How to Find Inspiration as a Writer

When writing articles and blog posts, one of the hardest tasks can be coming up with something to write about. Sometimes the idea light above your head just won’t turn on, and the blank page becomes your enemy. The words just won’t flow.

In these situations, I like to go back to basics. Approaching the problem from different angles, I explore and examine the question of what it is I’m really trying to achieve in getting those words onto the page. What is the nature of this Frankenstein’s monster that I’m trying to cobble together from strings of characters, and streams of words? What am I trying to create here? What is an article, anyway?

While browsing some forums recently, I came across many people asking questions – some of which I was able to answer. I found that, when I had the right questions in front of me, the words flowed freely. It was so easy, my answering posts almost wrote themselves. This lead me to an epiphany.

An article is really an answer that no one has actually asked a question for.

Coming up with an answer is easy enough. Given an excuse to answer a question, and voice an opinion into the bargain, few people are short on words. It’s not the answer expressed in the article that we actually need to get things fired up. What we really need is the question!

This reasoning may not apply neatly to all articles, but it certainly applies to most. And once we know what it is we need to look for to get those words flowing, it’s a great deal easier to find it.

So where do we go looking for those pesky questions?

Forums are an excellent place to go looking. They are filled with people asking all manner of questions. Most forums deal with a general topic, and are broken down neatly into categories which drill down to specific aspects of that topic. They’re like supermarkets; filled with shelves chock full of questions – all neatly organized and within easy reach. All you need to do is reach out and grab whatever question takes your fancy.

Forums also have excellent search features. You can search for particular phrases, if you have a particular subject in mind. You can search by topic age, if you want to concentrate on more recent events. You can also use the boolean search operators to filter out the things you have no interest in.

Blogs can also be a good place to go looking for those inspirational questions. The blog posts themselves may be poor fodder, as most are answers in their own right. Sometimes the blogger may raise a question, but they will usually try to answer it themselves. A better hunting ground for our questions is probably the blog comments.

Another good source for questions, is question and answer sites such as ‘Yahoo! Answers’. These sites are created with the express purpose of allowing people to ask questions. Many of the answers provided may also yield good dividends. Perhaps you can find a different angle on the answer supplied. Perhaps you disagree with the answer given, and feel compelled to write up your own response as an article.

So there you have it. Next time you find yourself short on words to write; try finding a good question to answer, and turn it into an article.