We fidget. We frown. We try some more. But the idea bank account is empty—no, actually, it’s overdrawn.

On this blog, and on others, I have offered advice for pulling out of a blogging slump, for fighting perfectionism, and for generating post ideas. And, though I made the mistake of saying I never get blogger’s block (reminder to self: never say never), I’ve written about how reading can help bloggers discover new ideas.

Still, there are times when blogging is just hard.

Seriously hard.

Frankly, today was one of those days for me.

It made me wonder why. Because figuring out the reason is the first step in getting back in the groove. It may be totally out of our control, but just recognizing that it’s probably temporary makes it not quite so scary.

When you hit a wall in blogging, the advice to write more, to push through it, doesn’t always make the most sense.

Most of us get our wheels stuck in the mud from time to time. I offer here three show stoppers and what I did when I was blindsided by them. Maybe you have actually experienced some of these obstacles yourself.:

Blogging is seriously hard when family is taking every ounce of your creative and emotional energy.

This week, I traveled to my hometown to close the door on a chapter of my life. My task? To clean out my childhood home and get it ready to sell. With both of my parents gone, I needed to do this. But I hadn’t predicted how hard it would be. How many emotions and memories would come flooding back, sorting through those photos and mementos.

When I returned to the office, I was distracted. I couldn’t focus. My thoughts were not on my blog post. Should I even write one?

How to get past the hard:

I knew that I needed some time to process everything. I could just skip this week’s post. Or I could take my troubles, make a post out of them and call it “When Blogging Is Hard.” I decided to do the latter, in a when-life-gives-you-lemons-make-lemonade sort of way.

Blogging is seriously hard when you’ve been stuck inside your own head for too long.

Writers tend to be thinkers. And sometimes we spend way too much time inside our own heads. It’s just a job hazard. But I find that the more I isolate myself, the fewer new ideas pop into my brain.

How to get past the hard:

I can purposely look for more outside stimulation. I admit, sometimes I have to force myself to do this, but chatting with someone by phone or Facebook, showing up at a networking lunch or brainstorming with my biz partner will often trigger a new blog post topic for me.

Because if I am always talking to myself, it’s just an echo chamber.

Blogging is seriously hard when you are in a professional transition.

Losing focus can also happen when a blogger is in a state of transition, looking toward her “next big thing.” When I was a kid, I used to think about weird stuff. One thing I wanted to do was visit the official line between two states and stand with one foot in each state. Just so I could say, “Right now I am in Washington and Idaho.”

But it is harder to blog when you have one foot in each ‘state’ because you don’t know exactly where you are. You don’t always know which topics are the right ones to blog about. You don’t know what to say—and to whom.

In moving from blogging coach to author, I will experience some bumps along the way. I will lose some readers and I will gain others, the people who are interested in the writing, writers and the publishing journey.

People like me.

How to get past the hard:

When your life changes direction, so does your blog. That can be stressful but, at the same time, it’s also exhilarating.

Because I can address all kinds of new topics. Think in different ways. Listen to and be helped by others in the Cat’s Eye community. And I find that the hard gets easier as I get more comfortable with my focus.

Have you ever hit the wall in your blogging?

What do you do to get over to the other side?

6 Interior Design Tips to Make Your Blog User-friendly

BY Bob Dunn

Your blog is your house. And your visitors ring the doorbell with one question in mind: “Will I find what I need here?”:

Your content may be incredible, but it won’t get read unless you have set up the basics that will get your visitors from point A to point B quickly and effortlessly.

Your readers want clean, simple, easy-to-use. If the experience is clunky, complicated or cumbersome, you can bet they won’t be back—even if your posts are astounding.

Here are some tips to make your blog user-friendly:

1. Start with a strong foundation. 

If you have a WordPress blog, the theme provides its framework. It is your foundation—the house within which everything fits. If it is weak, it won’t support all the things you need your blog to do. Theme design is a huge factor in usability, so shop around. Look at other sites for ideas. If you have a very specific look in mind, just be aware that it may mean some customization, which equals more time and money.

But with all the theme choices out there, often you can find one that gives you what you want. Consider looking at premium themes and imagine your content fitting into one of them, nice and tidy, with no wasted space or expensive remodels.

2. Make your front door as inviting as it can be.

Ever visited a house in your home buying days and the front door was all chipped, with the paint coming off and the weatherstripping coming loose? It didn’t matter what was inside because your experience had already been ruined. Well, your blog’s header is like that front door.

I’m going to use that five-letter marketing cliché here: brand. Your header is prime real estate and it should reflect your brand. If you are a business, use your logo and colors. If you are a writer and you are branding yourself as author, you might consider putting your face in the header, or at least in a prominent spot on the home page.

If your blog is about gardening, well, you get the point. I find so many blogs that use the default photo (the one that came with the theme) in their header. If you are talking about marketing on your blog and your header image is a picture of a stream in the woods, what does that tell me about the inside of your  house? Does it give me a clue about your content? You might also consider a tagline that sums up what you are about in a short phrase or sentence.

3. Make it easy for readers to find your main rooms.

Your top navigation bar takes visitors to your blog’s main pages—your ‘rooms.’ As you build your house, decide which ones are the most important and label them accordingly. Don’t clutter that bar up with too many buttons because I may get lost. Make good use of your sub-navigation menu. Make it easy to read with clean, simple fonts and enough contrast between the background and font colors so I don’t have to strain my eyes to figure out what it says.

Because I may be looking for the bathroom and that could get kind of tense.

4. Be sure your garage has all the tools your readers need.

Your blog’s sidebar has all the tools your user needs, kind of like a garage. In this case, the tools are the widgets and plugins. With WordPress, some themes, and even plugins, allow you to create custom sidebars for each page. That means that the most important content for each page can be placed on the side of that page.

For instance, on your home page,  place the sidebar widgets people will most need when they first land on your blog. On your about page, you might include widgets like social media connection buttons, your latest tweets, or even a few testimonials. If you have a products page—books or other things—consider using affiliate links that showcase your product (and allow you to make a few extra bucks at the same time). Think in terms of what logically fits in that sidebar, and whether it’s a distraction, which you definitely don’t want.

5. Sweep off that front porch and make the iced tea.

This may be the most important place of all: your front porch. It’s where people will want to hang out with you and your other guests, put their feet up, get to know you better. Be sure it’s easy for readers to comment on your blog (consider axing the moderation of comments and that pesky Captcha that makes readers copy those wiggly letters and numbers). Make sure they can easily connect with you on other social media platforms—Twitter, Facebook, etc.—so they can continue the conversation.

Just one word of caution: Be sure you are active on these platforms and aren’t putting them there because they are shiny and pretty or your friend Kate has them. There is nothing more frustrating than clicking on a Twitter account that hasn’t been updated in three months.

6. Make the playroom friendly and your ‘toys’ shareable. 

As kids, we learned to share our toys when we played. Same thing on your blog. Don’t keep the best things hidden when your friends come over. Make it easy for your readers to play with (and share) your content on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. They also should be able to ‘stumble’ it through the social share site, StumbleUpon. Keep those buttons in front of their eyes so all it takes is one click.

Because if you don’t make it easy for me to share, well, I might not want to visit your house anymore.

So, which part of your house has been the most challenging?

Does your house also have other parts?

Which of these six have you had the most fun with?

Bob Dunn is a WordPress trainer, coach and speaker. He provides online, one-to-one support and onsite training, webinars and workshops for groups. He blogs at bobwp.com and is also a contributor at For Bloggers By Bloggers and the BlogWorld Expo blog. You can catch his dynamic presentation at BlogWorld Expo in New York this June. 

But problematic punctuation? Well, that  pushes all my buttons. What can I say? I’m a writer.

Three months ago, I wondered who the first person was who put an apostrophe in where it didn’t belong. In the comments section, you all had your own grammar and punctuation peeves.

My friend from Australia, Di Mace of Word Swords, coined a term that I absolutely loved: Wanton Exclamation Point. It is the perfect way to describe the misappropriation of a punctuation mark that used to have a clear and focused purpose: to tell us that the author was excited—or angry or astounded—about something.

Today, I just finished reading a blog post that contained, I kid you not, 18 exclamation points. The crazy part of me had to do the math. The post was 55 sentences long, so that figured out to be 33 percent of the sentences ending with an exclamation point.

That is like screaming at your reader in every third sentence!

Couldn’t resist ending the above sentence with an exclamation point. But you will notice that—except for my slightly sarcastic headline and the silly section at the end of this post— it’s the only one I put in this entire piece.

Why? Because the exclamation mark is supposed to be reserved for strong feelings and/or high volume. High volume, as in shouting.

Who is this Wanton Exclamation Point?

If Wanton Exclamation Point were a character, she would be that provocative can-can dancer dressed in red in an old west saloon (red, because she wants your attention). Or the overdressed, excessively friendly woman on the bar stool. You know the type.

The first online dictionary I checked, Dictionary.com, had the most perfect definitions of the word “wanton.”

…careless; reckless; without regard for what is right.

…unrestrained; loose, especially a woman.

…extravagantly or excessively luxurious.

…wasteful or squandering.

…lacking discipline.”

Fits Ms. Wanton Exclamation Point to a tee, doesn’t it? Because the overuse of this once special punctuation mark is careless, reckless and extravagant. To the point of making our eyes glaze over and confusing us about what the writer is really feeling.

Cutting Wanton Exclamation Point down to size

We would all benefit from reading the stuff we write out loud, paying particular attention to the punctuation. Go ahead, if you can do it with a straight face, and read the paragraph below (or anything else you happen to have handy) in a state of  screaming, high-pitched excitement—as the exclamation at the end of each  sentence indicates:

“You told us and we listened! You said you needed shorter, easier-to-understand videos! Our production team designed this special WordPress Starter set just for you! It’s like having a WordPress expert sitting alongside of you all the way! Click here to see a sample video! And if you order in the next 48 hours, you get 30% off! Tell your friends! This deal won’t last! One order per customer, please!”

Sounds kind of silly, doesn’t it?

Have you run into Wanton Exclamation Point in your travels in the blogosphere?

Do you have any strategies for making her behave herself?

It was June 30, 2011. The day my crazy life stopped long enough so, between the ice packs and painkillers, I had time to ponder why I am on this planet. I mean, really why I’m here.

Suddenly I had time to drop all the balls I was juggling. Time to think.

And I said to my husband Bob, the ever-patient and nurturing Mr. WordPress, “You know, all I ever wanted to do is write.”

He didn’t pour himself a shot of vodka. He didn’t run to the bedroom to pack his suitcase. He didn’t even reach for the Extra Strength Tylenol.

Instead he said, “Well, then. Why don’t you?”

If you have ever put a dream on the shelf—we can’t afford to go from two incomes to one, I’m too old to start all over again, I’m not as good as other writers out there—you can imagine how an unexpected response like that can knock the wind out of you.

All writers have fears

A response like the one I got made me look my fear in the face. I always had a good reason for not going after that prize. But now I was square in the Land of No Excuses.

I had been given permission to pursue my dream.

That is not to say that I was living the life of a fearless writer. Not yet anyway.

So a few weeks ago, when my friend Larry Brooks (author of the amazing blog StoryFix.com and the man I lovingly refer to as the “Dr. Phil of the literary world”) sent me a gift from the heart, the timing was perfect. In the attachment to his email was a digital copy of his new book, Warm Hugs for Writers: Comfort and Commiseration on The Writing Life.

I had been focused on the hard work of completing the first draft of my memoir and this little gem arrived precisely when I was feeling like I could use a little encouragement. Larry has a knack for summing up writers’ feelings in just a few words:

What we do is hard. Getting someone else to read our work, up to and including the expectation that money will change hands…that’s even harder.”

Bleeding from the forehead: it’s what writers do

Larry’s book is full of encouragement and advice—from him and from other writers who know what it feels like to ‘bleed from the forehead’ in an effort to bring life to the blank page. And yet, as James N. Frey says so eloquently in the foreword, “Most writers I know are writers because they have an inner fire that will burn them up if they don’t write.”

Warm Hugs is a book to pull out if you are having a day where you think your dad was right after all—you should have stayed in teaching (steady paycheck and those benefits!) or taken that civil service exam to work in the post office.

But it’s also a book for the times when you just need to be affirmed. When you just need a warm hug. To know that writer’s block is not fatal—that’s it’s fixable. To laugh at Larry’s self-deprecating “Book Signings from Hell.” Or to read about the epiphany he had when traveling on the I-10 freeway behind an 18-wheeler truck full of caskets on a road trip to Phoenix.

Larry’s writing both informs and entertains. And whenever I get both of those together, it’s a killer combo.

A special offer for Cat’s Eye readers from Larry Brooks

You can get a copy of Warm Hugs for Writers at Larry’s blog for just $6.99, with your choice of a pdf or the Kindle version. Scroll down the right sidebar for the link.

And to sweeten the deal, Larry has a special offer for Cat’s Eye readers: It’s a gift with purchase: your choice of one of his other outstanding ebooks completely free— Get Your Bad Self Published, When Every Month Is NaNoWriMo, Story Structure-Demystified, and others—when you order Warm Hugs. For his ebooks, go to this page and scroll down to the bottom for the titles.

After you purchase Warm Hugs, send an email to Larry (storyfixer (at) gmail (dot) (com) with “Judy Sent Me” in the subject line, and, in the body of the email, your confirmation number or receipt  and the name of the ebook you want as your free gift.

What about you?

Where do you go to renew your energy and enthusiasm for writing?

Is there any particular activity you engage in to get out of your writer’s funk?

It was whispered about children, as though they would never get any farther than flipping hamburgers at McDonald’s because they had, you know:

a low self-concept

Of course, as teachers, we did everything we could—praise, special recognition, a paper crown on their birthday, stapling their paintings front and center on the bulletin board—in a valiant effort to make them feel better about themselves.

So they would have improved self-esteem.

There was nothing wrong with that, of course. Kids need to grow up feeling good about themselves.

But in the adult world of the creative arts, I find that the best writers, bloggers, and plain old communicators, the ones whose stuff I can’t wait to read, have a certain vulnerability. They let me in close, tell me what they’re really feeling. They examine themselves, bare their hearts and souls.

Admit their humanness.

I love Mitch Joel’s quote in his post, The Power of Vulnerability:

The heart and soul of great art is the ability for the artist to be vulnerable.

If being vulnerable means taking off the armor and allowing yourself to be hurt, it also means being open enough to connect with people on deeper levels—to touch the heart and not just the head.

Did Steinbeck Have a Low Self-Concept?

John Steinbeck wrote these words, after a particularly disappointing day’s work on his masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath:

“I don’t know whether I could write a book now. That is the greatest fear of all. Something is poisoned in me. You pages—ten of you—you are the dribble cup—you are the cloth to wipe up the vomit. Maybe I can get these fears and disgusts on you and then burn you up. Then maybe I won’t be so haunted.”

Okay, well, I’d say Steinbeck is baring his soul here (complete with “the cloth to wipe up the vomit.”) As brilliant as he was, he  doubted his writing ability from time to time and wasn’t afraid to admit it.

Another thing he’s doing? He’s showing me his humanness. I have doubts and fears. I’m connecting with him more because he has them, too.

My humor is rather self-deprecating. I never turn on others, so it’s safe because I am making fun of myself. But maybe somewhere in there, my readers can see a little of themselves, too.

Or maybe I just need counseling

I was commenting on another writer’s blog post once. We were talking about the creative process and coming to the desk ready to work.

I said, “Every time I sit down to write a new blog post, I think, ‘Okay. I wrote a good post last week, but maybe that was just a fluke. What if I can’t write another good one because that was the only idea I had?’”

Of course, I was expressing an exaggerated thought, but, still, there was some emotional truth there.

The blogger replied, “Maybe you should look into getting some counseling to feel better about yourself and then you might discover that you are a good writer after all.”

I was floored.

He totally didn’t get what I was saying— that thing that many excellent writers struggle with. We get recognized for something we wrote and we think, “What if they find out I’m really a fake? That I can’t really write a good blog post, or  a real poem, or an amazing piece of fiction?”

In my blog post comment, I had quoted from Bonnie Friedman’s amazing book, Writing Past Dark:

Every day I must prove to myself I am a writer. The knowledge goes away in my sleep.

If we are honest like Friedman, does it really mean that we have self-concept issues? Or does it mean that we sometimes have these feelings and, by expressing them, we hope to connect with our readers in more real ways?

Being a little vulnerable is one of the best ways to connect with your readers

We should not be afraid to inject a little vulnerability into our writing. To admit our fears.

To be human.

What about you?

Do you see vulnerability in someone’s writing as a sign of weakness?

Do you ever write from a place of vulnerability?

Do you think more or less of a blogger who is open and honest about her feelings?

A note to my readers who use mobile devices to access the blog: We just installed the plugin WP Touch Pro here at the Cat’s Eye blog to make the site more mobile-friendly. What this means is that readers on mobile devices (iPhones, iPads, etc.) should find that images load better, text is visible without pinching or zooming and the links and buttons are “thumb-friendly.” If you read the blog on a mobile device, I’d love to hear your feedback. (We’re still tweaking the settings.) And if you’d like to find out more about WP Touch Pro, or purchase it for your site, go here.  (Affiliate link.)

How to Remove the OCD from Your Blogging

by Krissy Brady

There are times when we get lucky: we set out to write a fantastic blog post, and it pours out of us like a waterfall. For me, it feels like an out-of-body experience, and I squeal like a little girl once it’s published. There’s a surreal amount of excitement (and relief) when we put our hearts out there.

We relish every minute of the experience, because we know the next time we visit our blogging bubble, it may not go as smoothly. We may set out to write a fantastic blog post, but for some reason it won’t… come… out.

Before we know it, a blog post that was only supposed to take 2 hours has taken up our entire day. We become finicky about every little detail. We have become an OCD blogger. For those not afflicted with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,  let me explain.

It has other names. Some call it perfectionism, some call it writer’s block, some even call it general stuckitis. Whatever you call it, know that it happens to every blogger.

Here are some common barriers OCD bloggers experience and some tips for breaking through them:

Barrier #1: Your headline is too long. Then it’s too short.

There’s a lot of pressure attached to creating a snappy headline for each blog post we write. Our headlines are the deciding factor of whether a potential reader will give our blog the chance it deserves. You need to hook them, and hook them fast.

If you’re struggling to think of a catchy title, do what all writers do who are in the same boat: create a working title, and list the important points you want to include. Then, let it simmer as you work on the post itself. While you’re working on the body of your post, you never know when inspiration will strike.

Barrier #2: After searching through pages of photos, you still can’t find one that’s “just right.”

While planning your post, think of 3-4 different types of photos you feel would suit the topic you’re writing about. This will maximize your search potential, and the extra planning ahead of time will make the process more enjoyable.

For example, for this post I wanted an image of someone who was adjusting a crooked photo to represent perfectionism. My second option was an image of someone sitting at their computer, staring blankly at the screen to represent writer’s block/general stuckitis. As I was searching, I found the adorable image above, and went, “Aha! That’s my photo!”

Another quick tip: don’t just look for a photo that suits the topic of your blog post; choose a photo that also suits the mood of your blog post. It’s a subtle way of letting your readers know the style of post they are about to read.

Barrier #3: You write the first paragraph, then revise. You write the second paragraph, then revise. By the time you make it to your concluding paragraph, you’ve gone cross-eyed.

Sometimes, I get really antsy when I’m working on a blog post. It could be due to the amount of coffee I’ve ingested beforehand, but it’s usually because I’m not letting my creativity happen naturally. We all know we don’t have to write a blog post in the exact order we’ll eventually present it in, yet I find I still try to do so, which restricts my creativity.

Write your blog post paragraphs in the order your ideas come to you. The creativity will eventually spill into the areas of your blog post you’re struggling with, and you’ll soon wonder what all the fuss was about.

Barrier #4: Before publishing, you read your post over and over and over…

Even if we’ve proofread our post 15 times (admit it, you’ve done it before), we still feel the need to check “one more time” for a misspelled word or a comma splice, as if our word processor is going to put them in for us.

Use the Rule of 3: read once for flow, deleting unnecessary words and editing clunky phrases, read a second time for structure, punctuation, and misspelled words, and read a final time pretending you’re a potential blog reader. Make sure you’ve covered your points in a clear, concise, and personable fashion.

Barrier #5: After your post is published, you wonder if it’s really finished.

After investing so much time on a post, it can be hard to disconnect yourself from it once it’s published. There’s a definite grieving process that happens, since our creativity is deeply intertwined with our sense of self.

After publishing your post, immediately close your blog and let out the breath I know you’ll be holding. Consider logging out of your blog to be a symbol of you letting go of your post, and I guarantee you will be more inclined to let your next one start brewing.

You might be thinking to yourself, “This is great advice, but it’s a lot easier said than done.” Of course it is! Isn’t all advice?

Start by building your own trust.

Place your left hand on your keyboard. Raise your right hand and say, “I, [ Your Name ], solemnly swear to release myself from the shackles of my inner critic.”

It’s a small step, but it’s a big start.

How about you?

Do you have tips of your own for getting over OCD blogging?

About Krissy Brady

Krissy Brady is a freelance writer located in Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada. She is a blogger dedicated to keeping the passion for writing alive and is currently working on her first novel, poetry collection and screenplay. To learn more and keep in touch with Krissy, visit her blog, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter for the latest writing-related information.”