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Don’t Fear the Blank Screen — Be a Miner

May 6, 2006 by Liz

Staring at a Blank Screen

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Staring at a blank screen does nothing for me. In fact, I recommend against it. In my way of thinking, blank things encourage more blank things. When I want my head filled with information and ideas, not with blank, emptiness I do this.

I read my archives — the articles and comments — to see what’s missing.

Mining the Archives

It works every time. Archives are like a idea-rich mine. Somewhere in a past article I come across something I’ve left out . . . or something that I know now that I didn’t know then. Bam! It’s the seed of a new article and there I am ready to write all over again.

My blank screen is blank no longer. Ideas were waiting for me right in the blog under that blank screen. I always find more than one nugget to get me started. Blog mining is a great way to get a post started.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Filed Under: Content, Successful Blog, Writing Tagged With: bc, blog_promotion, finding_ideas, mining_your_archives, personal-branding, power_writing, quality_content, stronger_voice, writer's_block

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