Finding Something to Write About

I don’t know about you but there have been many times when I have simply been at a loss for what to write about.  Or what I had written didn’t sound right.  Or I simply couldn’t “get into” my own writing.  At those times, I just get up and walk away.  In order to write it, I need to be interested in it.  In fact, I need to be interested in what I am writing about so much that I forget that I am writing about it.

Finding Things of Interest

I find that when I listen to those around me or simply pay attention to my own day, I find a lot that interests me.  For example, my husband is really interested in cars.  When we go for a walk or drive, he invariably points out the different car makes to me, tells me a little bit about the cars’ histories and performance.  I am interested in the environment.  Put the two together and you have several articles I wrote for Triond.

Take the other day.  We were returning from our walk and our pug stepped into some dog poo.  I was cleaning the bath tub with toothpaste (as I normally do) when it occurred to me that maybe other people might be interested in these cleaning methods.  So I wrote up a short piece about them.

I showed the piece to my husband who thought it wasn’t bad but pointed out that he was always interested in why people do stuff more than in what they actually do.  So I did a little research and wrote a follow-up piece on how we came to use chemicals for cleaning.

In all those cases, I forgot to think about the fact that I was writing and just—wrote.  But there is another thing all these essays have in common: they’re written for a specific someone.

Specificity

I guess it helps me to think of someone reading my essays when I write them.  In my case that “someone” is usually my husband.  So I try to write something that I think he might be interested in.  That helps me keep my writing focused—and (relatively) free of “overwriting”.  It also forces me to think outside my own skin, to imagine what might appeal to other people.  And select from the plethora of facts available to me only those that I think might appeal to my audience.

So I am writing about American industry after World War II.   There is a lot to say about it.  But what my husband find interesting?  How do I convey the interesting parts in such a way that my husband likes?  That makes me select the details my reader might find interesting and leave the ones he won’t out.  It helps me write to the point.

Write Often

And of course it helps to write a lot.  The old adage practice makes perfect doesn’t quite apply to writing (at least not my writing) but practice, I have found does make it easier—both to write and to accept those times when I need to walk away from my pad of paper or screen and see if I can find something so interesting that I could forget about writing.