Squidaholics Anonymous

How to defeat writer's block when building lenses

Everyone has it happen - so here's some categories to think about to help

1. Favorite books: Write a lens about your favorite book, favorite series of books, or favorite author. These kinds of lenses are perfect matches for the Amazon Module and a chance to pick up some affiliate sales. I have created two of these so far: One on Robin Hobb and one on Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series.
2. Favorite music: Write a lens about your favorite music, favorite singer or musician, or favorite Broadway Musical. These lenses will also be perfect fits for the Amazon modules as well as Wikipedia to provide bio's for people. I've been working on several lenses on singers, including Sarah Brightman, George Strait, and Reba McEntire.
3. Favorite movies: Write a lens about your favorite movie, or favorite actor or actress, or favorite directors or producers. These kinds of lenses would be great for Netflix and You Tube modules, as well as Amazon modules. I did one lens on the works of Ken Burns, the documentary filmmaker.
4. Hobbies: AWESOME source for new lenses! Lots of the modules available can provide awesome source material and accessorries for lenses about your hobbies. If its a crafting hobby, You Tube can provide videos to help people learn. If its a collecting hobby, you can link to eBay items or Amazon items that someone starting in that hobby would like. Among my lens collection I have ones on Intarsia Knitting, Knitting, Cross Stitching, and How to turn a hobby into a business.
5. Collections: Did I mention writing a lens about what you collect is a great idea? When you love something enough to collect it, you've got the passion to put together a great lens. I've done a few of my own: Pokemon Trading Cards and Teddy Bears.
6. Do you sell online?: If you do, Squidoo lenses make great marketing tools for promoting those sales venues. I personally sell at a lot of venues, and I have created lenses to help promote them. My listing includes my eBay Store, my three websites, Blujay, Ecrater, and Etsy.
7. Where do you live?: There is a Squidoo group dedicated to cities, so why not create a lens about the town where you live now, or where you grew up? For me, that's the same place: Lincoln, Nebraska. Who knows a city best than the people who live there - you can share what makes your town a great place to live, and then join the Squidoo City Guide.
8. Think back to your childhood: Now, I know this will be harder for some of us than other, but how about doing a lens about your favorite childhood toys, books you loved to read growing up, or important milestones you remember, like getting your first color TV in the house - or the first TV - or electricity!
   
   I wrote a lens about Commodore Computers, as getting our first Computer was a big event in our household.
9. Historical Moments you've experienced: The greatest Historical Archive we have is our collective memories. However, for most of us, once we pass away, those memories are lost. If you've experienced one of these historical moments and its touched your life in some way, why not write a lens about it and record it for posterity? That's one reason I'm so excited about the new Ken Burns documentary on World War II, as it will capture a piece of that archive for all time.
   
   Were you a child when Pearl Harbor was attacked? Do you remember what you were doing when JFK, Robert Kennedy, or Martin Luther King were assassinated? Did you watch the Vietnam War on TV? What you were doing the morning of September 11th?
   
   Writing a lens can share your knowledge and experiences with the rest of us, and maybe it'll be educational for you as well.
10. Came up with an idea that's already been done: That's OK, do it anyway! As long as you come up with your own URL, there isn't any problem with having multiple lenses on the same topic. Some ways to get a new URL is to add something like "about" or "I love" in front of the name you wanted to use that you found is taken. You can also insert hyphens or rearrange the words to get a unique URL. Once you have your unique URL, you're off and rolling!!