27 Wacky Ways to Beat Writer’s Block
Let me guess…
You’re staring at the blank screen. Your brain is fried. You can feel a headache coming on.
You know you should be writing, but…
You can’t do this anymore. Your muse is gone. Your well of inspiration is empty. Finished. Stone-dry.
You’re not just bored or tired. No, no. This is far worse:
Writer’s block.
You try to stop your mind wandering off. You try to stop being distracted by your long to-do-list. You try to write, but you feel like everything you do manage to jot down is… well… terrible.
You know you have to keep going, but how? How can you get back into your writing groove?
The truth:
You need to have some fun.
Not take a break, not go for walk, not get some sleep. All of that is fine and good for a simple case of boredom, but the real cause of writer’s block is you’re holding on too tight.
You need to loosen up. You need to go a little crazy. You need to let the goofy side of you out for a little while and get your creative juices flowing again.
Here are 27 wacky ways to get you started:
read moreAn Open Letter to All the Bloggers Cluttering the Web with Forgettable Content
Have you ever gotten an email from a reader who said your writing changed their life?
How about other bloggers? Are they still talking about a particular post years after you published it?
Or is it the opposite?
Visitors just seem to come and go, never commenting, never linking, never sharing, just quickly scanning your posts and then moving on, forgetting about you forever.
If that’s the boat you’re in, I certainly sympathize, but brace yourself, because what I’m about to say will be painful:
You’re not trying hard enough.
Yes, I know those are impossibly high standards. Yes, I know it takes everyone time to learn their craft. Yes, I know there are only a few dozen bloggers in the world who can answer yes to both of those questions.
But if you’ve been blogging for a year or two, and you still can’t answer yes to either of them, then Houston, we have a problem.
Fortunately, it’s a problem we can fix. Let’s start by going back to where it all started.
read more58 Tips for Transforming Your Blog and Dazzling Your Readers
Let’s face it…
We’ve all been deceived.
Once upon a time, we looked at blogging and thought, “Oh, I can do that. Writing a few posts a week? Piece of cake.” From the outside, it looks so simple, so easy, so fun, and so we rushed off to start a blog of our own.
But then we get a rude awakening:
This stuff is complicated. Blogging isn’t so much about writing blog posts as juggling dozens of little odds and ends, all of them important, all of them demanding your attention, and all of them requiring you to learn something.
And it’s easy to drop the ball, so to speak, or even all of them. Not because you want to neglect anything, but because it’s too much to keep track of.
What you really need is a checklist of sorts – an itemized breakdown of everything you need to do to transform your blog and dazzle your readers. That way, you can stop trying to handle everything all at once and just go through it one step at a time.
So, that’s what I created for you. Here are 58 things you need to do, along with some links to help you learn how to do them well.
Enjoy. 
Suicide, Shame, and the Painful Truth about Accomplishing Your Goals
I was in agony.
Waves of pain unimaginable shot down my spine, causing every muscle in my body to contract as if I’d been shocked with 20,000 volts of electricity. My back arched up at an unnatural angle. My arms and legs began to shake.
One moment, I was on a webinar talking to a few hundred people about traffic, walking them through exactly how to build a popular blog. The next, everything went dark. I was still conscious, but just barely.
Underneath the layers of pain, I remember thinking, “You can’t pass out. You have to finish talking about how to build an email list.” Of course, the pain was so bad I’d forgotten how to freaking see, much less pontificate on the intricacies of opt in pages.
So, I stopped. I waited a few seconds. My vision slowly returned, and I was able to wiggle the mouse up to the “Mute” button again.
For the next several minutes, I just sat there, quivering and trying to catch my breath as waves of pain continued up and down my spine. Eventually, the pain receded somewhat, and I wiggled the mouse back up to the “Mute” button again.
“Sorry folks,” I said. “Looks like GoToWebinar is having some technical difficulties. Can everyone hear me now?”
They said they could. We finished the webinar. Immediately afterward, I went to bed and stayed there for the next 16 hours.
And the worst part?
It was a normal day. I’d nearly collapsed on several webinars, not just that one. You might’ve even been on one of them.
Part of me worried if I was about to die. Another part hoped I would, just to be free of the pain.
I was at the end of my rope. One way or another, things were about to change.
Hold on, though. Let’s back up a bit.
read moreThe Brad Pitt School of Blogging Superstardom
This is a guest post by Johnny B. Truant. Johnny is offering a great deal right now for anyone who hasn’t yet launched their blog or is looking to start a new one: Until November 30th, Johnny will set up your blog for free.
Let me ask you a question…
Do you think people would pay Brad Pitt $1,000 to fix a toilet?
Of course they would.
Because he’s Brad Pitt.
It doesn’t even matter if Brad knows how to fix a toilet. He’s Brad Freakin’ Pitt.
Thousands of people would pay simply to have him hang out in their bathrooms — and, honestly, probably break their toilets even further. They’d pay because Brad is famous, and fame makes us like people.
When we like people, we want to be around them… and then, if those likable people have products and services, we want to work with them and buy things from them.
read more5 Steps to Creating an Everlasting Gobstopper of Traffic
Wouldn’t that be awesome?
Traffic that never runs out, just as the fictional candy never ran out in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?
Too bad it’s impossible.
Or is it?
Well, consider the evidence:
It happened here with our illustrious Jon Morrow. It happened here with Jennifer Gresham. It happened here with Corbett Barr.
In fact, you’ll find examples of it all over the web. Most popular bloggers can point to a handful of posts that people never stop talking about, that never stop getting traffic, and that never stop bringing them new fans. Traffic shot up, and it never quite came back down.
And the really good news?
The same thing can happen to you. Let’s talk about how…
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