The great thing about cooking up custom content is that when you get tired of your cramped office, you can always take your show on the road to your local coffee shop or library. Yet this tried-and-true blogging getaway tool backfired on me recently as I escaped to my neighborhood Starbucks. I’m not finicky and I can usually write in loud places with lots of distractions. Some of my best writing sessions went down at a noisy and dramatic all-night laundromat in East Los Angeles. Yet for some reason, this Starbucks on this day was blogging hell. Blasting reggae, an older gentlemen who appeared to be speaking into a megaphone to everyone who walked in the door and a never-ending series of annoying beeps coming from God knows where were just a few of the things standing in the way of my blogging excellence. So it made me wonder: Would a picture-perfect blogging environment be more conducive to creativity or am I doomed to distraction based on my own mental condition du jour?
In my years tinkering on a laptop, I’ve experienced both blogging extremes. I used to blog quietly in a cool, dark and totally silent corner of a library in Santa Monica. I found this serene little foxhole fostered productivity quite beautifully. Still, this perfect condition had a condition of its own. For this blogging-for-business wizard, my magic only happens if I’m prepared. I can be writing on a secluded island or in a bustling shopping mall and if I’m not ready, I can expect to produce nothing than perhaps a few witty Tweets about how screwed and uninspired I am. I need a game plan. If I’m just researching and flipping through the old Google Reader, that can happen anywhere but ideally should go down long before I sit down to write. Even just a few ideas scratched down on notebook paper can make the world of difference when it comes to easy and inspired blog writing.
My blogging paradise also needs to be disconnected from the Internet. Blasphemy, I know… but the temptation to fry my brain on Facebook or read celebrity gossip on RadarOnline is too high. So I find success happens when I create in Word or some other non-online program before I post on my blogging platform. Once I hopped off of social media and looked over my ideas for the week, that annoying Starbucks was just as good as my secret blogging hideout in Santa Monica. But that’s just me.
Readers, you tell us — what’s your idea of blogging nirvana? Do you need a special writing destination or can you make the magic happen anywhere? Spill your blogging secrets in the comments section below!
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