Inspiration for a joyful and creative life

How can you keep your writing fun and creative?

How can you keep your writing fresh, creative, and fun?

Sometimes it can be tough to have a blog or ezine and figure out what to write on a regular basis.

Create Regular Features or Categories

One thing that helped me with my ezine is to come up with some regular features or categories.

For example with my ezine, each month I write a featured article about living your dream and keeping inspired, a quote of the month with comments, a resource or two a month, and a Dear Sally column from clients and subscribers where I answer questions and give some suggestions.

For this blog, I’m going to play with some categories like Living Your Dream, The Art of Everyday Living, Creative Ideas and Brainstorming, Marketing Masters with ideas and tips for your business, and Nurturing Your Soul.

Use an Acronym

My sister is starting a home and organizing blog and we talked about ideas for her using an acronym of HOME, with each letter standing for a category.  That was a very helpful way to come up with some fun categories that will help stimulate ideas.

You can have a folder or pile or keep a journal and make a note of which category it fits.  It makes it easy to come across things and save them for later.

Find Pictures and Images that Speak to You

Find images that you are drawn to that spark some ideas.  Play with brainstorming anything that comes to you when looking at the image.

Tell A Friend – Resources

You know how natural it is to share with a friend something great you’ve found that you think they might like too?

Whether you realize it or not, you are constantly using and seeking resources for yourself, your business, and just for fun. The things you find that help you or that you enjoy might be things that your readers would like to know about.  These can be blogs, websites, services, people, businesses, books, places you go, things you buy, or music you like.

Random Thoughts

Of course, many people have random blogs about whatever is happening every day.  I suspect I won’t always have everything fit into a neat little category but it doesn’t really matter.  It is just a starting point that can be fluid and change as I go.

Please comment about how you like to come up with fresh material and ideas for your blog or ezine.
P.S. If your blog needs some help or if you are new to blogging and would like some advice about creating content or getting more readers, you may want to check out:

Blog Triage: Maintaining a Healthy Artist’s Blog

Next operation scheduled for August 19-September 16

with Alyson B. Stanfield, who writes a wonderful blog called ArtBizBlog for the last 5 years and resident blog doc Cynthia Morris . . .

During this month-long operation, you will take part in the following procedures:

* Healthy writing habits and content for great blog posts
* Blog cleanse: Fixing your About page, categories, sidebar, and more
* Visiting hours: How to get more blog readers
* Feedback: How to get more comments and be a better commenter
* Health maintenance: Create a blogging schedule, conduct regular checkups, balance your priorities

Hurry, there are only 30 spots!

If you could go anywhere you wanted, where would it be?

There is something wonderful about seeing the world and exploring new places.  It’s even better if someone else will pay for the trip!  One option for being paid to travel is to write about the experience.

You might assume that is too hard unless you have a lot of experience.  You may be surprised that there are some creative options that may not involve writing for a big travel magazine.  You may be able to write about the best galleries in London for an art magazine or the best shoe shops in Brazil for a fashion publication.  And you may have some insider knowledge about your own city or town that would be another way to earn money to go somewhere else.

One thing that I have found very helpful when I want to learn something new is to take a class, workshop, or seminar to find out what it’s all about and learn some of the tips and tricks along the way.

American Writers and Artists are holding a workshop in Denver next week for 3 days called the Ultimate Travel Writer’s Workshop.  They are also offering additional classes in food writing and photography, which are two more ways to travel and get paid for it!

If that is something that might interest you, click here for more information.