The Writer’s Idea List

Although I rarely run out of ideas for writing, keeping up with this blog sometimes taxes my brain. It’s not that writing blog entries is particularly difficult for me. In fact, it’s ideal because, for the most part, blog writing is pretty much top-of-the-head stuff.

But when I’m in the middle of a ghostwriting project, my thinking tends to focus on that. While I often find something in my ghostwriting to blog about, sometimes my mind is just blank. It’s as if my brain doesn’t want to switch subjects.

Hence the idea list, or in this case the Blog Idea List. It’s dirt simple. I opened a word file called, guess what, Blog Ideas and saved it on my desktop where I know I can find it on the fly. Then, when I have an idea, I write it down.

At the moment there are some 16 ideas, including:

• Ideas in the shower
• Those days when you just can’t start
• just because you can doesn’t mean you must

When I complete one I use Word’s strikethrough – in the font menu – to strike through the idea. That way I know I’ve used it, but, since many of these ideas can be used multiple times, I can still read it.

Of course, an idea list isn’t limited to blog writing. Idea lists can be a catch-all for every idea you want to capture or dedicated to a particular project or any combination. They can also be done in a notebook or even taped while you’re driving.

Getting the idea down somewhere where it can be retrieved seems to free my mind to generate even more ideas. And ideas are, after all, where we start writing.

You also might want to read Where Do Writing Ideas Come From?

Write well and often,

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