spending time there anymore. The blog’s theme was outdated, the look was stale, and the thought of overhauling the site overwhelmed me. I finished reading the state of Iowa in March — five months ago — but I felt so blah about Andrea Reads America‘s look, I didn’t even want to visit the site, much less write for it. I was uninspired to publish an Iowa writeup.
Which means I also stopped my reading project.
It’s funny how invisible obstacles build up in your psyche like that. I wasn’t conscious of the fact that my site’s look blocked me from continuing my reading tour of the US. But as the Iowa book summaries gathered dust in my composition book, without making progress towards the keyboard and the screen, I wandered away from reading America.
I’ve read a couple of excellent books in the interim — it has not been a complete loss to have abandoned the project. But after finishing a few good books outside of Andrea Reads America, I started wandering aimlessly in my reading. I’ve become indecisive about selecting novels. I’ll pick something up, and put it down. Pick something else up, put it down.
A couple of days ago, I started missing my reading project. I needed direction. And after reading a few sailing books, I longed for land: for the prairies of the central US.
I didn’t feel good about starting with Kansas while the Iowa writeup still lingered, though. And I didn’t feel good about publishing the Iowa writeup with my site looking the way it did. So Friday night, I finally overhauled Andrea Reads America. I gave it a new theme, Libretto.
It’s simple. I like it.
Yesterday, after giving Andrea Reads America a makeover, I took my laptop and my dusty notes to my chair under the dogwood tree, and I unblocked myself. I wrote my Iowa post.
And now? I’m on the prairies, reading Kansas.
Also of note: I discovered when I was writing the Iowa post that we have wifi under the tree!
Mobile is the future of the web. Some folks live on the Internet exclusively through their mobile devices these days, and more are getting comfortable checking email, browsing for restaurants, and consuming content on their tablets and phones than ever before.
So of course, I figured I should get on board too. I like to set challenges for myself to keep blogging fun and new, and to inspire me to keep publishing. My newest blogging project is to publish exclusively from the mobile WordPress app for one month. I started on the train to the airport in Vienna, and since then I’ve only been posting from my phone.
It’s an interesting experience. I’ve noticed I write differently depending on the device I’m using. Pen and paper feels contemplative and goes deeper into my imagination or psyche. On the laptop, I write more businessy type posts. In fact, if I want to write about career or work, I don’t use paper at all – I go straight for the keyboard. Creative writing requires ink.
Mobile writing is immediate. I can take it anywhere. Right now I sit alone in the car in the aquatic center parking lot on an early Sunday morning. Rain dribbles down the windshield, Justin Bieber is on the radio, and I feel an immense satisfaction from the tapping sound of my phone keyboard. I’m pretty proud because for years I have been a single finger typer on my phone. As of three days into this project, though, I transitioned to turning my phone sideways so I can use my thumbs, and I can now use both hands.
It’s the small victories.
Posts published via mobile will be tagged wponthego.
You don’t need this post. You’re an awesome blogger, right? You post exciting content every day and you never ever run out of ideas, amiright?
Yeah. Me neither.
Days go by, and then weeks. You think about how good posting would feel: to write, to publish, to get those likes and comments. But you don’t actually do anything about it. The longer your blog sits there, the more pressure you feel to make your next post AWESOME. Which of course means you now have writer’s block, because really, who can write under the pressure of having to write something amazing? So you don’t post. Your visitors leave. Your views dry up. You feel like a terrible blogger and you go cry in a corner.
Your blog doesn’t have to sit empty
When I started working full time, I no longer had time or focus for my blog. I stopped publishing regularly. My views and followers dwindled. I felt bad about myself for neglecting the blog I had grown to love, and that helped me find my career path with WordPress.com.
Abandoning my blog was not okay with me. So I tried to figure out what was keeping me from blogging. I determined that I had two blockers: time and topics.
During my blogging drought, I’d think “I don’t have time for my blog anymore,” or if I made time, I’d sit down with my pen and paper only to be blocked by, “I don’t have anything interesting to say.” So I came up with a way to make time, and I devised a tool that ensured I’d never run out of topics
Time
I was a once member of a weekly writing group. We did what’s called “free-writes”: we’d set a timer, write for 10 minutes without lifting our pens from the page, and when the timer dinged, we put our pens down and read what we wrote.
To make time in my life for blogging, I iterated on the idea of the free-write and decided to carve 10 minutes out of my day, every day, to write.
Use a timer to guide 10-minute free writes
Ten minutes is so little. You can do it after an early morning walk, when exercise has gotten your creative juices flowing. Or you can do it as soon as you wake, when you’re still in a dream state. Or you can do it on lunch, or with a cocktail. Or in bed at night when you realize, oh crap, I haven’t written yet today.
The main thing to remember is that ten minutes can be squeezed in anywhere in the day.
To REALLY make this work, here’s a pro-tip: Create a cue. Carve out a specific time of day and create a trigger for your writing time so that you will make a habit of it. Set an alarm for when you want to write, and give yourself a reward for following through. I give myself coffee to go with my writing time. Pairing a trigger, like an alarm, with a reward, like coffee, will help you build a habit of writing every day.
Carve out time every day for writing, and reward yourself for following through.
Topics
The ten-minute write takes care of the time issue, but what about topics? When I stopped blogging after starting my full time job, I found it difficult to begin posting again. The longer my blog sat inactive, the higher the wall of my writer’s block grew. Each time I thought about writing, I fretted: “But what will I write about?”
Again, I’ll turn to a writing group strategy. At our gatherings, we always placed a silver box filled with folded slips of paper in the middle of the table. At the beginning of each free write, one of us would pull a piece of paper from the box and read the words written on it aloud. We’d then write for ten minutes about whatever the prompt was.
Fill a box with writing ideas — a grab bag of topics
This same strategy works for blogging. To create a prompt box, snip a sheet of paper into about 30 slips. On each slip, write a word or phrase that has meaning to you. Examples of some of mine are marshmallows, reading on boats, and prairie grass. If you’re writing for a business site, you could seed your box with employee names, materials you use, or anything unique to your business or the way it operates.
Once you’ve written your prompts, fold the slips and place them in a box. Whenever you sit down to write, if you have nothing to say, pull a prompt out and start writing.
Start publishing
To overcome writer’s block and start publishing again, pair the ten-minute free write with the prompt box. During the time you’ve carved out for your writing, grab your timer and your box. Pull a prompt, write for ten minutes, and when the timer dings, stop writing.
You’re skeptical. You wonder, Does this really work? What about editing?
In April, I dedicated to publishing a 10-minute write every day for 30 days. Each morning, I poured a cup of coffee before my work day started, pulled a slip of paper from my prompt box, started a timer, and wrote until the timer dinged. I did a quick scan for spelling and punctuation errors, then scheduled the post to publish the following morning.
The scheduling delay allowed me to do extra editing if I wanted to, but I rarely did. Why didn’t I edit? Because during that month, I learned to live by the creed, Perfect is the enemy of Done.
Don’t let perfectionism be a blocker to publishing.
Publishing this way is liberating. Some posts will bomb, but some posts will take off more than you can anticipate. It’s like shooting 100 frames to get the right photograph: every shot isn’t going to be brilliant, but each click of the shutter helps you improve and sets you up for when a prime moment arrives for you to capture it; because you’ve been practicing, and because you’re ready, you’ll capture it beautifully.
Using the prompt box and the timer, I published every day in the month of April. My blog no longer sat empty and neglected. Visitors climbed 26%, and views increased 45% over the previous month, from 3700 in March to 5400 views in April. My blog was active again, and readers loved the spontaneity of it. In fact, they got involved by sending me prompts. When I wrote from a reader’s prompt, I gave credit and linked back to their site, helping build community.
Views climbed from 3700 in March to 5400 in April, when I published a 10-minute free write every day for a month.
Giving yourself meaningful topics to write about and then carving out the time to write will get you not only practicing, but will get you publishing again. It will make your blog active and will bring visitors to your site.
Starting is the hardest part. Once you start, the writer’s block wall will begin to crumble. By making a habit of writing, and by making sure you always have topics on hand, you’ll be able to reduce that wall to a pile of rubble that you can easily kick out of your way.
Now is the time to break down that writer’s block wall. Create a prompt box today.
How to get started? Right here, right now. Create a prompt box. Make a list of 20 things you love: chocolate, sausage, fonts, portraits.
When you are out in the world, whether eavesdropping in a coffee shop or observing people on park benches, make notes of objects or scenes that strike you. Record a voice memo on your phone or ink these ideas on your hand so you can remember them. When you return home, add those mementos to your prompt box.
Then? Write.
More ten-minute protips:
Write every day, but publish every other day. This gives your readers some breathing room, and it will allow you to stockpile posts for when you are on vacation or for those days when you don’t want to share what you’ve written.
To mix it up for your readers, keep some photos on hand. A compelling photograph with a well-written caption doesn’t require a long blog post and can take only minutes to craft.
Share a link to an online article you read, along with a quote or your own thoughts about the piece. Here is an example of this from Andrew Spittle, one from Luca Sartoni, and another from Matt Mullenweg.
WordCamp Europe is almost here! I fly out this afternoon — my first trip to Europe since before our kids were born, 13 years ago, when my husband and I travelled to France and Spain.
I’m kind of terrified. I don’t know the language, I haven’t prepared for travelling overseas at all, I’m speaking, and last night, as I printed my boarding passes, my husband asked, “Did you get a visa?”
Uhhhh. Do I need a visa?
My stomach turned and I raced to my laptop. No, I do not need a visa. But boy did that make me realize how I’ve been going non-stop right up until this trip. San Francisco for SupConf in late May, two weeks in Georgia and Florida to take our kids to see their grandparents (while I tried out digital nomadding) in early June, taking on a new role at work while on the road (I’m a team lead now!), and flying out this afternoon for WordCamp Europe. 😱
Despite my terror, I am so excited, y’all. Vienna! My former lead always talked about how amazing his Alpine water is in Vienna, so I can’t wait to test that out. And of course the city, and seeing so many colleagues, and Austria, and WORDCAMP EUROPE! Wow. I may have neglected the visa, but I did remember my camera.
I’m a reader – reading is possibly my favorite past time. But I have to admit that with my focus on reading instead of writing this year, I miss my composition books. I miss my blog.
A friend asked, “What about your 10 minutes per day?” when I told him my blog was sad and lonely. Those minutes are going to consuming instead of producing these days.
But today I’m up early (as always). It’s another snow day and everyone else is sleeping. A cat purrs at my knee, snow clicks against the window, and I hear the tappity-tap of my keyboard and the quiet tick of the clock.
The funny thing is that part of the reason I’m not writing is because everyone else is. January and February are our biggest months in support at WordPress.com as folks follow through on New Year’s resolutions to start blogging. I love that, that we see such a huge spike as people dedicate themselves to publishing online. It’s an extraordinarily busy time, though, and one that I don’t squeeze time in for my own writing.
This morning though, I did. I opted to write instead of emptying the dishwasher.
Another busy day is about to begin, but for now my world is still and silent. I wrote my Andrea Reads America post, and I dusted off this blog as well. It feels good to be here, if just for a moment.
I’m kind of terrified. I don’t know the language, I haven’t prepared for travelling overseas at all, 
Butterfly Mind 