Writing Archives - Ben Clapton

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Ben Clapton — Leave a comment

The importance of formatting

One of the problems that I see many church websites have is their lack of formatting – or when there is formatting, the lack of appropriate formatting. Writing for the web is very different to writing for print, so there’s a few formatting hints that you can use to make your posts (and pages) easier to read. Continue reading The importance of formatting

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Ben Clapton — Leave a comment

Getting back into writing

Two hands on a computer keyboard — (Credit: blary54 at sxc.hu)

At the beginning of the year, I signed up to the Post-a-day challenge. I thought it was a great idea, to get my mind thinking, my fingers writing and some content onto my blog. In that time, I’ve had some really good, really popular posts. My post on the viola for example, or my reflections on the Zangief Kid. I’ve had some stimulating discussion on my thoughts on Salvation Army Soldiership, and Climate Change. However, eventually, Life got busy, and I found it difficult to find the time to write daily. I tried to draw it back to weekly posts, but could never get into the habit of doing it. So it dried up. to the point that I’ve had 3 posts since the beginning of May.

But I’ve decided to change that. Starting July 1, I’m going to attempt to publish a post every day for the rest of the year. I’m going to get back onto the Post-a-day bandwagon, and get it happening again. But I’m going to do it slightly differently this time. Continue reading Getting back into writing

Posted on February 26, 2011 by Ben Clapton — Leave a comment

What I do when I can’t think of what to write

Writer's Block... Why bother... — Image by Arnett Gill via Flickr

Writing a post every day can be pretty tough. When I can’t think of what to write on my blog, there’s a number of places that I go to get inspiration.

Daily Post. The Daily Post issued the challenge to write a blog post every day of 2011. They support this by posting a prompt every day. I’ve written a few of these, and always link back to the original post. But sometimes they just aren’t something that inspires me to write.
Plinky. Plinky does a similar thing (in fact, Daily Post takes a number of their prompts from Plinky). But because they’ve been doing it for longer, there’s a great backup of prompts for me to choose from. But again, they won’t always provide me the inspiration to put together a decent post – that is, I could answer the question, but it’s not always going to be a post that reads well.
Other blogs. I have a number of other blogs that I keep track of in my Google Reader. I have sometimes found that through reading these posts, it will spark an idea as to what I might be able to write about either expanding on a blog, or in response to that blog post.
News. Keeping track of current affairs will often give me an idea of something to write about. Whether it’s a response to an issue in the media or politics, or my thoughts on a particular news story, it’s all a potential blog post.
Write a “What do I do when I can’t think of what to write” post. When all else fails, you get todays post. Hope you enjoyed!