In internet years, I am a stegosaurus.
I am a pterodactyl circling the tar pit.
I am a wooly mammoth, nibbling a bit of lichen.

All of this is to say – I’ve been blogging for a long, long time.

As I type this, there are 2,732 posts in my archive. Two thousand seven hundred thirty-two! Since the summer of 2008 I’ve been posting between five and seven times a week. I posted while I was working full time, I posted while I was working full time and tutoring on the side, I posted while I was backpacking around India, Asia, and the Antipodes for 10 months.

I will be the first to acknowledge this is ridiculous. Really and truly, you don’t need to post this frequently. I am a Virgo, eldest child of Germanic heritage; my insane work ethic is something I come by honestly but I’m not sure I’d recommend it. If I could turn it off, I would!

With that said, I know that many people struggle to post regularly or to develop an editorial calendar that works for them. If you’ve been blogging for a long time and you feel like you’re burning out or if you’re just starting and struggling to find your footing these tips might help.

1. Create post series
It’s a million times easier to come up with ideas when you’re thinking within an established framework. I have six post series; each of them ties into different offerings, different types of readers, and different potential sponsors. Mini Travel Guides tie into my travel ebooks, Real Life Style Icon interviews help me reach new readers (and introduce my readers to new blogs), the Kitchen Globetrotter series is Pinterest catnip.

It’s so much easier to plan out my month when I’m thinking “What type of food should we write about for Kitchen Globetrotter this month?” rather than “What in the world should I write about?”

2. Write things that are directly related to your services and offerings
When you’re stuck for an idea, just have a look through your sales pages. What problems are your products solving? Write content that relates to those problems.

Problem solved by your product: decluttering your house
You write a post about: organizational tools that will help you declutter

Problem solved by your product: long-term solo travel
You write a post about: how to take a sabbatical from work

3. Bring on contributors
Contributors will make your blogging life so much easier! I have two contributors who write about topics I don’t know about (vegan cooking and DIYs) and their posts get favorited and shared all over Pinterest. Contributors can lighten your writing load, attract new readers, and share expertise in areas you don’t know about.

4. Take time to refill your creativity/inspiration bucket
You know where I get my best ideas? Sitting in my office, in my yoga pants, with a cold cup of coffee. Juuuuuust kidddding! I get my best ideas when I’m out and about – walking around my neighborhood, road tripping, taking a dance class, or chatting with friends at a new restaurant. If you’re looking to get new ideas, you’ll probably have to get at least slightly outside your comfort zone.

5. Stop posting so damn much
This is just as much of a note-to-self as a note-to-you. About a year and a half ago I stopped posting on Fridays; I post four times a month here and one of those posts is a link round up and one is a guest post. It’s important that you post regularly, but it’s also important that you don’t burn out and hate your life.

If you’re a blogger who writes a ton - how do you do it? Share your tips in the comments!

P.S. A version of this post appeared on Evolve + Succeed, but I was so happy with it I wanted to re-post it and share it with you guys!

photo by Laineys Repertoire // cc

Now, a giant disclaimer to start this post.  I don’t think I’m particularly fascinating. I do, however, think you are fascinating and when I can see your personality in your writing? I think that’s pretty dang engaging.

With that said, one of the sweetest things I hear about my writing is “I feel like I know you!” or “I feel like you’re just talking to me – it doesn’t feel like reading!”

(I think that says more about my propensity for parenthesis and usage of the word “like,” but I’m choosing to view it as a compliment.) 

In fact, people often hire me to ghostwrite because they feel their writing is a bit, well, drier than they’d like. It can be especially hard to work personality into posts about things like marketing methods or photo formatting.

So if you find yourself asking “How can I communicate my amazing sense of humor and love of cat videos into this post about a/b split testing?!” this post is for you.

Here are four ways you can add more you to your writing – regardless of the topic.

1. Start with a personal anecdote
Just about everything I write starts with a short story about how I came to write about this topic – I was writing for a magazine in Malaysia and didn’t have time to blog, my friend described me as “the one with boundaries,” Amber told me that the Griffith Observatory was her “church.” These are all true (with occasional editing to protect my more private friends) but this peek into my life helps me connect with my readers.

2. Write like you talk
I know a Ph.D. candidate who really does pepper his language with polysyllabic adjectives and references to classic literature. Everybody else I know jokes, asks questions to make a point, or uses the word ‘like’ way too much (myself very much included.)

If you’re struggling to write in a more personal style, try improvisational dictating. Use the voice recorder on your phone and spend a few minutes talking – using your normal, everyday speech patterns – about a topic you’d like to write about. Transcribe and lightly edit the results – are they more ‘friendly’ or engaging than what you’d usually write?

3. Reference movies/books/music/internet cats that are important to you
When I reference Leslie Knope, you know I watch Parks and Rec. When I name drop Grumpy Cat or Sufjan Stevens or the Greek myth of Sisyphus, you immediately know more about my life and personality than if I’d spent a paragraph spelling out my appreciation for cats and moving, story-based folk music.

If you’re a committed Game of Thrones fan, reference that. If you love Beyoncé and her marketing methods have inspired you – write about it. It’s an easy way for us to get to know you and connect with you!

4. Use your own photos
A straight forward post about Instagram filters instantly becomes more engaging when you share examples of your own photos. If you’re writing about how to refinish a floor, include photos of your dining room before-and-after (bonus points if you include a photo of you working the sander.) Some of my most popular, most commented on posts have included photos of me – even horribly awkward teenage photos! When we use personal photos we’re taking a visible, tangible step to connect with our readers. They appreciate it!

A note about professionalism: there are certain topic areas and certain audiences that are less likely to appreciate personality-filled writing. Finance and health care immediately come to mind.

But that doesn’t mean your writing needs to be complicated or boring. It’s common practice – across platforms and topics – to open a piece with a real life example. Is it a trope? Yes. Is it effective? Super yes. You can make just about any piece a better, more engaging read by keeping your sentences crisp and clean and avoiding the proverbial ‘five-dollar words.‘ Nobody wants to encounter those over their morning coffee.

Do you struggle to add personality to your writing? If you’re good at it, how do you communicate who you are through your articles and blog posts? Tell me all about it in the comments!

P.S. If you need help writing blog posts, I can do it for you.  Like, you spend the day at the beach and when you come back, you have a month of blog posts in your inbox. MAGIC.

pizza and cheersing photo by Meredith Westin. You should hire her!

When my friend Natalie first told me what she does each month for her business, my thought process went like this:

“Ohhh, that’s a good idea.”
“Ohhh, that feels too frivolous and indulgent for me. Good for her, not for me.”

But you should know I often have to be tricked into spending money. Like, I mentally compile a cost/benefits analysis for just about any purchase over $20. So when Natalie told me that every month she checks into a hotel for a two day writing and work retreat I was simultaneously intrigued and put off.

But then I had a free Sunday night.
And then I checked out Hotwire and found a ton of $40 hotels within a few hours of my apartment. I booked myself for just one night to see how things would go.

You guys? I’m going to do this at least once a quarter for the rest of my self-employed life.

In a 36-hour period, I wrote two months of blog posts. I analyzed my revenue streams. I got clear on which tasks, habits, and post series I should drop and which ones I should bolster and improve. I created an incredible amount of psychological and editorial breathing room for myself.

And I did it all for $40 (plus tax).

Want a DIY retreat for yourself? It’s pretty self-explanatory, but here are a few tips that made mine more productive and more fun. 

1. Print out everything you need or save it to your desktop
You don’t want to waste time and energy searching for a Kinkos in a strange town or fussing with corrupted files. I think this bit of preparation also helps you take your retreat more seriously.

A few (free) planners and workbooks that might help: Kyla Roma’s Website Clarity Workbook, Maria Ross’s 9 Days To A Better, Tighter, More Lucrative Brand Plan, Shareaholic’s downloadable editorial calendar template.

2. Gather all your notes and inspiration
I have a physical folder (how retro!) of magazine clippings that inspire me or images that light me up. Get all your inspiration in one neatly organized place so you don’t waste time hunting down That One Article From Real Simple or that very important post-it note.

3. Create draft versions for everything you want to write
Use Word or Google Docs to create a draft of every single document you want to write. This could be a super rough outline or just a title and an empty document. Either way, it will help you stay on task and remind you of what you wanted to be working on.

4. Book yourself a night or two in a hotel at least an hour away
This seems like a weird detail, but I find that it’s important to leave the city and be in the car for a significant amount of time. It really helps me extract myself from my day-to-day mindset. I make it into a mini road trip with gas station coffee, car snacks, and podcasts.

5. Tell your nearest and dearest you’ll be (mostly) unreachable and turn on your Out Of Office email reply
You don’t want to be distracted by brunch invitations or client emails during your allotted writing time. When I’m tucked away and writing, my dude and I forego our nightly check-in calls and everyone who emails me receives a polite “I’ll get back to you soon” auto responder.

6. Don’t ask for the wifi password when you check in
If you can resist the siren song of Facebook, you are a stronger human than I. I do my best, fastest writing when there are no distractions, so I don’t even ask the front desk for the wifi login.  If you’re super, duper serious you can even leave your phone in the glove compartment of your locked car so you won’t be tempted to fall down a social media hole.

7. Now write
No editing. No photo sourcing. No headline analyzing or a/b split testing. I like to use this time to bang out rough drafts filled with typos and questionable introductions. My edits are better when my first drafts have had a chance to age and cure; it’s freeing to write without too much concern about sentence structure.

8. Take breaks when you’re feeling burnt out
I like to treat myself to a nice dinner, work through a bit of yoga, or experience that hotel water pressure that’s a million times better than my apartment’s. What you probably shouldn’t do on your break: check your phone or watch three hours of tv.

I emerged from my retreat pretty exhausted, but proud of myself. I honestly can’t put a price on the peace of mind that comes with two months of scheduled posts.

Have you ever been part of a retreat - DIY or otherwise? Do you think you’d be willing to splash out? If you know of any other free/cheap resources that would be useful a retreat, leave links in the comments!

P.S. Did you know that when you sign up for my small business newsletter I’ll give your site a once over and send you 3 suggestions? FOR $0? It’s true. Sign up here!

P.P.S.  This is not a sponsored post, I’ve just found that Hotwire always has the best hotel prices! Let me know if you use other sites to find cheap hotels!

photo by Aleks Dorohovich // cc

Oh, but it can be hard to come up with content day after day, year after year.

We can, of course, rely on the old standbys The Listicle and The How To. Goodness knows I do. Every once in a while it’s nice to try something completely new and different, but how does one even do that? Is there anything new on the internet?

I’d like to think so. In fact, I even have a feedly folder called “non-boring post inspiration.” Last summer I shared seven of my favorites and I’ve been squirreling away even more. Take a look!

1. Inspirational saying visual roundup


Posted by: A little opulent
Why it works: We all love visuals and we love inspiring visuals even more. Each of these images is pin-able so this post is Pinterest catnip for well, just about everyone. If she wanted to be super strategic, Jen would also @mention the original creators on social media, so they could retweet the post if they wanted to.

Your spin on it: Could you collect inspiring quotes that relate to your topic? Quotes about business? Or travel? Or style? Or wellness? Make sure that you credit the original poster and add title tags to each image. (I actually used this idea last week!)

2. Imaginary conversations

Posted by: Man repeller
Why it works: Imagined conversations and assigning human characteristics to non-human things are hilllllarious. In this case, Leandra imagines February is her totally annoying, unditchable friend. A funny, relatable blog post ensues.

Your spin on it: What conversations do you wish you could have? What would the inanimate objects in your field of expertise say? How would a conversation with your camera go? Your iphone? Your accounting software? Your WordPress site?

3. One room, three ways

Posted by: Checks and spots
Why it works: We all love a good side by side comparison and each of these looks will appeal to a different reader. This was actually a sponsored post and I think Clare did a great job creating pretty, engaging, helpful content that worked for both readers and sponsor.

Your spin on it: What can you compare and contrast in your business? Two blog designs that are identical other than the colors? Two outfits that are similar except for the accessories? Several photographs with different filters?

4. Most memorable moments

Posted by: Elise Joy
Why it works: It gives us insight into Elise’s day to day, something most blog readers love - at least I do! I  also like that Elise’s favorite moments are a mix of things we can all relate to (the extra hour of daylight savings), big, exciting moments (speaking in front of thousands), and stories she told in other blog posts (so she can link to them).

Your spin on it: Just write your own version! Of course, you could write it with a more business-related angle, but I bet your readers would like to learn a bit more about you as a human.

5. Goal-related link round up

Posted by: Food 52
Why it works: Food 52 published this post on January 2nd, when we were all in the throes of resolution-making. They (very wisely) paired a fun, doable resolution to cook more and better with 20 archived posts. Smart, eh?

Your spin on it: Could you create a post that ties into common resolutions in your professional field? 10 social media resolutions + 10 of your archived posts that would be helpful. 10 style resolutions + 15 of your older posts that would help readers keep those resolutions. You get the idea!

 6. What’s in season? 

Posted by: Cookie + Kate
Why it works: Kate’s post is super helpful for people (like me) who want to eat seasonally but will forget themselves and eat strawberries all year long. It’s also an opportunity to link to other bloggers’ related recipes and promote some of her own archived content.

Your spin on it: What’s seasonal in your business? Could you write a post highlighting the styles and trends that work in the spring? The cheapest travel destinations? Home improvement projects?

Have you seen (or written!) any particularly interesting blog posts? I’d love to see them! Share links in the comments.

photo by death to stock photo // cc