5 Questions to help reignite your blog passion for 2016

Remember when you started blogging and it was easy to generate 600 ideas for interesting blog posts? But then after some time passes and you’ve written dozens of posts, you can’t quite find the same spark of passion that you once had for your particular genre. How do you get back to a place of being excited to blog?

This week on Maine on the Blogs we are talking about how to get back to your blog roots by reorganizing your passion for a better blog in 2016. If you are thinking about starting a blog or if you have a blog but you feel like it has become stagnant then this will help you organize your writing priorities and be ready to jump start the New Year!

1. What is your passion?

What are you really and truly into? Sometimes bloggers will start out with one particular subject such as a weight loss journey, for example, but then after writing for a period time and experiencing life changes – like say having children or moving or suffering serious medical issues – it becomes impossible to continue writing about weight loss. So what should that blogger do?

[Tweet “5 Questions to help reignite your blog passion for 2016”]

Get honest about your passion.

Maybe altering a subject to reflect life changes will do the trick. So, for our weight loss journey blogger, maybe shifting to a blog about how to be healthy with X, Y, and Z variables that life has tossed into the mix.

Sometimes a blog has run its course and the author will find a completely new and unrelated topic to dive into. Great! With new interests come energy and inspiration to write!

2. How can you reorganize your writing practice?

Probably one of the worst things that can happen to an artist or writer is for the act of creating to feel more like work or a chore and less like a hobby or fun. If you feel this way then take a closer look at your blog and ask yourself why it has become laborious to continue. Are you spending too much time worrying about stats or social media reach? Are you spending too much time worrying about the comment section?

Identifying what is making your writing time feel less than inspired will help you to reorganize your writing practice so that you can once again enjoy your writing process.

3. What do you want to get out of blogging?

For many bloggers just the act of sharing ideas is the ultimate goal. For others blogging is means to building a writing portfolio or gaining employable experience.

Ask yourself to remember why you got started blogging to begin with and see if the original goals you had have been met or have otherwise become obsolete. Many writers will find that creating a new challenge for their writing will give them something stimulating to work toward. Perhaps your goal for 2016 could be to see your work promoted, nominated for an award, printed in the newspaper, or syndicated on a website that is important to you.

4. How do you define success for you and your blog?

Defining success as a blogger is a question that many new bloggers do not take the time to ask themselves. Be honest when you think through your answer. Is building a readership in the thousands how you define success? Could your success be more about carving out a voice in your local community and meeting new people and experiencing new opportunities? Or maybe you have a series of stories and ideas that you want to see published and blogging is the way you envision doing that.

However you define success for your blog and blogging experience, make sure that it something you feel good about.

5. Who are you really blogging for?

Some writers start out writing for the pleasure of writing; writing for themselves. But over time with the perceived pressures of SEO, social media reach, and the constant up and down of stats, a writer can begin to fall prey to writing for the crowd and losing sight of the original goals of writing for pleasure.

Or maybe you started out writing for a specific demographic but your focus, interest, and even writing chops have evolved and you find that you are writing for a mish mash of audiences.

Being honest about who your audience is and who you want them to be is a critical question to ask yourself, particularly if you have a goal of interacting with your audience.

Blogging can be as intense and technical or fluid and creative as you wish for it to be. The opportunities to connect with your community sharpen your writing and the unique skill sets of blogging, and giving your voice a platform are enormous. Perhaps the most thrilling aspect of blogging is the simple act of sharing. When your words inspire change and affect the perception of others then you’ve done something quite marvelous.

What are some of your blogging goals for 2016? Leave us a comment or visit us on Facebook! We want to hear from you!

Happy New Year! Happy Blogging!