My Little Corner of the Web

The Moleskin is the personal web site of Kelsey Ruger and is a collection of creative work, thoughts and lessons.

Finding Ideas For Writing and Business

July 5th, 2006

It’s been a couple of weeks since I have posted anything, so naturally the assumption is that I didn’t have anything to write about. That is definitely not it. It’s just been a hectic couple of weeks, besides if you really know me you know I am never at a lose for words. This does however raise a really good question - where do you get ideas when the writing well appears to have run dry? Here are a few ideas that you might find handy.

  • Get inspiration from other bloggers. This statement assumes that you read other blogs regularly - so having more than 2 feeds in your feed reader is a pre-requisite. A lot of times I will read an entry and get an immediate idea for an add-on article or a completely new article. Some of my favorites sources of inspiration are Ed, Bryan, Paul and Scrivs.
  • Read a book (or magazine) will ya? It amazes me how many people have completely forsaken the print world. While I do prefer to get my information online magazines like Business 2.0, Fast Company and Wired still have topics that inspire bloggers. Magazine subscriptions are cheap, so you should definitely get a couple that you are willing to keep up with.
  • Follow The Pulse. What’s hot in technology? What are the top selling books? What are the needs people have? These are classic questions authors and business owners have asked for decades. USA Today maintains a Top 50 Book list that might give you some ideas. Although I haven’t spend a lot of time figuring out how to use it Yahoo Buzz should produce a post idea or two.
  • Keep A Journal. Carry a notebook, PDA or some type of device to record your ideas. I would bet that I have forgotten more posts than I have written by not following this rule consistently. I try to keep my PDA or Moleskine with me all the time just to catch the occassional idea when I am standing in line at the movies.

If you have other ideas let me know. These are just the few that I thought of first.

Comments for “Finding Ideas For Writing and Business”

  • Andy

    Kelsey,
    You have some very good ideas, some of the blogs you have mention are pretty good source to learn from and get more ideas. Kunos to you.

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