Jason Murphy

Where do content ideas come from?

Aug 29, 2007 Blog General, Creative Writing

I’ve been posting blog posts consecutively for 21 days now. It was easy at first, then it became harder to try to find topics to write about. Often times it was the overall undertone of the day that became that day’s theme for an article. But most often I had to search for content that I felt comfortable writing.

When I Write

I think a small portion of my ability to consecutively come up with something, even if that something came in varying shades of quality, was the ability to write uninterrupted. At about 11 PM everynight, I’m able to spend an hour at the PC without any disturbance from kids, the wife (she’s watching Big Love or something), phone calls, emails, TXT messages, etc. This allows me to sit down and just write whatever is on my mind. As Michael Stelzner discussed in his tips for finding writing time, this means I have found my “productivity zone”. I only wish that it could happen earlier in the day because by the time I’m done writing, I’m wiped out. In fact, last night I fell asleep several times writing yesterday’s article. At least I know when my zone can occur.

Where Do The Ideas Come From?

As mentioned previously, a lot of my ideas come from trendspotting headlines in popurls and netvibes. It can be easy to see a common topic across multiple sites by using those aggregators.

But even after looking at those sites, I can come away empty handed without a subject matter. At that point, I recap the day with a quick mind map and try to remember if I learned anything that day. If I did I write down on scrap paper what it was , was it profound, did I take action on it, was it worth sharing, etc.

If even after all that, if I can’t think of something to write about, I force myself to write something. Even if it’s just rambling at first, I can always edit the document later. When I force myself to write, I generally can come up with something half way decent.

Other Ideas

If you’re still struggling with ideas on what to write, you could always rely on telling a funny story. Storytelling is a lost art, and if you have the ability you should use it.

Aaron Wall also suggests we use lists. He has a post showing how you can come up with ideas for lists. Something odd about rasing our kids in the demand generation, they just don’t appreciate a good lengthy article. Luckily, lists are an acceptable answer for the ADHD in all of us.

I Showed You Mine…

What ways do you use to come up with content writing ideas?

•  Today is Day 21 out of 30 for My Own Thirty Day Challenge.