Apr 16, 2014 / Topic Ideas

Five Posts to Write Right Now

Have you spent too long staring at a blank screen? Here are five post ideas to jump start your blogging.

<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kurtisnot/3185538097/">5-Ball by Kurt Farrar</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">CC BY 2.0</a>.

Mired in bloggers’ block? Pshaw — we’ll give you a push! Here are five posts you can publish right now, no matter what topics you usually blog about.

1. The last thing that made you mad.

There are two great things about addressing issues that make you angry: first, the posts tend to be fun to write (not to mention cathartic). Second, the internet loves a good rant.

Think about the last thing that really made your blood boil, and take it from there. You can write about why it was so upsetting, explain how you found a solution, propose changes to keep it from happening again, or freeze-frame your emotions in verse.

(If you’re worried about letting it all hang out, check out our tips for writing rants without sounding like a big jerk.)

2. Your typical childhood lunch.

No really; stay with me.

In her excellent book on writing, Bird by Bird, author Anne Lamott reveals that she often suggests that those struggling to commit words to paper (or screen) write about their school lunches; something about the act of recollecting and writing those details helps jimmy the floodgates open. For Lamott, the act of opening a lunchbox is, “about opening our insides in front of everyone. Just like writing is.”

I was doubtful, too — until I tried it. In thinking back to those lunches, I tapped into a rich trove of detail and emotion around childhood, school, food, family, and much more. It was an eye-opening experience, and I now heartily recommend the school lunch trick: it’s like Drain-o for writers’ block.

3. An ode to an object.

We often blog about people; family is a central topic for lots of us. Sometimes, getting unstuck is about changing your point of view, and writing about an object can help you do that. Tell a story about your favorite overstuffed armchair, chronicle the history of your hand-me-down teapot, or tell us why your cheese grater is the perfect specimen of its kind. At worst, you’ll end up with a fun, lighthearted post about a teapot; at best, writing about a thing will help you bring out a story and perspective you haven’t explored before.

4. Self-psychoanalysis via your bookshelf or Spotify playlists.

Take the five books on your nightstand, the last five songs you listened to, the last five movies you watched, or the last five blog posts you liked — what do they say about you? If that’s too revealing, try some fiction — invent another person with these tastes, and tell us about them.

This post is a triple threat: you get an amusing and/or insightful post, you hook readers with an insider view (we all love perusing other people’s stuff), and you leave the door wide open for readers to engage by commenting on your choices and sharing their own.

5. A mad lib.

This may seem like a cop-out post. It is, a little, but we all need to lob an easy one once in a while. For a Mad Lib, ask readers for a list of words — nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc — and use them to fill in the blanks in a post you’ve pre-written. (If you want to get fancy, you can even do it with a custom form, like this — here’s how.) It’s fun and funny, and engaging for your readers. Plus, you never know if a reader’s wacky word choice will spark your next post idea.

These are all pretty open-ended ideas, but if you need more of a boost, review our ways to make prompts your own. Now, go forth and bust through the block.

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  7. Then again it’s always comforting to read blog posts that don’t just add to the trillions of bubbles already out there. If not inspired, why not take a break from the screen and go for a walk? Grow veggies? Chat with friends? Don’t just blog for the sake of blogging – find a cause you believe in and use the spare time and energy you obviously have to somehow make a difference in here – or even better out there! 🙂

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  9. I never carried my lunch to school . The smell of lunch from other boxes was nauseating . I would walk back a mile , have lunch at home and return to school .
    May be that I was shy eating with others . I was never comfortable eating with others .
    I came out of the problem of eating in a group , only when I was forced by my friends to eat along with them in college
    Has it any thing to do with my introvert character ?

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  22. I’ve decided on item 3, but I’d like to do a pingback, and apparently I messed it up the first time. Do I do “DP 5posts you can write right now,” or do I set it up differently?

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    1. To create a pingback, you create a link to this post within the post you’ve written. Note that we only show pingbacks on Daily Prompt, Writing Challenge, and Photo Challenge posts, so if you do link to this post within your post, it won’t show up on this page.

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  23. Great information and encouragement. Another thing I found is get some crayons and a coloring book. There is something about it that really relaxes you and opens up the mind.

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  26. Like #1 and #4. Will try those in post in next couple of weeks, one of them just might work for “Freaky Friday” posts. Thanks for the inspiration!!

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  28. Thank you. Just catching up on blogs after Spring Break. I feel the woefully long and cold winter mode still has me in slow motion. These ideas are perfect.

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  30. I mostly blog about technical stuff, like programming and new trends.
    But if i ever grow tired, i’ll try to make a post about the things that make me mad.

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