10 Places to Find Ideas For Your Next Article

Don’t get lost in writer’s block again; here is some help

Sometimes, thinking about what to write might be the toughest challenge in your day. Many authors say they experience “writer’s block” when it is really “content block” that they’re suffering. Once you find the theme for your next article, words will flow almost like a miracle.

Even if you don’t have an idea where to look for inspiration. Trust your muse and go for it, but first, you have to be honest. Are you really experiencing writer’s block, or is it just an excuse to procrastinate?

Here are some ideas to help you in your quest to conquer any inspiration obstacle on your way.

Is it just me?

“It is like staying a whole day with your head in your hands, trying to squeeze your unfortunate brain to find a word.” — Gustave Flaubert

There is nothing wrong with accepting you are experiencing this symptom. After all, many renowned writers did too. From Maya Angelou’s strategy to write for two weeks, ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat.’

Anne Lamott telling her students to commit to writing three hundred words on how much they hate writing, and Virginia Woolf, who once posted in her diary, about suffering mental block while writing Jacob’s Room, and she couldn’t find the reason why. By the way, this post is a marvelous 420 words essay about not having anything to write.

Or the strange writing routines of “Da Vinci Code’s” author Dan Brown, who has an hour sandglass on top of his desk to remind him every hour to get up, and do some push-ups and sit-ups to get the blood flowing. He also uses an inversion table to give his brain a daily fresh blood supply by hanging upside down.

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2.- 9 Ways to Beat Writer’s Block

Where to find inspiration?

“I love you, Lucien, but I am a muse, you are an artist, I am not here to make you comfortable.” ― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d’Art

Sometimes, finding a muse to inspire your writing seems a little complicated, no matter the fact there are 9 Greek mythology muses:

Unless you want to make a drama, sing and dance in rage, or laugh at the stars. For which you would look for Melpomene, Euterpe, Terpsichore, Thalia, or Urania, let’s focus on the muses for writing, Calliope, Erato, Polyhymnia, and also Clio, the muse of history.

These ladies will help you find the idea you’re looking for. However, they are not always too straightforward. Most of the time, they will only suggest what to write about.

To find them, you have to move. They hate to hang around the defeated, daydreamers, indecisive people, procrastinators, but most of all, the lazy bums.

Get your butt off your chair, move a little, look around, and you will listen to their voices from the birds on a tree, the shadows on the ground, the memory of your first love, or the happiness of a child playing.

Then you can write about the music you like, your parents’ advice, the time when you fell off a chair on your trip to Baja after a few brewskis. Also, the things you love or hate in your relationships, the sound of your child’s laughter, or the memories from your youth, sometimes happy others sad, but always an inexhaustible source of topics to write about.

I have a small diary where every night before going to bed, I write three sentences. a) Something beautiful I saw, b) Something beautiful I heard, and c) Something beautiful I said. This diary is my endless source of joy and inspiration.

Where to look for ideas

Hundreds of places are waiting for you. You only need to click the sites down below and seek inspiration from your muse.

For the curious one

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” — Albert Einstein

If you are searching for an idea for your next article, you only need to look at the following sites and find something you agree on or not. Imagine having a community of peers to support you, like a gaggle of geese flapping their wings to help each other fly further.

Among these sites, you probably know the popular ones like Quora, Reddit, or Answers.Yahoo, but here are other choices.

3.- www.fluther.com, (fluther is a group of jellyfish) it is a site where people post questions, searching for someone’s help to find the answer. The “General Section” contains questions aimed at gaining knowledge, or for philosophical discussion. The “Social Section” is more open-ended, searching for opinions or popular theme surveys. This site is free to use and moderated for quality.

4.- www.stackexchange.com, conceived as a computer programming-oriented site. It became a general Q&A network with of over 150 sub-websites on computer topics as programming, hardware, software, games, mathematics, Android, Apple, Windows products, and software. Like other sites, you can earn reputation points by answering, or voting for the best answers.

5.- answerthepublic.com. Personally, this is the site I like the most, it is a blend between search-engine meets Prezi. Just write something and Answer The Public will look for data from places like Google, creating queries using Who, What, Where, When, Why, How, Can, Are, Which, and Will, to present them on a graphic which looks like tree roots, with hundreds of links to Google pages about that topic. Try it, you won’t regret it.

For the list lover.

“I want you to make a list of all your favorite things, and I want to be on it.” — Tahereh Mafi (Ignite Me (Shatter Me, #3))

The next source of endless ideas to write about is to carry a pocket-size notebook, and of course, a pen or pencil, or use an app in your phone like Evernote, OneNote, Slite, or Notion apps (all work in Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS) to write or dictate everything that catches your attention as you go through your day.

You can write about the traffic on your way to work, the coffee you order at Starbucks and complain about the price or the way they wrote your name on the cup, your stroll in the park, the sunset, or the way casual Fridays’ wardrobe now looks like a slumber party.

Furthermore, you don’t have to elaborate, just write the general idea or even the title could be enough, you’ll have time later to write the article.

If you want additional information about Note-taking apps, you can click the following links (Note: I’m not paid for promoting any of them, they are only for reference):

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7.- Best note-taking apps of 2021,

8.- For more details about lists, check this article:

For the reader

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” ― Stephen King

You know this by now. It is like flossing. Everyone says you have to floss, but until you do it for some time, it becomes a habit. Likewise, you have to read a lot to write a lot.

However, it is not only about writing. You could transcribe the phone book without learning anything except a few area codes. The goal is to read and learn from others how to master the skill.

Go back to those novels you’ve read before, and analyze why they make an impression in your life, the emotions they brought, or the places you visited through their pages.

Write about how “Romeo and Juliette”, “Pride and Prejudice”, or “The Notebook” made you fall in love, the wonderful places you visited in Narnia.

You could tell the story of how since “Jaws” you can’t swim in the ocean, or the way “To Kill a Mockingbird” or “The Great Gatsby” made you want to become a writer, even though, they forced you to read them in high school.

But most of all, read and learn from other writers willing to share their craft. Books like Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird”, Stephen King’s “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft”, or Ray Bradbury’s “Zen in the Art of Writing”, will not only give you ideas for writing, but they will also teach you how to be a better one.

You can look for them at the public library, but I recommend you should buy your own copy, and return frequently to their pages. And forget about audiobooks, you’ll keep pausing it to bookmark something.

But if you insist on using your library card, here is a cool website to help you search for any book, audiobook, or article near you. Find material in libraries in your area.

9.- How to Find Story Ideas for Your Novel: 8 Story Idea Generators

10.- And last but not least, a book that even Stephen King says it is the one you should have.

To wrap things up

Remember, you are not alone. Every renowned author has experienced “writer’s block” some time in their career. So look for their advice on how to conquer this obstacle, even if you have to hang upside down from the roof.

Look for inspiration on the search pages and answer some questions. This will put you in the mood to write. As Anne Lamott says, write about how much you hate writing, or as Virginia Woolf, do an essay about why you can’t write, and the reasons you want to do it, but keep the mental juices flowing.

Go back to your favorite books and fall in love with them again. Re-connect with that feeling telling you to be a writer no matter what.

Become a student again and learn from your writing heroes. Go to a public library near you, or buy their books with the knowledge of how to master the craft. Also, you can search for articles like this with ideas for your next masterpiece.

Remember, you don’t have “writer’s block” but “content block.” Start your three sentences diary and commit to write about the beautiful things you experienced today. You will never run out of ideas to write again.