A Killer Way To Get Inspired For Blog Content
Sometimes finding things to write about on your blog can be hard. But there’s a lot of ways to overcome writer’s block, just like creative block or designer’s block, but my favorite doesn’t include listening to music, going for a walk or a drive, and it definitely is not to do with television or movies, or surfing the web aimlessly. I find my greatest inspiration for both design and writing from books. Not novels or creative writing either, but books on web development, the business of the web, information architecture, usability and web accessibility.
I like to write about anything to do with the Internet here. The Internet is more than just a hobby, it’s my job, and I can write about it all day. However, I do often get stumped on what direction to go next, and what to write about today. That’s when I go to my library and pick up a book on e-mail marketing, usability, object oriented programming, or even web design. Then I run through the table of contents and re-read a couple of my favorite chapters of the book.
Read Books for Inspiration
Typically, when I read books is when I come up with my great ideas. It always seems that when I’m reading a book about programming with PHP or Java that I come up with a great way to architect my next web application or project. Or when I’m not sure how to write about something to do with laying out a site, or overcoming designer’s block, I can quickly take a look at some of the design books I have, and I’m instantly inspired.
The key to this strategy is that, for one, I love what I do, so when you think that it sounds really boring to read about how to design databases, or to structure web content, I love it - just like accountants love to talk about numbers and income statements, I love to read about the web. Additionally, compare your thoughts when you are browsing the web, reading blogs, listening to music, or watching movies. I’m paying attention to the movie, or music, when I’m watching TV, or listening to my iPod. With the exception of my daily web blogs that I subscribe to, a lot of new web logs are poorly written, or are too wordy so it’s hard to really get into the subject of the blog post. With books, you are reading what is written by absolute professionals at the forefront of your industry. They’re professionally edited, and reviewed, and have technical editors so you can generally know that it’s written properly, it’s concise and organized well.
Become an Expert
I read a ton of books about the web or business, and comparatively, not a lot of novels. That’s how I keep my skills up to date, and that’s how I stay on top of the latest technologies and trends. I wanted to become a guru on web standards and CSS a couple years ago, so I read Designing with Web Standards, Web Standard Solutions, and the Zen of CSS Design. I read and subscribe to Zeldman, Cederholm, and Mezzoblue (Dave Shea) but reading their books was a much greater experience for me. A lot of the content is from their blogs, but in their books its organized and edited in a much clearer, and easier to read way. After reading all about CSS and web standards, I was able to write about them. Additionally, when I wanted to become a web accessibility expert, I started reading Steve Krug, Joe Clark, and Roger Johanson (I haven’t read any of Roger’s books, but he maintains one of the most informative and well written blogs on the topic of accessibility, web standards, and design). Become an expert and you can really start writing about what you learned discuss your view on the topics.
Aha! Moments
Think about how often you’re reading a good technical book and you think to yourself “Aha!”, each of these key nuggets of information is great material for a blog post. If you’re reading a book on Linux administration, database design, or programming and you read about a new great idea or programming method, then blog about it - but careful not to give anything away from the book. Maybe as you read the book, you’ll think of a new way of doing something you’ve done quite often before but a better way of doing it, then put something together in your own words.
In Your Own Words
I’m not talking about plagiarism, but reading a bunch of books and then writing about the content within those books (like a book report) is one of the best ways to solidify what you’ve learned. I’ll be writing a lot of book reviews on this blog soon, and the reason isn’t primarily to extend my opinions about the books, but to force myself to really think about what I’ve read and to organize my thoughts on the subject.
Think of reading books as research for your blog. Learn all you can about a subject by reading books from the experts and once you’ve read a lot, then you’ll be able to blog all about it in your own words, and soon you’ll be the expert.
