Having made the decision to start a writing habit, you might find yourself staring down a black page asking yourself “what do I write?” I would usually respond with “anything that comes to your mind” and while that remains a valid and positive answer, having a basket of ideas you can run through when needs be wouldn’t hurt either.
Watching the world go
Observe how people behave in everyday situations, jotting down ideas as they occur to you
- Not only should you watch but you must also listen
- Writers are terrible eavesdroppers
- You can pick up some wonderful snippets that will effortlessly turn themselves into ideas for all sorts of things
Read Books
Committing ideas to paper helps commit them to memory and stimulate new writing projects
- Read what interest you
- You do not need to finish a book to have read it, if it gets boring pick up another
- To develop a habit you must first learn to enjoy it
Use your imagination
Combine ideas from different sources, chop parts you don’t want and continue repeating this (merge & chop) process until you have something you want
- Do your thinking on paper
- People enjoy reading things they can visualize not endlessly detailed ramblings
- Consider how you would set down your ideas
Keeping an eye on the media
Newspapers, television and radio are some of the richest sources of ideas
- Keep your eyes and ears open for the unusual stories and quirky programs tucked away between the major items
- Jot down all kinds of things that capture your imagination
Drawing on your experience
Use your personal experiences to strike a connection with your readers
- You can approach writing from a flipped perspective – what you wish would have happened instead
- Let your imagination run wild, and let your imagination take you where you want to go with your writing
