One child at a time

Words are my friend: I enjoy playing with them, reorganising them, manipulating them, and looking up new ones – all in an attempt to construct a sentence which says what I want it to say.

But recently I have found myself struggling to say the right thing. There are three ladies who I follow on Twitter who are dealing with cancer; they tweet their way through their battles with honesty, braveness and humour.

But of course, by choosing to share their stories in public (for which I am in no way criticising – that would be a tad pot and kettle ha), they are inviting responses to their situations. And I find myself worrying about what the right response is. Have I got the balance between empathy and humour? Will it make them smile? What if I say the wrong thing?...

Don’t you hate writer’s block? You know you have brilliant ideas, but there’s that damn blank screen staring at you when you sit down to blog. Nothing happens. The brain’s in idle. Frustration begins to creep in. (Remember Jack Nicholson in The Shining?)

Many people struggle with writing. But I believe anyone can write and blog with the right approach. It’s not brain surgery, but it does take some work.

First, get over the idea that you have to write a blockbuster blog every time. We find in our training that many corporate bloggers are by nature analytical and perfectionists, which creates a lot of extra agony. It’s great to hit a home run, but mostly this is about hitting lots of singles and doubles...