I've been writing "somewhat seriously" for some 40-odd years, and sometimes it really does feel like I am just rewriting the same 10-12 stories, over and over.
I'm somewhat of a niche writer-- mostly in the areas of psychology, consciousness and self-development-- which also feels like it narrows down the field of what I'm writing about.
Branch of a yellow Yew in the sun
The reason I'm having these thoughts this morning is that I recently was sorting through my "ideas file" and noticed that more than a few notes had the same ideas sketched out.
Uh-oh. Am I out of original ideas?
But is it REALLY "Old News?"
The other week, I got into the beginnings of exploring rewrites and "repeating myself," and was helped a lot by a comment from 
In that particular context, I was talking about the many, many, MANY posts we see around here on "How to successfully create content on Steemit," and whether such posts have "value" when there already are 100,000 of them out there...
Worth remembering: Not everyone reads everything, all the time.
It's not Exactly Recycling...
Now, I'm not talking about actually "recycling" old posts here... I'm just talking about dialing down any worry that just because you may have created "something similar" a few months/years back... and letting that fear get in the way of exploring similar ideas today.
Purple flowers in the garden
No, people aren't suddenly going to stop following you and run for the hills because you repeated yourself a bit. If you think about it, the reason we follow most people is because they stick to a certain style/topics that appeal to us.
Let's face it, if you have specific interests you like to write about, or a particular niche you follow, an activity you're passionate about... it's almost a given that there will be some duplication and repetition.
So why am I bringing this up?
Well, because sometimes we let the fear of repeating ourselves become a "creative block." We persuade ourselves that we're "clearly not feeling inspired" because we're looking to old material to create new content.
Don't worry about it! It's a natural part of the creative process... and most often a revisit to something old-- especially if it was well received-- ends up being an improvement on the original, because you got some new perspectives, in the meantime.
So just... Steem ON!
How about you? Do you ever feel like you are "repeating yourself?" Do you worry others might think that makes you a "song of one note," so you create less? Do you ever consider that "today's reader" might NOT be "yesterday's reader?" Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Posted 20170707 09:49 PDT