Someone who follows me across all my blog platforms asked the following: “Where do I get my ideas from?” which got me thinking about where I get my ideas for blogging and status updates on social media. Giving the answer of… “just life”… is not going to cut it. Let’s do a quick little dive into how I get ideas for blogging.

Life is art… if you’re open to it

The beauty of life is the best hidden-in-plain-sight treasure one can imagine. Right in front of you are many miracles, many details, many discoveries that will amaze you.

In all seriousness, there are many things that happen about you daily that can serve as inspiration. It’s all about the perspective one takes. Being that adulthood is extremely busy, we’ve gotten really good at tuning out most of life and focusing only on what is important to us at that moment in time.

Example: Getting to work is vitally important. It is very easy to miss out on the nuances of performance arts on the various subway platforms of New York City if you’re trying to keep a job by showing up on time. The person who has the time to slow down and take in all the various sounds, views, experiences, and smells of a subway will have a ton of material to create their own content. Trick is having that time to expand one’s focus.

Events are their own content

Life events are their own moments that can be packaged and shared via blog. A wedding event has so many perspectives to them. A birthday party or just the passing of an exam in a way that was not quite expected are more sources of ideas to write.

At first, during my writing journey, the ideas were very hard to come by. Now, they are flowing with much greater ease. It took a lot of practice to first write about anything and second to look at my life as being interesting to begin with.

Who would be interested in hearing about a distant memory about the Fourth of July that I had as a child? Turns out, way more people than I could have ever imagined. It’s all in how you present that memory on paper. The use of words, the dance of colors you paint, the story arch.

Music, film, photos, art, conversations

Most times, I tune into the experience I’m having and what it makes me feel like. That is often influenced and colored by the music of the moment or the conversations in that moment. I’ll take that and let it sit a while as words rise to the occasion to express what I’m thinking.

In my experimentation, I’ve noticed that playing the same sound track as the event that took place helps me remember way more details and offers more angles to write about. Those moments, those memories, if quickly captured on a notepad, can become great material for a future blog post. (I do not have the time to hunt down all the music I’ve heard for the purpose of writing a blog post… but as a musician, I can playback the song pretty well)

Speaking of notepad, I’m still trying to get used to carrying one around to jot notes. Especially considering that my handwriting is not very legible. The digital notepad helps also when on the go. Nothing like a smart phone to help you take notes on the go. Voice memo helps, but I hate hearing my voice (who likes hearing their voice played back to them anyway?)

Word of caution, be careful what digital note pad you use. Some don’t have cloud sync or version keep. Accidental deletion is a real problem with basic native notepads. I do not use the native phone notepad app. Always get something a bit more robust. (my personal favorites are Evernote and Google Keep)