Ask Mandy Q&A: Ways to Beat Writer’s Block

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We’ve all been there. We have an article to write and we just stare at a blank Word doc or Google doc. It’s like we’ve been slammed against the wall and are all out of ideas.

This happened to me recently, so I thought it was a good topic to write about –

How to beat writer’s block.

You can google this and get thousands of articles with ideas of how to get past this roadblock. I have learned that sometimes this takes a while. It’s not always immediate not matter what people say.

Writer’s block stops even the best writers on the planet. We will all have this happen to us at some point – the idea train stops or we just come up with nothing.

Here are some ways to get past writer’s block that have worked for me, and hopefully they will work for you as well:

Take a break.

Sometimes getting up and walking away is best. Go outside and take a walk, turn off the computer and read a book, just walk away for the day and come back to it tomorrow. Our brains need rest and taking that rest allows us to have time to brainstorm and daydream.

Keep a journal of working titles.

I get blog ideas at the randomest of times. It could be in the carpool line at school or walking down the aisle at the grocery store. I keep working titles in a Google doc so when I can’t think of something to write, I go to that and look over what I’ve saved. That has helped me many times.

Plan out topics.

If you sit and plan out topics for each month, you have a starting point for that particular month. For example, August could be about how to market to moms buying for back to school, September could be about prepping for the holiday season, October you can give examples of creative holiday marketing ideas. You get the point. Planning out a topic for each month (or quarter) gives you an overall general idea of what to write that month.

Read other articles.

I love to read. I’ll read various article and bookmark them for reference to a blog post idea I got while reading it. The more you read, the more you’ll start thinking about what’s going on and I guarantee you will come up with something from that. Jenn Hanford recently wrote on the blog about some websites to visit when you find yourself with writer’s block. Two of them I use – LinkedIn and Triberr. Google Plus is good as well.

Hopefully you won’t be stumbling over writer’s block for too long. What other ways do you get past it? Please share with us below!

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