Where to Get Ideas for Writing is part of Draw and Write Comics by Robot Outlaw. This article outlines some of the most common as well as some little known methods for coming up with ideas to write about.
Where to Get Ideas for Writing
Man it’s not true that you can just start banging away on your keyboard and ideas will eventually pop into your head to write about. Sometimes there’s no choice but to just smack your head on the desk in defeat, open World of Warcraft and start killin Ally’s.Today I grilled some steaks wearing shorts and tank top, it was 65 and sunny. Learned a new Spanish word (motivado) which is pretty close to the English word motivated. Funny how learning that word in Spanish doesn’t really help me get motivated to work.
As you can see, I’m just writing blather at the moment because nothing meaningful is coming to mind, and I really need to come up with something to write on my blog and newsletter. It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve written anything worth reading, and I want to keep my readers interested.
With that in mind, there is always a few places I like to go to get ideas for new content. Old emails is one of my favorites. I am constantly bombarded with questions, some related to what I do, others not so much, but I always prepare a well thought out response to every question I’m asked via email.
This can sometimes lead to an excellent jumping off point from where I can start an interesting article.
Quickly digressing back to my opening statement for a moment, that is absolutely false what I wrote. It was a thought that was gobbing up space in my brain so I spewed it out onto this page to get things going, and as a result I came up with not one, but two compelling articles. Yes banging away on the keyboard and pitching out junk leads to great content. Sometimes it happens fast, other times it takes a while, but it always works.
Back to my main point, finding ideas for writing good content, or content that people will read, whether it’s good or not :D. Old emails are usually my first, but not my only source for ideas. I also maintain several online profiles at some interesting online communities, or message boards if you prefer, where I’m actively seeking out questions, in need of answering, on topics that I know well. This is a great source of ideas for articles as well as a very effective form of online marketing.
So out of frustration of having nothing to write I managed to scribble down a couple of ideas that might help some of the readers of this blog. After all, ultimately my goal is to help others, through educating and / or entertaining them with interesting information.
Please feel free to leave questions / comments below. Your interaction is much appreciated.