Tag: writers block

Guest Post: The 10 Best tools for Bloggers and Freelance writers

Post Quote: “If you are a blogger or a freelance writer churning material for an income, you will likely face a basket load of productivity problems.”

Nicholas C. Rossis

Benjamin Chiang | From the blog of Nicholas C. Rossis, author of science fiction, the Pearseus epic fantasy series and children's booksThis is a guest post by Benjamin Chiang, an enthusiast of good advertising, deep thinking, labor issues, and chocolate. As a writer, his work has appeared on  www.fivestarsandamoon.com, Yahoo, Vulcanpost.com among others. You can find him at www.rangosteen.com or follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/brchiang

The 10 Best tools for Bloggers and Freelance writers

If you are a blogger or a freelance writer churning material for an income, you will likely face a basket load of productivity problems. These include:

  • Day-to-day journaling
  • Writing productivity
  • Organizing research
  • Graphic making
  • Collaboration

Here are some tools, both free and paid, that will help you meet your deadline!

Day-to-Day Journaling

In the old days, Hemmingway wrote on Moleskins and lugged them all around in heavy trunks (albeit heavy Louis Vuitton trunks). Though romantic to write in, you may find difficulty running a keyword search on notebooks. That’s why most of us…

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Writing Addiction: Part 2

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Are YOU addicted to writing?

• Symptom #2: Writers Block Frightens you

As it happens, you’re actually thinking about writing. Your tummy feels nervous with excitement and your thoughts scatter ideas across your mind like Webster’s online dictionary. Now, everything is scatter brains and racing blood and completely unorganized but you do know that something’s there. Or at least you think you know. And then it happens. A title. A headline. A poem. A short story. A blog post. Wait? Which is it? You don’t know! Nonetheless, a theme, a topic, a spark of interest squeezes through the ziggly lines in your mind and makes it to the front. Your heart is beating loudly as you scramble for pieces of paper and an ink pen before throwing open the laptop. Yes, home sweet home! There they are: the letters you’ve been looking for! Here you are. You pick up that pen and notepad, that cell phone, that tablet, you wait patiently at the keyboard of the laptop. This is all so exciting! And then it happens. Silence. Nothing comes.

Not a word. You wait. And you continue to wait for an explanation. You stare angrily at the page and beat your fingers against the keys. You search for those ideas over and over again to try to convince yourself you have something. You close your eyes tight praying for a line, just a line! But nothing comes. And then alas, you close the program, shut down the computer, or simply throw the notebook at the wall. Yes, the whole thing. You crumble the paper into a ball, you throw that too before wiping away the tears. No, you’re not crying, you’ve just been at the computer too long and your eyes are all watery and tired as if you’ve done some work. That angers you. You got nothing done and you go to bed angry. This is when writers block has truly set in. Your husband / wife comes in, “Bae, what’s wrong?” You throw them a scowl. “What?” You snap back with attitude. “How dare he / she ask me what’s wrong!” You are out of control. Frightened. Scared. You need air. A relief. A pill. Do they have prescriptions for this?

You Have the Right to Write

Attention: You Have the Right to Write or anything you don’t say will drive you crazy by intense desire. Creative ideas will overheat until they melt themselves into fragmented descriptions of confused thought and drip like perspiration from your brow. Words will escape your mouth in an explosion of writer’s language. Soon, you’ll start bringing up the names of books to four year olds and correcting sentences fresh out your neighbors mouth, “..not a eraser, an eraser..” you’ll blurt out uncontrollably. Your lips are so bone dry they have wrinkles, and you trip over your tongue as if it does not belong in your mouth. You can’t even blame Writer’s Block for the frustration since you keep missing your periods at the end of sentences. Poor words, left to run on in a string of thought; breathlessly pulsating through veins hoping to make it to the end of your never ending consciousness. The least you can do is appoint a capital letter to keep everyone in check, a comma won’t hurt you either. If you find yourself in this condition, you have the WRITE to consult inspiration before speaking anything into existence, and to have a pen and pad ready for any glint of light amidst the darkness, now or in the future.

His crime? Not Writing!
His crime? Not Writing!

Forced Post

Blank notepad and pencil

You feed yourself on unrest, as the words slide through the creative pockets of your thoughts for a chance to make it onto the page. The thirst for its shadow will not leave you to ponder the body of an elegant post. Will not wait for you to soar into the heavens and back down again to at least tickle the funny bone of those listening reading-these soulful melodies, these crafty closed forms or these smiling similes.

They say that patience is a virtue but dear post, you are obviously far too anxious. Time ticks away the sorrow of accelerated thoughts as this moment is snatched away by the whistling hurry of your footsteps. I can hear the coughing warnings of immature images and symbols just waiting for a chance to spread themselves over the white area of WordPress readers. I didn’t know thoughts could be so open. Fingers just itching to dabble in the beating of keyboards, to fulfill the empty space with black ink and collective letters that makes no sense. They are only there because you need them to be. And where would I sit with these words? With these thoughts scattered all over the bed? Who will clean this up for me? Is it you? Will you vouch for me? Can I count on you to explain the degradation of an unequal post?

While I wish to linger an instant longer within the creative workspace of these meditations, it is the forced post that entices me to distribute half talent and fragmented passion but I choose to wait until the creative energy renews itself. For ideas to blossom into something of value before obligating myself to this blog. Why snatch away the inspiration from a beating heart? I have not the water to waste on these words. My cup is only half full. I can’t be spilling stuff all over the place. I will wait.

Cloudy with a Chance of Writer’s Block

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The invisible force waiting until we want to write before blessing us with its presence; it moves gracefully throughout the smoke filled rooms of trial, tribulation and circumstance. In its left hand is a sickle of distraction, have you come forth to reap what had not yet been sown? In its right are the sketchy blackboards of daily events that only wish to distract away the concept of creativity. The unmovable rock falling from the sky like hailstones is writer’s block. It pops up unannounced and hides itself underneath our fingernails. Its motivation triggered only by greed; the satisfaction of witnessing the wavering minds too off guard not to let it in. I am determined, however, that the weathering of my mind and the inspiration of my thoughts will not give in to the falling bricks of mortar coming my way. I will gather the scraps of words lingering in the corners of unmarked territory, move against the stillness of idle hands and write about the sound of this here concrete tapping against my frontal lobe. I will see the weather changing and prepare myself against the storm.