How I Generate Ideas for My Writing

Just before Christmas you may recall that I sent out an SOS via this newsletter because I was completely out of ideas and needed your help to generate some more.

In return, in the comments, I received so many wonderful ideas. I’m incredibly grateful for all of them and I’m slowly working my way through your suggestions. Without your encouragement I wouldn’t have dreamt about writing about my chickens - which I loved writing about or my Agatha Christie project. Even though I don’t like a niche for my writing, and I didn’t encourage my clients (when I had them) to worry about boxing themselves into a specific subject, I had created one for this newsletter and it was unthinkable (for me) to push the walls of it a little and expand the confines of it.

This exercise of talking directly to you and getting your feedback unblocked some of the constraints I’d put on my ideas and since the new year they have been appearing to me more often. Sometimes irritatingly so, like when I’m trying to sleep.

The volume of ideas had kind of slowly crept up on me, so I hadn’t really noticed that I was producing them more until a few days ago.

The following is how I’ve noticed ideas come to me, they’re in no particular order:

1. Scrolling social media. Yes, scrolling is not a waste of time for me after all, it is a source of constant ideas! I should be doing it more often. Actually I jest, because sometimes you have to scroll through a lot of dross before you get a kernel of an idea - but it can happen. This article, for example, came about as a direct result of scrolling through Substack Notes a few days ago.

2. Reading. There are a couple of points to reading. The first is that it helps refill the creative well, like I wrote about in my previous newsletter. Just relaxing with a book allows your mind to zone out, have a little holiday and ignore the world around you. Which, in return, makes space and creates mental energy for new ideas. Secondly, I might get ideas from what I’m reading - particularly if it’s non-fiction, but fiction can also help. Highlighting quotes, or passages that resonate with me, can often generate my own articles as I put my own experiences into the author’s words. This also applies to reading other people’s articles and not just books. Amie McNee, for example, wrote an incredibly thought provoking article a short while ago. It resonated strongly with me as it was something I’d been banging on about in real life, so much so that I forwarded it (as proof of what I was saying) to a young, talented writer I know whilst still internally digesting it myself. One day, once my internal computer has processed it, it may come out as an article on my Substack newsletter. That one is going to take time, though!

3. My writing journal. I have a number of completed writing journals currently scattered around my office (I really should organise them) and they all contain ideas I’ve either written about, created projects around, or that have directed my creative journey. I stopped writing in my journal during my burnout phase because I didn’t have the energy and naturally the ideas dried up.

4. Actively doing projects. The more writing I do, the more I have to write about. The more places I visit, the more films I watch, the more plays/musicals I attend, the more I have to write about. You cannot write in a confined space. You have to have experiences. Even embarrassing situations. When my daughter fell off a stage once, and she was mortified, I said don’t worry, it’ll make a good story in your memoirs.

5. Silence. On my long journey to visit my good buddy Claire up north the other day, I was excited for the drive as I knew I could listen to podcasts. But, you know what, I ended up listening to nothing but the rain on the windscreen and my annoying squeaky wipers. Concentrating on the driving task at hand allowed my mind to breathe. I had a number of ideas generated by that trip.

6. Listening to things.. Because sometimes you need to listen to something. Whether that’s a piece of music, a podcast, the news (ugh, that doesn’t do it for me, but it might for you!), a conversation with a friend, a film. I remember writing a Medium article about The Golden Girls once. Don’t laugh, I made $2.25 from that article!

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