by Gemma L. Reece

Created on: July 20, 2011   Last Updated: October 05, 2011

Constantly coming up with ideas for great, regular articles is actually harder than it seems, even with a world full of subjects and themes out there, there are days when the inspiration just won’t come. This is when brainstorming comes into its own as a valuable exercise for the freelance writer.

Bouncing ideas around with friends, family or a group of one’s peers is an excellent way to see things from a different perspective and to grab new ideas out of the air, but sometimes when there is nobody else around, you are sitting in front of your computer with a blank mind and no amount of concentration will help. When this happens, step away and do something else for a while, an idea will come. Always have the means of noting things down with you wherever you go, a pen or pencil (a crayon even) and paper, whether it is a notebook especially for the purpose or the back of a receipt, a single word can remind you of a story to expand upon, indeed a little notebook simply filled with random words can be a writer’s best tool.

Word-linking is one of my personal favourite ways to get an idea, it is a kind of progressive brainstorming exercise if you will. For example, just by looking out of the window, say it is a sunny day, sunshine, sunflower, cauliflower, and bang – a cauliflower cheese recipe is the theme of the next article, just grab a word and see what you end up with. A few simple things to do are to go for a walk, glance at a magazine or pop the TV on for a while, flick through the channels and jot down any issues, words or subjects that you think you could write about or research. By having a brainstorming session like this one can fill a few pages in a pad with subjects to expand on and write about over the next few days or weeks, it’s like making a store cupboard full of preserves to live off for months, planning ahead will pay off in the long run.

There are those lucky individuals who never seem to be short for an idea or something to write about, but for most of us it is a familiar situation, by following these simple steps you will be back typing away in no time and can carry on producing articles for ages to come.

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