I decided to be sensible and write a lens on Christmas gifts for children. It’s the right time of year, it might even be a little late now but not very much so.

When I started the lens, I wrote an introduction and put in a graphic. I even wrote content for another module and did one Amazon Spotlight. Then I was hit by overpowering boredom with the whole thing. The idea of having to write about several more products was more than I could bear. I haven’t deleted the lens. It sits there reproachfully in WIP, a reminder that I should finish it.

This isn’t real writer’s block. It’s not that I don’t want to write and to prove it, yesterday I wrote a book review about The Lost Garden, a novel by Helen Humphreys. The words flowed, I wasn’t stuck at all. I wrote it all in a couple of hours.

In the past, I’ve written commissioned articles for magazines. They haven’t all been on subjects I particularly wanted to write about but, nevertheless, I always fulfilled the commission to deadline and with the required number of words. Additionally, my articles have always been published with little or no sub-editing. Why, then, can’t I treat the Christmas gifts lens like a commissioned article and just write it? I think it must be because I have nothing to lose by not finishing it. If I had failed to deliver a commissioned feature, I would have never been given another commission by that editor again. I would also have lost face and reputation.

I have come to the conclusion that now I have retired from writing for magazines and I can please myself, I don’t have the incentive to produce articles on subjects that don’t interest me. Nowadays I don’t write to deadlines either. I write for pleasure. My work on Squidoo covers many different topics: books, collectibles, English towns and cities, gardening, the environment, and history. It’s quite surprising that even the most obscure subjects receive some traffic and some lenses that I was quite reconciled to never being read have slowly gained an audience. I also have my star ones that get a large number of visitors too.

If writing commercially doesn’t appeal to you, don’t worry if you are writing for pleasure. Just keep writing on topics that interest you because there are always some other people who are interested by the same things.

I guess many of us have periods when we really can’t start writing. I know I do. In fact, I’m going through that kind of period right now. I want to write on Squidoo, here on my blog and other places but can I think of anything to write about? No, I can’t.

At least recognising writer’s block finally gives me something to write about!

I’m checking out “Get Cracking” with Bonnie & Robin on Squidoo on Facebook everyday, in the hope that a suggestion there will inspire me. Yesterday, I thought the suggestion of writing about a favourite gadget was a good one for me. After spending an hour thinking about the gadgets I use, I decided to write about my bread maker. BIG mistake. I started the new lens, wrote the introduction and put in a picture. Wrote another module and a couple more pictures…then I ran out of both steam and enthusiasm. Part of the reason was the model of bread maker that I have is not available in the USA and I really don’t know much about the most recent models of bread makers.

Did I struggle on? Persevere? Succeed in making a new lens in spite of the difficulty? Well, actually, no. I gave up and deleted the lens. How pathetic!

In spite of thinking it’s pathetic, I believe I did the right thing. My boredom would have shone through. I know my least successful pages are those where I have struggled to remain interested. I shall probably still write about a favourite gadget but it will be something smaller and cheaper than a bread maker. I already have an idea for the new page.

I’m also going to take my own advice and try thinking laterally on some general subjects as I’ve done in the past. For example, I’ve written a lot about antiques and collectables. When I was a little bored with the subject, after some lateral thinking I wrote My Own Collectibles and Art which consists of photos of pictures and other things that enhance my life that I have collected over a number of years together with stories of how I came to have them and what they mean to me.

Above all, I know that the cure for writer’s block is just to start writing which is what I’ve done here. I hope it’s not too boring.

Books for Research

Research of some kind is usually essential for all writers. I know that is a sweeping statement but, in my experience, it’s true.

No matter how well I know a subject, there are almost always facts that I need to check to ensure I’ve remembered them accurately. If a reader notices just one wrong fact then the rest of what you’ve written loses credibility.

Sometimes you might be commissioned to write an article about something you have no knowledge of at all. This happened to me some years ago. I’d contacted the editor of a monthly antiques magazine in the hope of being commissioned to write for it. She arranged to meet me and we had a very amicable chat. Then she dropped her bombshell. She said, “I’d like to commission you to write about the Aesthetic Movement. You are familiar with it, aren’t you?” I tried not to look blank and replied that I did know about it, lying through my teeth. I’d vaguely heard of it but couldn’t have said any more than that. The editor then told me the deadline was three weeks away.

I went home and panicked for an hour before I calmed down and started some heavy, intensive research. I looked online, of course, and bookmarked a number of relevant pages. I also went to the library and borrowed books on the subject. I spent about a week reading the references and making notes before starting to write. This story has a happy outcome. I had my article finished before the deadline, written almost exactly to the required number of words and it was used with almost no sub-editing. I also went on to be commissioned to write monthly articles for that magazine for several years.

If I hadn’t been prepared to put in the work researching the subject, I would have lost out on becoming a regular writer for that publication.

Usually, though, I know something, even quite a lot on occasions, about the subject of an article, Squidoo lens or web page I intend to write. Even so I find that preliminary research will throw up facts that I don’t know. Sometimes they are quirky or unusual things that add colour and depth to the article. Caution is needed, though. When I find a fact that I didn’t know, I always check it out from different sources. I don’t want to repeat somebody else’s mistake.

This is something I am very cautious about when doing any research. I never take my notes from just one source even when it’s the leading authority on the subject. There is always a danger of misunderstanding something and getting it wrong in my own writing. There is also the chance that I could subconsciously plagiarise text from my research source. By reading several different sources of information, I get different points of view, different opinions and sometimes a more complete overview. This can allow me to come to my own point of view so that I can write my own article on the subject from the standpoint of what I’ve learned about it. I don’t want to just regurgitate what I’ve read. I want to have an opinion or at least my own slant on the topic.

If you want to see one of my Squidoo pages that I had to do from research with little prior knowledge, take a look at Local Time and Railway Time.

Picture above: Copyright © Twice25 – Creative Commons License

Today I saw a post in a forum which said that it was only older people who cared about writing grammatically.  It went on to say that nowadays it’s quite OK to use its instead of it’s and that lots of newspapers nowadays do this.

All I can say is that I’ve never seen a newspaper deliberately use its instead of it’s. When they do, it’s a typo. If you doubt what I say, check on various newspapers’ style guides available online.

Why is it so difficult to remember? It’s means it is – simple. The apostrophe indicates a missing letter in this case the i of is.

The whole point of grammar is to allow you to write in such a way that it is easily understandable. Bad grammar can make it difficult or impossible for a reader to understand what you are trying to say. Even if your meaning does come over, bad grammar and spelling will make some readers trust you less. If you can’t bother to get these right, they will wonder if what you are saying is correct? Could you be bothered to do your research?

Rocket Moms on Squidoo

I must be crazy joining the Squidoo group, Rocket Moms, right now when I’m so busy. It involves writing a new lens every week on some aspect of a certain subject, which is posted on Mondays. This week it was A Favourite Toy so I chose Meccano.

At the same time, I had to write a lens about Using Pictures Effectively for the Wiwon Challenge Group by next Monday.  I was only asked to do it on Wednesday so it didn’t give me a lot of time especially as I’d just started one for the Senior Squids weekly challenge on bugs. That one has had to go on the back burner. I might have time to work on it tomorrow.

The good news is that I’m not one of those retired people who is bored out of her mind. I never expected to retire. I thought, as I worked for myself, I’d just carry on working forever. I’ve always been so healthy it didn’t occur to me that my health would mean I’d have to give up.

Squidoo is so good for people like me who can’t work. It gives us a purpose, goals and even deadlines sometimes. On top of that, there’s also a great sense of community which has been enhanced by the smaller groups that have been set up over the last few months like Rocket Moms, Senior Squids and the Wiwon Challenge Team. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes writing and making web pages.