Blog Improvement Project Task 2: Brainstorming

The second task for the Blog Improvement Project is:

Part 1 — Brainstorming Ideas:

* Read the articles above and find a technique that you think will help you brainstorm, then spend some quality time brainstorming.

* Keep track of the topic ideas you’ve brainstormed for a time in the future when you need some ideas.

Part 2 — Blogging Your Ideas:

* Use your brainstormed ideas to come up with a new, regular feature for your blog. There are a lot of memes and stuff out there to participate in, but I think it’s cool when a blogger has a feature that is unique to them. Think about what makes your voice different, then come up with a feature that reflects that. There aren’t any “rules” about the feature — just be yourself.

That second one is actually easier (for me) than the first. One of my original goals was to bring back Recipe Tuesday, which should be pretty self-explanatory (in case it isn't: I post a recipe every Tuesday). I started that back up again last week, and I now have a few RT auto-posts, so that even when I'm at school, they'll still get published on time.

As for the other brainstorm ideas, here are a few suggestions I liked from the articles we were given to read:

Introduce "Random Challenges," revisit a previous post, switch "voices." switch styles, ask your readers a question, and summarize what others are writing. (from 24 Things to Do When Stuck for a Topic to Blog About)

Keep a journal and analyze your results. (from 9 Steps to Better Blog Post Ideas)

The other article dealt with ways to generate blog post ideas, which were also helpful. For the time being, I think my regular memes and book reviews (in addition to the random personal posts) will keep me pretty busy, but I'll definitely use the tips if I ever get stuck for an idea.