Getting Out of a Blogging Rut

I first started blogging back in 2007 or so. I was a partner in a Westchester-based investigative firm and decided that I wanted to start a blog about interesting industry topics and legal matters that affected our industry. As the traffic to the blog grew, I became completely addicted. I was floored that people were interested in the things I was writing about. Potential clients started calling, asking about the things I was writing about. The blog is long gone, but it was a preview of things to come.

In 2009, when I started my own business, I knew that blogging was going to be at the core of my business development plan. I knew that private investigators as a whole were not utilizing the web and search engines to attract clientele and I saw an opportunity.

After spending months trying to come up with ideas regarding what to write about, I saw an episode of “American Greed” on Sam Israel, of the Bayou Fund, a hedge fund manager who was charged with losing more than $400 million and later faked his own suicide.

The story was particularly fascinating to me since I had done a lot of due diligence background investigation work on hedge fund managers for investment banks and funds of funds that were investing in hedge funds. Plus, there were some easy-to-spot red flags like a history of alcohol abuse and their “independent” auditor which was actually run by Bayou’s CFO, that could have easily been found if anyone had taken the time do some research.

So I drafted up some lessons that could be learned from the Bayou Fund incident. I remember sitting on my couch writing the post for hours, tweaking, editing and rewriting. I then shared it with a few of my closest friends, who critiqued, edited and redlined the entire thing. I published the article on February 1, 2010. The post got about 20 views, but I was hooked again.

I loved writing about the cases that I was working on, breaking some stereotypes of what private investigators really do and peeking behind the curtains of “a day in the life of a private investigator.” My best writing occurred late at night, in my basement office, typically with a beer next to my keyboard.

Since February 2010, I have published more than 250 posts. I’ve written dozens of articles for other publications, including Pursuit Magazine, PINow.com and ACFE Insights.

Because of all my writing, I went on to be quoted in the ABA Journal and The Washington Post, and was featured in Lifehacker. Recently I had the opportunity to go to CNBC’s studio and was featured on American Greed.

All of this happened because of writing and blogging. It’s changed my life.

For years I wrote something weekly. But as time went by, my weekly blogging slowed to biweekly, then monthly and, until today, I hadn’t written a blog post in months.

So why has my writing slowed to a crawl given everything it has done for me?

The simplest reason is that life just gets in the way. Work. Kids. Home.

But I also feel that I have just run out of things to say. The times I do come up with some brilliant idea, I feel like I had already written about it in some form or another.

So for months, my keyboard has been quiet.

Until this morning.

I got to my desk around 6:30 a.m. to wrap up some research for a case I had been working. I literally could not concentrate on what I was doing because I had so many ideas about what to write. I jotted down six ideas in an hour, all while I was trying to wrap up this case. This was partly prompted by two articles that I read. One was about a private investigator who was the “original most interesting man in the world,” and then there was something in the New York Times that discussed how “meaningful lives...are often not the extraordinary ones. They’re the ordinary ones lived with dignity.” These two completely different articles gave me a whole host of ideas of things to write about, some of which had absolutely nothing to do with what I read.

So here are some tips about blogging and getting out of a blogging rut:

• Read – Anything and everything. You never know where you will get some inspiration. I get a lot of inspiration when I am reading books and long-form articles.
• Write immediately – When I get some inspiration, I like to write immediately. It doesn’t matter if I have 14 deadlines to meet or it’s a Sunday morning, or if it’s a thought while I am in bed (I’ve been known to get out of bed to write). Jotting down some ideas works best when you are inspired.
• Grind – It can be a grind to write and come up with ideas. Sometimes I write articles that I never publish. Keep grinding. One of those ideas may turn into something special.
• Make a list of titles – I have a list of about 150 blog titles that I would like to write someday. I find it easier to start once I have a title.
• Just do it – I often write things and find myself not thrilled with the outcome. It may not be my best work, or exactly how I intended it to turn out, but I will post it anyway. Posting something is better than posting nothing. 

Now excuse me while I go draft some other posts...