The Writer's Pulse

Image: felipe gabaldon

Pillar posts have become quite the cliche out there in the blogosphere, and they’re very easy to pick out: they’ll be relatively long, informative, and more often then not they’ll consist of numbered lists of useful tips or resources. Most of the time, a pillar post will extensively cover a solitary topic, explaining, in detail, how to go about doing something in particular.

But let’s face it: their main purpose is to drive traffic to your blog. Am I right? Read the rest of this entry »

Reviews have been pouring in for Stephen King’s latest novel, Under The Dome, and my sources tell me it’s already sold over ten bajillion copies.

As if that wasn’t enough, King also received a key to the city during “a sold-out event at the Van Wezel in Sarasota on Monday night.”

Under the Dome: A Novel is available now.

Many credit it for the fall of the newspaper business, but now publishers are turning to their arch-nemesis — the Internet — for a solution. Top of the list? Google.

“Google’s latest proposal entails expanded use of its Checkout product, which currently lets users shop across the Web but sign in in one place. Its newspaper platform would include a similar single sign-on where users could peruse content from different newspapers for one price.”

Other tech companies, such as Microsoft, IBM, and the new Journalism Online are also weighing in with possible remedies to save the crippled industry, but for now it’s unclear what the future of online news will be.

One thing’s for sure: any future pay-as-you-read plan, if successful, will drastically change the face of the Internet. And blogging.

The Online Competition to Save Newspapers – TIME

Tips are opinions. No matter how many blogs or magazines you read, the advice you get is never guaranteed to work for you, because we’re all different.

None of that stops people like me from posting opinions and tips, occasionally laced with fact, but I thought I’d take a moment to state the obvious: what works for me, or what I think might help you, is ultimately a shot in the dark. I try to help but I’m only human, you know?

All of that said (and now you’re wondering what my point is), here is my number one tip for anyone who comes up against writer’s block or, my latest discovery, Blogger’s block:

Turn off the television, log off the computer, and put down the writing advice book.

Clear your mind.

I’m not crazy. In fact, you’ve heard this before, but usually only as a preamble to entering the writing process. Don’t ignore it as a legitimate way of tackling writer’s block.

Think of it like this: over time, through work and over-exposure to the media and the fast, busy world in general, our minds get overloaded. Stressed out. Fragmented. When you hit a creative obstacle, many times it will be due to over-thinking. You sit down to write, but it’s difficult to concentrate and you have so much left to do and your mind begins to drift away. You’re stale and your imagination is blank, except for the images put there by the daily grind. So what do you do?

You stop.

Not only do you drop whatever you’re working on, but you take a break, however short, from watching the talking heads on the news, browsing the Internet, cramming your head full of writing advice and the habits of successful authors. You chill, you go for a walk, you relax. You take a vacation away from all of those distractions.

A million tech junkies and, let’s face it, modern human beings are screaming in horror at the thought of giving up the Internet. TV? Maybe. Self-help books? Sure, why not. But the Internet? I’ve got to check my e-mail and Twitter and Facebook and MySpace and BlogCatalog! Maybe buy some things on Amazon, send out some text messages, download a new iPhone app. And I’ve got blogs to read! Blogs!

That disclaimer at the top of this post is there for a reason: this advice clearly won’t work for everyone, and even if it did, most wouldn’t want to take it. Many couldn’t simply due to their careers.

The point here, however, is not to “give up” anything, but simply to leave it all for a day or two or however long it takes for your mind to defragment. An actual vacation, in fact, is the perfect opportunity to leave the Internet and television behind.

Clear out the clutter, drop whatever artistic endeavors you’ve been failing to accomplish, and allow yourself to reset, just as you’d defragment or restart a computer that has been doing too much and running too long.

This overworking of your mind (emotions included) can drain your creativity and suck your inspiration dry. Sure, it’s not always the cause of what we call writer’s block, but it’s worth a try to just take a break if you feel your writing is becoming forced, or if you can’t muster up the will to write at all.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Burma is the worst country in the world for bloggers:

The government, which shut down the Internet altogether during a popular uprising in 2007, has the capability to monitor e-mail and other communication methods and to block users from viewing Web sites of political opposition groups, according to OpenNet Initiative. At least two bloggers are now in prison. – 10 Worst Countries to be a Blogger

Other countries on the list include Iran, Cuba, and China.

This just highlights how lucky many of us are when it comes to sharing our thoughts, political or otherwise, on the Internet.

How do you feel about the list, and Internet censorship in general?