The longer you don’t blog the harder it is to blog, and that’s really how any kind of writing is. You get out of practice to the point that trying to say anything in prose feels stilted and difficult. It’s not a use it or lose it proposition though. You can get back on the blogging bandwagon. There’s hope. You’ll find it in my 12 Step Program for the Blogging Blas:

1. Perfectionism is not an excuse for procrastination. So put a pen and notepad by your keyboard right now. Throughout your workday be on alert for topical tidbits that show some blog post potential. Don’t worry about how you’ll expand on the subject. Just write the idea down and move on. For example, you have a discussion on Twitter that makes you think about something in a different way. Write it down. Or you see something in the news that relates to your product or service. Write it down. Then continue whatever it is you were doing. The ideas will percolate in your subconscious while you do other things. I learned this by accident to be honest but John Edwards also talks about this in his now famous 7DayEbook.
2. At the end of the day, review your list. Anything else come to mind? A fresh angle? Another happening you could expand on in a way that relates to what you do? This step might seem moot if you don’t actually add anything to your list, but just do it anyway. It helps your ideas take “root” in your creative subconscious. Now go to bed or have a brew or do whatever you normally do at the end of the day. And completely forget about your blog and the fact that you can’t think of anything to write about. Think about anything but work in fact. (Yes it can be done.)

It’s not news that the news industry is changing rapidly, and the traditional newspaper and magazine industry is in a whole mess of trouble.

Newspapers are losing readers at an alarming rate to online reading — and readers are reading not only newspapers, but blogs and many other types of sites.

Newspapers are trying to find a model for making money online, but they’re not learning fast enough, not adapting fast enough. Online ads can’t support them, because now the monopoly for publishing news and commentary has been broken, and advertising has been spread out among thousands and thousands of sites.

How can the newspaper industry adapt? Well, they’ll either have to figure that out quickly, or they’ll die.

As a former journalist and editor at a Gannett-owned newspaper, I have some thoughts — things I’ve learned from my career as a blogger at Zen Habits.

1. Smaller is better. Newspapers can’t survive on online ads not because it’s an impossible model for publishing — I do it at Zen Habits and many other blogs and smaller news sites do it. They can’t survive on online ads because they’re too huge. Not only do they have a newsroom of journalists and editors, but they have copy editors, layout editors, graphic artists, photographers, managing editors and more. And that’s just the newsroom — one small part of a newspaper company. There’s also advertising, production (the presses and so on), circulation (the delivery of newspapers), accounting, the IT department, human resources, and overall management (the publisher, president, vice president, staff, etc.).

Blogging is a very effective and important social media tool for authors because blogs bring your personality into play for your readers. Blogs increase visibility, and are an easy, economical and FAST way to reach readers. My thoughts are below, but I also like this post from Chris Brogan 40 Ways to Deliver Killer Blogger Content. You may also notice that I also write a lot of lists at my blog; there’s a reason!

Why Blog?

My digital team usually suggests that blogging is the 1st or popular tool in social media toolkit for these reasons:
– Best use of your most valuable resource – time
– Uses your strengths as an author
• Telling stories (engagement)
• Building relationships (engagement)
• Making connections (engagement)
• Build your brand/promote yourself
• Drive traffic to your website /sales