The Writer’s Coin

I am a fast clicker. Before a screen finishes loading I already have my mouse hovering over the area I’m going to click on. I like to work fast. The other day I was typing a blog idea into Yahoo Notepad and I hovered over the wrong button. Instead of clicking UPDATE I clicked on DELETE.

I ended up deleting around 15 ideas for posts that I had stored up over the course of a few weeks.

I panicked. Having that cache of ideas there is a comforting feeling, kind of like having an emergency fund. Now that those ideas were gone I felt a lot of pressure to come up with new ideas fast. But sitting down specifically to “come up with ideas” doesn’t work, so that was a dead end.

I did have one thing going for me though: it was Friday. I don’t usually post on Saturday and Sunday so I figured I had the weekend to at least get a few articles set up for the coming week. So I relaxed, decided to enjoy my weekend, and put the whole blogging business on the backburner.

At the same time, I had been discussing the idea of focusing on blogging for quality instead of quantity with some of my fellow bloggers. While I’m not sold on the idea just yet (part of me is convinced everything I write is good, no matter what), I’ve decided to try it this week and only post one article a day.

So after losing my security blanket of old ideas and choosing to focus on quality instead of quantity, here are some suggestions that might help you come up with good article ideas for your own blog:

1. Read, read, read. Read websites or magazines related to your topic. I like Yahoo Finance, MSN Money, Businessweek, and Morningstar. Incorporate this reading into your routine so you’re up-to-date on what’s being discussed and written about elsewhere. You’ll probably learn something new and spark an idea that you can write about later on, be it consciously or unconsciously.
2. Write all your ideas down. I normally get hundreds of ideas over the course of a single week. Some of them I pursue and follow, some of them I lose. I’ve gotten better at this (I have a whole system for this) but you can’t possible get them all. The best you can do is to be prepared and try to grab as many of them as possible. Like someone once said, “You stay ready, you ain’t got to get ready.”
3. Spend more time thinking and preparing than writing. This is one thing I’m noticing this week as I try to focus on quality. Instead of trying to think up 10–12 ideas a week, now I’m thinking only of five. This frees up my time to work more on each one of them to make them better. If I’m only posting five articles, I want them to be the very best. I feel like I’m holding back other ideas, so I make sure to pick the best ones and make them as good as I can before I publish them. This post, for example, has taken up over a day of my time—something I’m not used to. But having a whole day allows me more freedom to explore the idea more fully.
4. Focus on Quality, not Quantity. So far I’m buying into it. I didn’t think I would (as crazy as that sounds), but now that I’m practicing it, I can feel the difference. It’s tempting to think that everything you write is good, no matter how much or how little time you put into it. But the truth is that, if you write less and focus more of your time and energy into those fewer posts, they will be better. It’s just common sense. I’ve recently cut down my posts from 2–3 a day to only one, but already I’ve noticed a huge difference in the way I approach coming up with ideas for this blog.
5. Make it routine. This is similar to the idea of making saving and investing automatic. Setting up a schedule dedicated solely to writing will mean that you’ll have a time and a place to get your work done, no matter what happens in your hectic schedule. Personally, I prefer the mornings before anyone else is up. It may be tough to get used to it at first, but it’s the best time to get work done without distractions. And after doing it for a couple weeks, you’ll get used to it.
6. Stop trying so hard. After I deleted my Yahoo Notepad file I panicked: “I need to get those 15 ideas back today!” The creative mind doesn’t work well under that kind of pressure, and mine is not the exception. I was lucky it was the weekend, otherwise I would’ve kept banging my head against the wall. But I didn’t. I relaxed and trusted that new ideas would come and when they did, I would be ready for them. I was right.
7. Live your life, man! This kind of goes hand in hand with #6. If I was a full-time blogger I don’t think I could produce the quantity or the quality that I do currently. Why? If you don’t live and experience things, you’ll have nothing to write about. No experiences to draw upon or use to create meaningful analogies that other people can relate to. I used to think that the ideal life of a writer was a quiet room and a locked door (Stephen King even says as much in his book, On Writing), but that’s only partly true. You need to get out and live life to distract yourself and to enrich what you’re going to write about. As JD suggested to me, go hiking or watch all the Star Wars movies. After the first draft for this article I was feeling a little burnt out, so I turned my laptop off and played Guitar Hero with M. I felt the article was done and it was time to just have a little fun and relax. Not five minutes later I had another great idea to write about relating to the Wii and this game. How can that be? You’ll have to tune in later this week to find out. But that’s how ideas come—by living, not by sitting in front of your computer waiting.

In the end, remember that blogging is a hobby (for the most of us). It can bring in money, which is nice, but that doesn’t make it your life. Remember that and it will serve you well as you look for the next idea to write about.

What ideas or tips have you found helpful in your blogging experience?

If you found this helpful, check out my post on coming up with good ad ideas.

Tags: better blog posts, bloggins ideas, quality posts