Writing: How I Found My Topic

Pushing PUBLISH sends a wave of enthusiasm over me. I feel happy, proud, accomplished, and excited to write more. Sitting in front of a blank screen, however, can sometimes feel daunting. That's a lot of space to fill. What do I write? Has it been done? The harder I try, the more insurmountable is the task at hand. I can easily fritter away a day frustratingly in search of a jumping off point. I read other articles, blogs, and sites. Everyone's tips on coming up with topics. I see the types of articles people are writing and say, "Okay, I'll write about Halloween costumes" or "Hiking. Yeah, I like hiking, I'll write that." Then, nothing. Why? Because I need to feel it. I need to feel connected to the topic. I feel as if I'm lying when I have no stake in what I'm writing.

So, what to do?

Being new to this form of writing, I've recently (re)discovered the importance of activity. I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before, it's the same for writing narratives. Writing topics are born from experiences. Living. Life. You need experiences to write about experiences. Make sense?

By sitting at home in front of my Acer, prodding and pushing for content to just magically spew from my fingertips, I had removed myself from life. I removed myself from the best content creator in existence, the ONLY content creator in existence; life and life's experiences. I needed to get out and do something.

Activity - not necessarily strenuous just moving away from the screen - allows our brain to switch gears. This is the reason why it's hard to sit through one task for over an hour or two. We are not designed to focus on one subject, idea, task for too long. We can move between various activities all day, but sit behind a desk at work for eight hours and your brain starts to fall asleep. This is what I was unintentionally doing to myself. This was limiting my ability to think clearly and to write.

Activity can be anything from doing p90x (just saw a commercial. Intense), to going to the store, to playing cards. Through activity we have experiences; the old lady paying at the register in pennies, the horrible parking lots of Trader Joe's, an entertaining movie, delicious food, a news article, the disturbing nature of face-card illustrations in a deck. Through experience we form opinions and form revelations. In turn fueling topics on which to write, blog, and talk.

I'm sure many of you with wives, husbands, girlfriends, and boyfriends notice that prolonged interaction with your love interest is a killer for conversation, spontaneity, and the overall quality of relationship. This is true for all relationships. The reason being you need separate experiences to have something to talk to your loved one about. The same goes for writing. If you spend the day passively looking online for topics and sitting at a blank screen, you'll come up short. You may right something, but it will be superficial at best. Your lack of connection will show.

Every experience is an article. Whether you're telling people how you primed the deck, or venting about a movie, you have content with which to work. Write about what you did, how you did it, and the end result. Keep typing and you'll soon find yourself with 638 words, and a little article that might encourage somebody else to push on.

Remember Activity! Get the blood flowing and the cogs grinding again. Move. Think. Experience. At the very least, you can always write an instructional on how to create article topics.