Looking Deeper to Generate Ideas
Posted on | October 21, 2009 | 1 Comment
In a recent article, I wrote about the need for regular content in order to tell your story to the audiences that you need to inform and influence. We all know that writing regularly is very important but people often ask me – ‘how can you generate good content when you can’t think what to say?’
You may know that barren feeling when clarity is elusive and inspiration disappears. Even professional writers know it. Whether you call it ‘writers block’ or something else, there is no point waiting for it to be replaced by inspiration. It needs to be stimulated by one of a number of methods.
The first may seem obvious but it is effective. Read around the news and see if there are stories out there that fit with your content plan and would thus, with you own point of view applied, make a good article that will attract the interest of your target reader. If you read around the blogosphere or on article sites, you’ll see numerous examples where this has been done. Sometimes, though, even this approach fails to come up trumps. If it fails, then you may need to look deeper.
Your conscious mind is filled with the day-to-day issues and distractions of the urgent. It can also be full of reasons why what you are creating is just not good enough. You may have experienced the many false starts that trying to create through the conscious mind can bring. Your subconscious mind often knows what you want to say however, the difficulty is finding ways through the conscious and into the subconscious. Here are a few ways that work for me – you may have others that work for you.
Write into the topic and take it by surprise.
Start by just writing something, it doesn’t matter what. As you write, perhaps about the weather or the feeling of the pen in your hand, a line will begin to make some sense and then you are off. This is your subconscious taking over. The spine of an article, maybe the whole thing, flows simply behind it. At worst, you’ll have written something instead of sitting and fuming. At best, you’ll have the basis of your article.
Quieten the noise.
Meditation or relaxation can help. I listen to a Paul McKenna relaxation exercise and find that it relaxes and quietens my conscious mind sufficiently to be able to hear the answer coming from beyond conscious thought.
Step away from the paper or keyboard.
Talk into a recording machine.
Dictation machines are affordable and easy to use (and to transcribe). It is often easier to talk about something than it is to write about it especially if it is a subject close to your heart and one that you talk about frequently.
All of these approaches will result in raw material for an article. That material needs structuring and editing. I mind map the results, structure them into a story and edit the result until it makes sense and gives the message to the reader that you desire. More about that in a future blog.
Being unable to think of suitable content ideas is a common problem but it is too important to leave to inspiration. When inspiration deserts you, don’t just sit there, do something! The results may surprise you – and your readers.
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October 22nd, 2009 @ 7:24 am
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