where to find ideas for articles

Where To Find Ideas For Articles : 

Where To Find Ideas For Articles

Slide 2: 

As a professional writer who currently maintains several blogs and “content heavy” web sites, I am more than familiar with the feeling of panicky stupor known as “writer’s block.” Every writer experiences it. One moment your head is swimming with ideas for compelling, thought provoking articles on any number of interesting subjects.

Slide 3: 

Then, in what seems like the blink of an eye, your mind seems to go completely blank. Those wonderful ideas you had only a few minutes before seem stale, trite or just plain boring and you can think of absolutely nothing with which to replace them.

Slide 4: 

You stare blankly at your computer screen, hands on keyboard, ready to go, and nothing comes to mind. It is a humbling and sometimes frightening experience. If you are working on a deadline, it can be downright terrifying.

Slide 5: 

Fortunately, quite a few resources are available where you can find stimulating ideas that can jump-start your writing when you are facing an attack of writer’s block at the same time you are in immediate need of some stimulating content. One of the most easily accessible, of course, is the Internet; but when you are facing either a fast-approaching deadline or a mind numbing case of “brain fade,” the question of where to start can be mind-boggling.

Slide 6: 

Some of the decision about where you should look for article ideas is naturally going to depend on your area of expertise or the subject matter about which you usually write. If you blog about current affairs, for instance, news stories that are of interest to the widest audience can often be found on the front page of any major metropolitan newspaper like the New York Times, which is (as of this writing) still available on the Internet for free.

Slide 7: 

I doubt that many people who write, even for pleasure, have nothing to say about the current economic crisis, the News of the World scandal, or the plethora of stories emerging daily from the Middle East.

Slide 8: 

Similarly, if you write about financial issues, a trip to the pages of the Wall Street Journal might give you some fodder for an article or two, or if national or international politics is you passion, the Washington Post would probably offer up some good ideas. All of these newspapers are available on line, usually with their “Op-Ed” sections intact.

Slide 9: 

Reading the work of Internet bloggers can also be a great stimulus for original articles. One of my blogs is devoted to the benefits of a personal journal; when I can think of nothing interesting or original to say on that subject I will sometimes do a search of the blogs on Word Press or BlogSpot to find posts written by other bloggers that offer an interesting or new perspective on some of my own ideas.

Slide 10: 

I also maintain a rather extensive list of blogs that I read on a regular–if not daily–basis as a means of keeping my perspective fresh and current. I use the online magazine “feedly” for this purpose. In my opinion, it is far and away the most readable, well designed and enjoyable on line news reader on the web today.

Slide 11: 

If you read blogs, or virtually anything on the Internet today (which nearly all writers do) you probably also make it a habit to comment on those items that you find personally stimulating, interesting or even objectionable. If you are not already in the habit of doing so, it is a good idea to save a copy of those comments on your computer. I find that they can be a great foundation for new articles, often with very little in the way of additions or revisions.

Slide 12: 

For that matter, even when you are not feeling particularly desperate for an article idea, it is a good practice to take a look through your portfolio of old articles, blog posts or other finished and unfinished articles on a regular basis to determine if any of them are appropriate for a revision or even a major rewrite.

Slide 13: 

It is not unusual for articles that we wrote some time ago still to contain valid information that, with a little bit of updating, can be re-cycled into new content.

Slide 14: 

You may also discover some old, forgotten “gems,” articles that you wrote some time ago that remain your personal favorites, tucked away in your portfolio just waiting to be republished “as is.” (Some writing, after all, is best when left to stand on its original merits; can you imagine the disaster if Joyce had suddenly decided to re-write Ulysses with perfect sentence structure and punctuation?)

Slide 15: 

When all is said and done, however, very often your best resource, even on an intellectually and creatively barren day, can very often be that three pound mass of gray matter that sits between your ears, most of its capabilities untouched. After all, your brain contains the seeds of your passion, the raw material that feeds your creativity, talent and intellectual curiosity alike.

Slide 16: 

Although it may be acting a bit sluggish at the very moment when you need it to be on high alert, it is not–I assure you–dead. You just need to figure out how to wake it up– thankfully, doing so usually is not too difficult if you stop for a moment and think about the reasons it might be feeling so sleepy in the first place.

Slide 17: 

Most cases of short term writer’s block are caused by a physical rather than psychological problem. Therefore, although it may seem a bit counter-intuitive, “waking up” your brain requires that you first focus not on what your brain needs to do for you, but on what you need to do for your brain.

Slide 18: 

Confused? Think of your brain as a highly volatile combustion engine, burning fuel (in this case oxygen and glucose-or sugar) very rapidly as it works to coordinate not just your higher mental faculties like critical thinking and creativity but all of your bodily functions. Programmed through the Millennium to keep its host (that is you) alive at all costs, your brain prioritizes its activities in order of importance.

Slide 19: 

In other words, if it does not have enough available fuel (think “energy”) to keep all of your body systems working at 100% capacity, it will steal resources from those it considers expendable–like creative thinking–to maintain those that it is quite certain are not-like heart beat and lung function.

Slide 20: 

Of course, all of this happens on an unconscious, automatic level. What you feel are the effects of this “work slow down” in the form of clouded thinking, poor judgment, sleepiness, fatigue and a definite decrease in what some writers refer to as “creative flow.”

Slide 21: 

Thus, the answer to treating-and often averting entirely-your physically mediated writer’s block is simply a matter of making certain that your brain-and the rest of your body, for that matter- is getting what it needs. Oxygen and glucose travel through your body in your bloodstream, transported in plasma and, in the case of oxygen, linked to the hemoglobin in your red blood cells.

Slide 22: 

Getting fuel to your brain, therefore, is a simple matter of getting blood to your brain; accomplishing that task is usually just a matter of getting your heart beating a little faster and making yourself breathe a bit harder. In other words, exercise!

Slide 23: 

Take a break from the keyboard and go for a brisk walk, a quick bike ride, or, if the weather is not conducive to outside activities, a few minutes of aerobic activity indoors. Any activity that increases your heart rate should suffice.

Slide 24: 

As to providing “brain food” your best bet to combat writer’s block is to eat something that will provide a quick burst of energy, like the simple sugars in fruit juice, along with some complex carbohydrates and a small amount of protein and fat-which are more slowly digested and therefore provide long term energy and add to your body’s stored energy supply.

Slide 25: 

A glass of juice, a bowl of high fiber cereal and some skim milk would fit the bill nicely (This also happens to be the staple meal of my “working” diet.) However, if you want to substitute an energy bar or a serving of low-fat PB&J on whole grain toast, go for it! The idea is to keep your brain supplied with what it needs to function at optimal capacity for as long as it takes for you to write your best.

Slide 26: 

Finally, once your brain is physically fully functional again, you will need to find some ways to reacquaint yourself with your personal inventory of creative ideas–the thousands if not millions of questions and random musings that are tucked away in your memory, temporarily inaccessible to your frontal cortex. Accomplishing this is a matter of knowing how your mind works and doing what it takes to revive your creative interest.

Slide 27: 

I find that thinking out loud (also called “talking to yourself”) about the things that are on my mind, often things that are preventing me from thinking about the job at hand, will often help, either by temporarily freeing my mind from worries or sending my thinking off in a different direction.

Slide 28: 

For example, if money is an issue, as it usually is, I ask myself why it is bothering me right now and try to brainstorm solutions–leaving out nothing, including my most outrageous ideas. This practice temporarily ends my ruminating, and forces me to begin thinking creatively again.

Slide 29: 

Along the same lines, I sometimes mentally relive an experience that was particularly emotional–the kind of emotion is less important than the intensity in this exercise–either in my mind or by writing in my journal. This, again, shifts my thinking into creative “right brain” mode and usually helps me to think of something to write about in the moment.

Slide 30: 

Hopefully, these suggestions, limited as they are by time and space, will be sufficient to help you think of some new ideas for creating helpful, interesting and entertaining articles for your readers. Nevertheless, even if they are not, here is one final piece of advice that, sooner or later, always works. Just write! You can post articles and submit articles to: http://www.fylko.com