I am ashamed to say that this is my first blog post that I have written this month! I went on an unplanned hiatus from blogging because life became too busy and this truly affected my ability to be creative. When I did find myself at a computer, with ample opportunity to write, my creativity would not spark.
My good friend Carly, over at Charlotte’s Web, wrote a blog post that inspired me so much today about doing absolutely nothing! I have had a very busy summer, between friends’ weddings, my own wedding plans, work and play! Carly writes about the importance of taking time out of our hectic schedules to sit back and do nothing. She too writes about having “interruptions” that blocked her creativity. I truly relate to what she says because often I come up with great blog post ideas and I make a quick note in my phone to remind myself to write about that particular idea or topic. Unfortunately, that has yet to happen this month.
Sometimes it feels like I’m trying to pull inspiration out of thin air, forcing myself to be creative and to think outside of the box. The harder I try, the more of a struggle it seems to become. Herein lies the double edged sword of writing: being creative can be so effortless when the inspiration is ignited, when there is no inspiration the mental block is extremely frustrating and difficult to overcome.
Some ways that I get my brain moving include:
- Read blogs of writers whom I admire and whose writing inspires me
- Look up the headlines from newspapers online
- Check out the trending topics on Twitter (this sounds a bit odd, but Twitter has some substance to it in terms of being able to spread news like wildfire)
- Have conversations with people about important topics (of course, our daily chatter is wonderful but there is something truly inspiring about having a conversation with someone about what is going on in the world)
- Read a book
- Go for a walk/exercise (my mind goes all over the place when I’m exercising)
It just takes one idea!
A huge thank you to Carly for being the one to inspire me to create the Merzybean blog, as well as for inspiring this post! I dedicate this to you.
With love,
Merzybean.
You just made my Monday
Thanks so much for the shout out Merz! I think part of the thing with blogging is that you feel pressured to write. Sometimes this is a great thing, other times not so much. I know I feel guilty when I don’t have the time to put into my blog. But I just have to remind myself that’s life. You showed me another reason today why blogging is so rewarding. Not only can we share inspiration and ideas, but we connect and relate to one another in the best and worst of times.
Here are a couple of my favourite sites for sparking blog post ideas:
30 Day Creativity Project: http://abundance-blog.marelisa-online.com/2011/10/09/30-day-creativity-project/
119 Journal Prompts: http://daringtolivefully.com/journal-prompts
My pleasure
I think you hit the nail on the head, there really is an underlying pressure to keep up with a blog that we put on ourselves. You truly inspire me and I agree, blogging is rewarding and this is another thing to remember when the creativity isn’t looking so great. It’ll come to us!
Thanks for sharing the sites, I’m sure they’ll help out during one of my infamous dry spells!