Have you ever had a great idea for a blog come to mind that you just can’t wait to write? I’ve had quite a few that have come to mind myself. One problem I will run into at times is that even though I have a great idea, I just can’t quite find the words to use. When I first started writing, my most common approach was to just about bang my head against the wall until I found the words. These days, when the exact words don’t come to mind, there are a couple of approaches I’ve found that have helped considerably.
Too often in the past I’ve found myself struggling to get a blog article written, merely because I couldn’t get the opening figured out. Because of that, oftentimes what I do now is skip the opening. Same as when I’m preparing a speech or presentation, I’ll oftentimes jump to the body of the content and skip the opening. I can at least then get the core of the topic out of my mind and on to paper (yeah, on to paper, I’m old school), and then come back to the opening and closing. By getting that core portion of the article started and on paper, it often seems like the opening almost starts to write itself – and then that leads into the closing.
Other times when I’m writing an article, even though I know the general gist of what I want to talk about, the exact words just don’t come to me. When I’m in those situations, I often just sit and brainstorm. What’s brainstorming? Just simply start writing something – anything – about the article and see what words come out. Any and all words that have some connection to my subject are good at this point. I might scrap all of them; I might keep a few. I might do this a few times over and over in a sort of “lather, rinse, repeat” fashion. For me, the trick is to just start writing. The article will find its way out.
Coming up with blog ideas isn’t very difficult. All of the questions, problems, and other things we see each day are great topics to write about. Truth be told, getting the words to come out can be a problem sometimes. Starting with the main content portion or the article and simple starting to write can sometimes help the words magically appear.
