Robbi Hess

Writers Block? Writing Anxiety? Can You Move Past It? Yes!

Several years ago I taught adult writing classes at a local literary center.  The classes I taught focused on magazine writing, fiction, confession magazine writing and blogging. Whenever someone came to class with the story that they didn't do their assignment it was because they had Writer's Block I countered by saying it wasn't WB, but Writing Anxiety or in some cases, Writing Laziness!

Writers should be avid readers and as an avid reader you should be exposed to myriad ideas all the time that should spark your creativity. If it doesn't and you find yourself with sweaty palms and beating heart when you sit down to write a blog post, it could be a case of Writer's Anxiety.

Here are some tips to overcome that, move forward, and get that blog post written:

Are Your Marketing Efforts Reaping Results?

How often do you look at your marketing and promotion plan for your business? Just as you track the financial health of the organization, so too should you monitor the health and rate of return on your marketing efforts. Are the goals you set for your marketing being met? If not, it's time to revamp them. Even if you’re only setting a baseline of: increase my social media followers by 10 each week, it’s something you need to monitor and rework if it’s not helping you reach your goals.

Here are some items in your marketing arsenal that you should look into and revamp if necessary:

• Do you understand your audience/your ideal client? If you don’t know who your client is, how can you effectively target him? In addition to knowing your demographic’s age and location, you should also understand whether they’re the “on-line” type or if they prefer their news/coupons offline in a newspaper or in a television or radio ad. If you’ve been targeting one section of media and not reaping results, refocus your efforts. Remember too that social media and print media work cooperatively.
• How functional is your website? Do you have a website? If not, we have professionals on trade that will work with you to build a new site. If you don’t have a website, you need to get one as soon as possible because your competition is well ahead of you if you don’t. Consider that your website is your 24/7 business card. Understand the key words you want to target for your business and use them judiciously throughout the site. 
• Do you have a “sales funnel”? Do you know what a sales funnel is? One way to create a sales funnel is through a series of articles/blog posts on your website. Take a look at the goods and services that you provide and consider whether you have a case study you could use as an example for a sales funnel series. As an example, look at an individual that has decided she wants to become a business owner. Follow her trials and tribulations from the “a-ha” moment through to her throwing open her virtual doors. If you’re a website builder, that’s where you come in – the virtual doors. Talk about the steps in business ownership from accounting and bookkeeping needs to the need for marketing and promotion, hiring of employees, social media management and profile building, networking, etc. You’re not specifically telling the readers to “buy me” or pushing your product on them, you’re showing them a person with a dilemma and offering ideas for solutions. You will be known as the solution provider to a potential client.

As a business owner, it’s not enough to have a great website and stellar content on that site if no one is reading it. Harness the power of social media to spread the word about your site and the new blog posts you’re writing. Draw them to the site. Let them get to know, like and trust you and you will be looking at a potential client! Do you need help with your marketing efforts? A reworking of your social media efforts? Let me know! 

Get Your Blog Some Google Love: 7 tips

Google, it sometimes seems, is the be all and end all for business owners looking to be found on the Internet. While the rules change, sometimes before you’ve even implemented them, there are ways to remain relevant, be found and up your Google rankings when you write a blog post.

Here are my top tips for gaining Google love:

1. Always write original content. Don’t be redundant – even if you write and post on more than one website in the same niche market. While you don’t have to recreate the wheel with your posts, you do want to make certain the content has been rewritten even though the ideas may be the same. 

7 Steps To A Great How-To Post

Do you read blog posts because you want to learn something from the blogger? Chances are, that is why you read. In a world crammed full of work, life, spending time with family and pets, giving your time to a blogger and her blog post is a gift. If you like to walk away from a blog post having learned something or if you write blog posts and want your readers to walk away having learned something, writing a great how-to article is the way to go.

Energy? Energy, Where Are You?

There are days when I am faced with the blank page, the blank screen and words simply do not want to come out. It doesn't matter though, as a full time writer I have no choice but to write whether the muse graces me with her presence or not. She is a fickle bitch at times, but I have learned to work around her moods and lack of showing up when I need her. 

Knowing that you have to write, as I do for a living, means that I have trained my brain to be "on" whether I am really feeling it or not. On those days when my energy is flagging I make certain my inner editor is turned on full force because I will formulate run on sentences and even use words that might not make sense.

Does Blogging Drain Your Mental Energy?

Today's blogging prompt is to research what blog tasks take the most energy and which ones drain you. This one took me a while to determine (lol maybe that's what my post should be about!) 

When I stepped back and gave it some thought I believe what drains me when it comes to blogging is the "What Am I Going To Blog About Today" syndrome. Some days I am chock full of ideas; they overflow my thoughts and I can't usually write them quickly enough. Other days, finding an idea is a long, slow slog through quicksand. 

I believe, though what drains me on those "what am I going to write about" days are outside forces. Outside stressors that pluck at me and tug me in directions from which I'd like to not travel. Taking advantage of my high energy days and formulating ways to get more of those high energy days has been a recent. on-going quest. 

2013 is the Year of Me and of Conquering The Overwhelm. Onward and upward. 

I'd love to hear... are there any blogging tasks that drain you? How can you make them less draining and more enjoyable? 

Where Do I Get My Energy?

The blog title, posed as part of NaBloPoMo, had me pondering for a while. I had never given thought as to where my energy came from.  I assumed it was from the food I ate, the sleep I had the night before, the sunshine streaming through the window -- well, not so much in NY for the next several months -- maybe the idea of sun shining sometime again. 

The more I pondered, the more clear my thoughts became. I think I get my energy from the people I love, the work that I do and from the comforting snuggle of the Diva Poodle Henrietta. I draw energy from a task well-completed. A client well-served. A good book finished and well-enjoyed. 

Over the past eight months as I've dealt with breast cancer and its aftermath, I have learned what steals my energy and am working hard to avoid thems: pessimism, anxiety, fear of the future (believe me, I still have it but I try to find other things to think about than my mortality), tasks that I truly don't enjoy but slog through and feel drained at the end. 

As I work my way through the 31 days of posting about Energy, I'm certain I will uncover more items that will bring me both energy and joy! 

2013 Writing Resolutions: Are You Ready?

Today's the day. January 1. A Clean slate. A New Year. Now is the time to gear up for that new year, don't you agree? If you're like most people, you look at the first of the year as a  chance to start over. A fresh start. A clean slate. You get the picture! It's time now though to step back and take stock. 

• What did you want to accomplish in 2012?
• What did you actually accomplish?
• What goals did you set for yourself and did you meet those goals?
• Were there any goals that you exceeded? 

Is Perfection Holding You Back?

In a conversation with Mary Cravets. the Business Speed Networker, she mentioned that many people don't kick projects off because of: Perfection Stagnation. Bottom line... you feel your every word, your every project, your every webpage has to be perfect before you release it to the public. 

Are you being held back by your own fears of perfection? Do you have blog post ideas that you simply haven't put down on paper yet because you're not certain if they're good enough?

Have you attended a networking event and been too nervous to give your elevator speech because you aren't sure if the exact wording? What about starting a newsletter to reach out to your followers and friends? Have you thought of starting one but never kicked the project off because you weren't sure what to write in it, how to design it, what newsletter program to use, etc. etc. 

Are you letting your ideals of perfection get in the way of doing... well... anything? What is making your projects stagnate? How can you move past it? 

Pinterest Grows Your Blogging Reach

Pinterest is a great place to, well spend a lot of time procrastinating on the items on your to-do list. Picture this scenario, you log in then start looking at the boards of those whom you follow... and then... you get lost in the pictures of cute puppies and book covers, delicious recipes and yummy photos... and then... all of a sudden you're hungry and darn it, you forgot why you logged into Pinterest in the first place, right? It is a social media landscape filled with distractions, to be sure, but it is also a social media landscape that is a perfect platform for your pet blogging. 

After attending a Greece Chamber of Commerce meeting at which a florist and an event planner shared a lot of hints, tips and tricks for making the most of Pinterest -- even for those businesses that may not seem to lend themselves to "visuals" (think accountants or insurance agents), I decided I needed to harness the power of this social media site.