MEDIUM PARTNER PROGRAM
How I Never Run Out of Story Ideas
Sometimes I feel like I can’t turn off the ideas from flowing
It’s a fact that everybody probably gets writer’s block from time to time, but I can truly say that I’ve found a way to overcome that when it rears it’s ugly head and looks in my direction. Not to say that I don’t have time when I’m groping for words, but I’m just saying that when that happens, it’s short-lived.
How is that?
It’s because I’ve learned to keep my mind and senses open to the many ideas that are around us all day, every day. And when I take note of an idea, I write it down, send myself a text, or make a mental note to add it to my Medium drafts for future retrieval.
I know this can be easier said than done because coming up with story ideas is challenging, to say the least. But life is a story — isn’t it? This is one way that I think of things to write about.
I just simply tune into my life at a given moment. Maybe it’s seeing something on television, hearing something on the radio, witnessing something in a public place. It could be something that I’m feeling or want to feel. It could be writing about a favorite recipe or song. It could be about a relationship, mine or somebody else’s. I might write something about my pets. It could be an opinion piece that I write. I even wrote about an experience I had with cannibis edibles while on vacation. Sometimes story ideas come to me in dreams or while I’m having a conversation. Life is full of stories!
Another way I find ideas to write about is searching online for interesting articles or news stories on specific topics or just by pulling a news site and reading through the articles. When I find something interesting, I create a title and a subtitle, then I do a little research and I write my own perspective of the article. I did that with a story in which I combined two different stories with similar topics about two people having their faces attacked by an octopus. I saw the first story in the news but found the second one while I was doing some research on the first story.
These are the ways that I never run out of story ideas, but I keep track of my ideas by creating drafts in Medium. I might only have a title and subtitle or maybe one paragraph, but I will still create a draft. I may finish writing a draft story the same day or it might be a week or a month later. The point is having a bank of drafts to pull from if I’m having any trouble at all coming up with ideas. I currently have about 50 drafts started. This story was one of them.
It’s really not difficult to come up with story ideas, if you put your mind to it. Everything you do, see, hear, taste, touch, smell, learn, or experience is a story. You just gotta tune in and let your creativity come through.
