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This is a guest post by Katy Castro who blogs at I’m Blogging That! which aims to answer “how to” questions for bloggers.

In the last couple of days I’ve read on several networking sites that bloggers are tired, feeling unmotivated to keep going, and are no longer sure what drives their passion to write.

This blog burnout is something that we all face from time to time but to overcome it, we have to look into our own bag of blogging tricks and figure out what works best to keep motivation high before we hit our bottom.

Knowing what works ahead of time will prevent blog burnout and keep you writing in the event it does happen to you.

Knowledge

It’s crazy but spend time brainstorming what you know. You’ll be surprised at how many topics you can create just by spending time thinking about the vast knowledge you already have.

You probably built your blog because you have knowledge in your niche topic. Go with it whenever possible. There’s a ton of advice out there to write about a topic before someone else does. But when you’re not feeling motivated, consider that no one out there has written from your perspective on the topic in question.

Don’t be afraid to spin what you know on other subjects into a post that’ll work for your blogging niche. I may blog about blogging but that’s not all I know so consider what else is happening that you can talk about to spin a twist to an old (or new) subject.

When you come up with different ideas of subjects you “know” about, write them down!

Teaching

We are all teachers in some form or fashion; especially with our blogs. When you’ve got ideas from your own knowledge, write teaching articles for your blog. Tutorials are loved by everyone – especially if you can teach an old dog a new trick.

Write some of those great “how to” posts or a step by step tutorial on how to effectively use or customize that plug-in you love so much.

By creating a teaching post you can get excited and motivated to share something that you enjoy. There’s a tutorial to fit every niche out there, find what you can teach in your niche and spread the word like wild fire.

Bloggers

Sometimes we are each other’s greatest inspiration and sometimes, we are each other’s detriment. When you’re looking for motivation however, turn to the bloggers that you respect and trust. Read their posts AND their comments.

There’s nothing like a good post or different style of comment to bring about some motivation for a new post, a new idea, or a new spin to something you’ve previously written about.

Bring up your RSS reader (or blog of choice) and hit up those posts that you last skimmed over, dig through the archives to find great posts that you never saw at all and follow up by reading the comments on the posts.

If something comes up that is sparking a thought or motivating you to write – stop, and write!

Browse Posts

This time, not the posts of other bloggers but your own posts. Go back through your popular posts on your blog and check out what you have previously written. Can you spark new ideas or elaborate on a subject with a new post?

What about reading the comments of those popular posts? Perhaps a commentator asked a question that you can answer with a post.

This by far is one of my personal favorites for getting motivated. It’s also a great reminder of the topics that work the best on my blog that enable me to write more inspiring posts for my visitors on subjects they enjoy the most.

Join Conversations

There are times when networking is just relaxed and easy – one of those times can be by joining conversations with groups at different networking sites. Head on over to StumbleUpon, digg, Mixx, etc and join a new conversation.

Get your thoughts flowing on a different idea. Sometimes, the only lack of motivation that we have is not that we can’t think of anything to write but we can’t find the desire to write the post.

By having mini-conversations on different topics you may find yourself motivated to write a post, jot down new ideas, or simply give your brain something new to think about.

Walk Away

Yep, you read that right. If you’re beyond being able to think about anything to write about just walk away. Clearing your mind and not focusing on the lack of motivation may spark inspiration to sit back down and give writing another go.

When you’re just living your life, you may find the greatest inspiration to create the post that you’ve been looking for.

Preventing Burnout

If you’re just a bit like me, you may find that at times writing comes easy and naturally. The ideas for articles come and in great quantities.

Should this happen to you, allow yourself to just write. Go at your ideas one by one and create your posts ahead of time. If I’m nothing else with blogging, I’m a huge advocate for having a post arsenal.

Writing ahead of time allows time for burn out, walking away, busy lives, and lack of motivation. The best part is that we can feel this way and still give our visitors what they want – a new post!

Conclusion

Lack of motivation or burn out happens to all of us with anything we do. This is especially true when we put so much effort into the same practice day after day.

Learning what works for you to get and keep you motivated for new posts will save you from having to deal with the situation for long.

There’s a ton of things we each do for motivation, what’s your greatest source of motivation to blog or write?

This is a guest post by Katy Castro who blogs at I’m Blogging That! which aims to answer “how to” questions for bloggers.