Blogger: Rachel Kent
I don’t know about you, but I struggle each week with finding a blog topic. I am lucky to only be responsible for one blog a week on the Books & Such page. I know many of you run your own blogs and you need to post multiple times each week. I’ve found a few methods that help me to come up with topics and maybe these will help you, too.
1) Watch on loops and in groups, like ACFW, a Facebook writing group, or your critique group, for common questions or concerns that other writers are having. Use these topics and questions to spark a post.
2) Get personal. Connect something in your life to publishing or to your books. A lot of readers would love to hear little details about their favorite authors so even if the personal story you are sharing doesn’t have much application to your story, it might still be a good idea to share it. (Just be careful to be safe with the details you are putting online.)
3) Read magazines to find articles about current events and respond to them in a way that connects to what you write about. Talk about the current event based on your worldview. That will usually overlap with your writing voice and style.
4) Think about what you do daily. Is there anything there that other people will connect with and enjoy reading about? What makes you interesting? As writers you are sure to have specific routines that you follow that other writers could be interested in. If you are a parent and a writer other writer parents might be interested to hear how you manage your days, etc.
5) Think about having a guest blogger, a contest, or blog a book review. You don’t want to have these too often because you want your blog to really be your own, but they are always good fillers for those days where you are swamped and can’t think of anything to write about.
What are some methods you use to find blog topics?
Is prayer a “method”? During my daily commute, I deliberately open my spirit to God’s direction. Oftentimes, we have immediate dialog on the words, a verse, the essence of the post. Sometimes it comes later, in a flash of recognition at a phrase overheard or an event that plays out in my presence. Rarely do I come up blank and wonder, “Oh Lord, what am I missing?”
I don’t blog about writing . . . for a lot of reasons. I would call my blog more inspirational. As such, I find my blog post ideas come from a number of different places. Oftentimes, something in a blog I’m reading will inspire me or make me think about things. I find blog ideas from real life events, and sometimes from our pastor’s sermons. Also, my blog topics sometimes come from a song or movie that makes me think. And from God’s word.
*I guess I just try to be open to what the Lord is saying to me about various things/events I encounter in my days.
Great thoughts, Rachel.
* One thing I’d suggest is to keep a file of ideas. I’ve been lucky in that I haven’t forgotten too many of what seemed to be good ideas, but I was depending on memory ‘hooks’ that I have learned to use. They aren’t always reliable – best to write it down!
* Being part of a key-word-themed group like Five Minute Friday is a big help, because it forces you to build the subject around the word (and in the case of FMF there’s a five-minute time limit. Visit http://www.katemotaung.com for more details
* Whatever you write, keep a consistent schedule, because it makes your readers feel that their diligence in reading and keeping up is matched by your diligence in writing, and caring about their presence. An “any old time” schedule is really more of a personal journal, and turns away deep engagement.
* And if anyone wants a topical theme, how about improving relations between Christians and Muslims, with respect paid to both groups? We share so much, and while there are very significant theological differences, there’s a common humanity that I would hope would let us extend a hand of friendship, and a heart of understanding and compassion.
When I started blogging about seven years ago I wondered how I’d think of enough things to write for a month. But I’ve blogged twice a week ever since and share my posts on Facebook. That’s where I get the most comments. Sometimes I review books for (or, rarely, about) kids and other times I blog about language and childhood. I seem to get the most comments who I talk about my own childhood memories.
Thanks for the post, Rachel. I’ve got a history site up at carolashby, and I’m just bringing up a more personal blog site at carol-ashby (1 week old today). That’s got me watching site stats on both my WordPress sites with Jetpack. I was very surprised to find this morning that I had 4 different viewers from Pakistan visit the history site last night. It will be fun to see if they come back.. I hope they decide to interact, too. They linked in from Facebook, but not mine. I don’t have my author Facebook up yet.
It’s too soon for me to see clear patterns on what gets viewed and what doesn’t, but I would think analyzing for the kind of topics that get lots of hits and the individual blogs that get lots of views could give insight into what type of blog topics are better for your own site. Does anyone here do that consistently? Does that guide what you pick for topics?