##NOLIGHTBOX## This weekend was spent changing the theme at Sirthinks’ Place. A fresh feel so to speak. The theme took 5 seconds to install. It took another 12 or 13 hours to edit the code to get all the plugins working the way they are supposed to. Getting the under-used guestbook to work with this theme was a bit of a nightmare, but it is working properly.

But, But, But…. That isn’t what I am writing about.

When I wasn’t hacking and writing code I was out for a blog-walk. Most of Sunday was spent visiting my favourite bloggers. Since the past couple of weeks has been spent in a virtual brain-shrink when it comes to finding things to blog about, it was of little surprise when I found that SEVERAL of my favourite bloggers were suffering from “BLOGGER’S BLOCK!”

(6) The Newsreader
Just heard something on the grapevine? Found an interesting press release? Or perhaps you’ve just read something in the paper. Whatever the case, the Newsreader is a post where you relay some information to your subscribers which you didn’t exactly generate but which they would be interested in nonetheless. Source: North x East

“Sir,” I said to myself. “What the hell is going on?” Now, I know most of us aren’t professional bloggers. Indeed, most of the people who visit here, and whom I visit are not professional bloggers. We are working folk who just happen to have found a hobby in the blogosphere. Some find solace in dumping their problems for strangers to read. Others like to be funny, or share their joie de vivre. What ever it is that drives them to blog, blog they do. So it was time to figure out just why everyone is suffering from this debilitating disease,”BLOGGER’S BLOCK.”

Firing up Firefox I went for a tour of the internet. The intention was to get ideas for blogging. Boy, did I learn some things. First among the things I learned is that professional bloggers have to work too hard. I can’t imagine having one, let alone several ideas for blogging on a day to day basis. However, in order to maintain readership one has to blog at least relatively often, or on a basis their readers can get used to. Whether it be once a day, once a week or twice a week, the readers want material.

So, what do we do when we haven’t a got a clue what to write about? Simple…. We follow the nine ideas presented by North x East, a site designed to assist the internet start up crowd. Gee, sounds like a place for ME! Back to the nine ideas presented there.

These nine ideas are simple, straightforward and in most cases will be crucial in assisting us with maintaining our readers and garnering more readers.

For the next several days and maybe weeks I am going to put these ideas to work here. For now, a short list of the basic ideas is called for:

1. The Speedlinker
2. The Quoter
3. The Entertainer
4. The Questioner
5. The UpDater
6. The Newsreader
7. The Recycler
8. The Guest Poster
9. The Announcer

Hopefully using these ideas will help me garner some new material. Of course these ideas are meant as fillers for those times when we seem unable to come up with any fresh material on our own.

I am also going to be testing some ideas of my own for bringing in readers. Should any of them work I will pass them on. Unlike the Spacers of the world, it seems more important to me to reach out to the masses rather than just those who have blogs on one service. Of course, being on my own server, using configurable software which doesn’t necessarily go all the way towards social networking provides me with challenges not faced by those on WL Spaces or MySpace. Fortunately it allows me to do things that most hosted software doesn’t. So we take the good with the bad!

Anyone who thinks this self-maintained, hosted blogging software is too hard for them should remember that I am just a dumb truck driver. It took a university kid to turn me onto doing it myself, but from there it was a breeze. Sure I had to learn a few things, but it keeps the brain working.

See you in the funny pages…..