Dealing With Writer's Block

I am a writer, and I have a problem. I struggle with writer's block. I know I have a decent amount of Hubs on Hub Pages, but I have been a member for a long time - long enough to have three or four times as many.

My problem is not a lack of ideas. I am always coming up with ideas for things to write about. I could write about politics, social reform, or conspiracy theories. I actually have written about these topics, but I get disenchanted when they do not get many page views.

I could also write product reviews. I could do book and video game reviews for Amazon and associate the product with my Hub. I love reading and playing video games, so I have put a lot of consideration into this method. My problem with this is content though. I could write a great one paragraph review, but that would probably be deemed substandard by Hub Pages, and wouldn't be featured.

I could also write about celebrities, but honestly I do not care too. I know that would get me a lot of page views, but I can't bring myself to do it. I have no interest in the life of someone I don't know who thinks she is better than me because she has a lot of money. It just isn't there.

I came up with a variety of solutions to assist me in my struggle with writer's block. First, I tried writing about the topics that I am interested. Like I said above, I wrote about politics, social issues, and weird things that were happening in the world. I wanted to discuss ideas, learn about different opinions, and have my Hubs be an open forum. Sadly there was not a lot of interest in the things I am interested in. My Hub on Immigration Reform only got a few page views, and that is a hot-button political issue right now. Nobody cares. People are more interested in what some celebrity wore to the beach. I was disheartened. It isn't that the only reason I write is for money and page views, but I would like those things. I would like to make money off of my writing, and I would like people be engaged with what I am writing. It is hard to continue writing about the same topics when it is evident that people don't care.

Next, I tried writing about personal relationships. I figured people are interested in those, and so I would get some page views, which would help me not be disenfranchised. I did manage to write a few good ones, but I ran out of ideas. Relationships are simple to me, there really isn't much advice needed. At least I am still getting page views from those, which helps.

My final solution was to force myself to write by developing a weekly article. It was called "News you May Have Missed this Week". I tried to do it every Sunday night, and it was supposed to be fairly easy because all I had to do was summarize news articles that weren't found on CNN, FOX, Headline News, or most local news stations. This is a task which the internet makes pretty simple.

I couldn't do it. I lasted about a month. I got way too stressed out knowing that I HAD to write an article on Sunday night. I HAD to find content. Now granted, if I didn't have a full time job to stress about as well, this probably wouldn't have been a big deal. So for those of you who are retired with writer's block, this might be a good method to help you recover. It didn't work for me though.

The only solution that has helped me is to stop worrying about it. I don't need to write to make a living. I don't need the extra income (though it would be nice). Therefore, I will only write when the mood hits. I will write when I feel like I have something interesting to write about. It may be one a week, it may be once a month, or it may be once in a blue moon.

The advantage to this is that if I am interested enough in a topic to take the time to write it, I am pretty sure the article will be good. It won't feel forced. I may not get the page views that I would prefer, but with enough time and persistence, I think I can get enough to not be disenchanted.