I have a problem…

I’ve been trying to post at least one blog a week (two would be better according to my publishers who are really smart people), but I am struggling to find new and interesting material, especially given the rules I set for myself when I started my blog.

Oh, did I not tell you about the rules?

Sorry about that.  Here you go:

Laura’s Self-Imposed Blog Rules

1.  Don’t talk about my day job.

2.  Don’t talk about my love life (except in general terms, e.g., I would like for my love life to include George Clooney).

3. Try to avoid politics and religion as much as possible. (Although, I’ve been known to bend this rule a bit when I grow especially intolerant of intolerance)

4. Don’t share anything about my friends or family’s lives that they would consider too personal.

5. Try to keep the material upbeat. My favorite writing style (and the one I think that works best for me) is fun, bright and breezy. This blog is not intended to be a downer.

So, while keeping to these rules, I also try to keep to the general Rule of Writing 101 which is: Write What You Know.

So this further limits my blogging to say that I can write about:

1. Movies and television (with my deepest veins of knowledge including Supernatural, Sherlock, Rom-Coms and 80s detective shows)

2. Writing, books, and my own personal experiences in the scary publishing world.

3. The places I’ve been and seen, as well as the places I want to go and see.

4. The ridiculousness of faux celebrities.

And…. yup. That’s about it.

Finally, in writing these blogs, I try to incorporate my own personal style which includes a lot of lists, parenthetical phrases and hopefully a good dash of humor.

With all of these rules and requirements, it’s tough to think up ideas for good blog posts that don’t reveal more about myself than I’m comfortable revealing, but still keep my reader interested.  After all, for all that I blog, tweet, pin, tumbl and instagram, I’m a surprisingly private person.

As a matter of fact, this may very well be one of the most personal blogs I’ve posted to date.

So, do I have a solution to my quandary, or am I just planning to waste a post by randomly whining?

Don’t worry – I have a solution!!

And that solution is… the Internet.

That’s right… I Googled “Ideas for Blog Posts” and the response was a PILE of blogs that centered around choosing ideas for blogs.  The most interesting ones I found were:

• 100 Blog Topics I Hope You Write from Chris Brogan; and
• 101 Fabulous Blog Topic Ideas by Molly Greene

So, check out the lists, give some all-important internet traffic to the bloggers and come back here to see which topics I decide to write about first.