Writer's Block - 5 Breakthrough Ideas

Congratulations! You have begun your viral marketing campaign by writing and submitting articles that have been spread throughout the world through ezines, blogs, and other online publications as others picked up your articles and posted them on their own pages. Two or three times a week you sat down to write and hardly knew how much time had passed from the moment you began writing until you finished. The time went quickly and you remembered how much you enjoyed writing. The ideas flowed and there seemed to be no end to the number of thoughts you could put in print.

You watched your stats for each article, did a Google search for your own name and articles, and were excited by the results you found. Even your "expert" status gave you a high and made you feel good about this new venture you were on. And each day the adventure continued.

Then suddenly one day you sat down to write and nothing came to your mind or you started writing but your thoughts were disjointed and jumbled. The ticking of the clock was there to remind you that hours had passed and the piece of paper or the computer screen before you was half empty. In an effort to complete the article, panic set in and then there were no words, no ideas, no third point to support the main theme (and everyone knows you have to have at least three points to support your theme, don't they?).

If writer's block has stopped your article writing campaign in its tracks, choose one or more of these five ideas to break through the block and get your viral marketing efforts back on track.

Move away from the computer

If you have been sitting at your computer, staring at a blank screen, pulling your hair out to get a new idea to write about, get up and move a little. The mere movement away from your computer to get some blood flowing will help to jumpstart your creative juices. If you haven't come up with an idea to write about just by staring at the screen, continued staring will not change anything for you, except to give you a headache.

Read today's headlines or your favorite blog

By reading today's headlines or your favorite blog, your mind will reconnect with words and ideas again. It might take just one sentence or one article for your mind to come up with a new idea, but if you don't come up with a new idea after the first headline or the first blog, try, try again. If still nothing comes to your mind, at least you have kept up with the news and seeds have been planted in your brain that might surface hours or days later.

Read through your previous articles

Read through some of your own articles to find an article that was written from a broad angle and pick it apart to come up with more articles on narrower topics.

In a typical article, as you were taught in school, you probably made three points that supported your main point. You can write an article on one of these three points and support it with three more points that can be used in later articles, then these three points can be used in three more articles and so on. See where I'm going? Until you get down to the article that tells about the "molecular structure" of whatever your topic is, you can write articles for days based on solely on one of your previous articles.

Make a list of words

Start with just a list of words associated with your business or area of interest that could become the topic of your article. If your business is about decorating on a budget, list the rooms in your house or the techniques, such as paint, wallpaper, stenciling, etc., that can be used to spruce up your walls. Start with just words then move up to phrases as those come to mind.

From this list you can choose one of the words or topics and write an article about that, or you can choose one area, such as walls, and write a series of articles on the different ways to change the look of a room just by changing the walls.

Write a post for your blog

When you have an idea to work with, write a post for your blog. Most blogs are written in a less formal, conversational tone than that used for articles for publication; often you feel as though you are writing to a friend rather than to an audience. Choose a topic or word from the headlines, a previous article, or your list of words and phrases start and writing a short post to your blog.

After writing this less formal, probably smaller, article for your blog, use the main ideas therein to turn it into an article for submission. You can then direct your blog readers to the full article and ask them to rate the article, which will in turn boost your author status, which will likely boost your morale and thus your creativity.

As in Newton's 1st Law of Motion: a body at rest tends to stay at rest and a body in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. If the ideas you need to get your writing campaign back on track have come to a sudden stop, use one of these outside forces to get in motion again: move away from the computer, read today's headlines or your favorite blog, read through your previous articles, make a list of words and phrases, or write a post for your blog. You will find the words flowing from your fingertips in no time.