Finding Subjects for Your Site

By Annette Rey

These thirteen ideas just scratch the surface for finding ideas for posts. This method will work for any blog subject matter. If your blog is about sewing, then list all the types of stitches, needles, hoops, cloth, trim, how to measure, how to cut, patterns… You will get dozens of ideas to elaborate upon.

Since my site is about helping writers write and write better, the following list is related to those goals.

1) Read Facebook questions posed by writers in writing groups. Make note of their writing dilemmas. You will find dozens of subjects to elaborate upon.

2) Read books on grammar and write on facts within the pages. Make sure you are correctly interpreting the information contained in the books. If you are not sure about what you have read, do not give out false information. Grammar can be tricky.

3) Collect ideas from websites that give writing advice. Put a new spin on it. Write from your point of view. Enlarge upon the subject for your post.

4) Write about ideas you have had for improving your writing, i.e. certain books you have read, mimicking a favorite writer’s style, taking a course, etc.

5) Write about what has worked for you to increase your productivity, i.e. changing your environment, writing at dawn or at midnight, setting a timer, pre-planning word count, etc.

6) Do you attend a writer’s group? What experiences have you had at the meetings? Many posts can come from taking notes at the meetings.

7) Have you presented a program at a meeting of writers? Write about it and the response of the attendees.

8) If you have a presentation, or many of them, what have you learned about improving them for the benefit of the audience?

9) Have you attended a writer’s conference? What impressed you about it? What needed to be improved?

10) Tell what you learned at a conference.

11) Do you have hints and tricks about writing to share with others?

12) Do you have effective techniques to share about eavesdropping to catch how people really engage in dialogue? How do you act nonchalant, like you are not listening? What have you picked up and did it help you and lead to a completed project? If not, what you collected was still valuable, right?

13) Where have you been most successful in observing human nature – in restaurants, elevators, dog parks, at the family dinner table? And why?

These thirteen ideas just scratch the surface for finding ideas for posts.

Remember after gathering information for subjects about which to write, you must write the post in your own words.

If you don’t post about instructional writing, look at the list. Alter it so it falls into your genre.

Keep it for future perusal and add to it. It will become your personal resource for blog post ideas.

As I often say, there is no such thing as writer’s block. The world is full of things about which to write.

Happy blog post writing!