Building Success: Content Creation and the Ebbs and Flows of Creativity

I sometimes run into posts written about the subject of "what to write about" and "running out of ideas" for writing.

Occasionally, people write even to me, wanting to know how I manage to create new and unique content "all the time."

To be perfectly honest, my creativity ebbs and flows as much as anybody's. The notion that I must be creative "all the time" is just a giant illusion. I sometimes go a month without an original thought entering my head. But it is true that I still manage to write, even during those periods.

One of the things I have always managed to stand by, when it comes to keeping a blog (or any other kind of writing, like a daily/weekly column) is that you have to have consistency and perseverance. And so, I rarely allow myself to go more than a couple of days without publishing something.

And keep in mind, I am not just keeping this blog here on Steemit!

Is There Some Magical "Secret?"

No, not really. Unless you consider keeping copious notes a "secret."

At the moment, I happen to be in one of my "bountiful" phases. This, of course, feels great but like a squirrel saving nuts for winter, I'm taking many of the ideas that keep coming up and storing them away for "later." As I am sitting here, looking at my desk... it's covered with post-it notes and pieces of paper, all filled with my hand written notes. The half-sheets of paper represent a basic "concept" for an article; the post-its usually represent "an additional thought" that goes with each concept it is stuck to.

I also have a Word document entitled "The Eternal Book of Something" that is always open... and I tend to use the windows voice-to-text feature quite a lot to record ideas as they come up.

Before you ask, I never deliberately set out to create a "system" for managing my writing ideas — it just "sort of happened," out of necessity. Somehow, a standard sheet of paper cut in half or quarters seemed like about the right size to write down a basic idea and some thoughts about it.

The post-it notes for "additional information" came about completely accidentally when I suddenly had an idea while cooking dinner, and the only handy paper was a pad of post-its. I later realized it made total sense to attach them to the idea sheets... so that's what I do.

At any given time — when I'm in the middle of a "creative storm" — I'm probably keeping track of 20-25 concepts or plans for articles to write, scattered across maybe 10 venues. I should add that when I use the word "article," I essentially mean anything from a single idea explored in a 200-word quickie blog post to a 3000-word researched and illustrated article that might end up as permanent web site content or in a magazine.

Many people are surprised that I very RARELY just sit down in front of a blank computer screen with the idea "I'm going to write something." In fact, that approach almost feels like a sure-fire way to bring on the dreaded "Writer's Block." From interacting with 100s of fellow writers over the years... sitting down in front of a blank screen "to write" (without an idea) is about the worst thing you can do. Ideas don't come from blank computer screens... they come from life. Take notes as life unfolds, then write later.

Allowing Ideas to Cook

Another reason I avoid doing the "sit down and write" thing is I like to let ideas "percolate" for a while before I actually decide to turn them into a written piece. That's how the whole "post-it notes added to idea sheets" came about. When there's a lot going on inside my head — as there currently is — it gets a bit dodgy to track what's going on, with all my *"ideas-in-progress."

Sometimes I feel rather like an air traffic controller, looking at all these data points (ideas), all of which are "in motion," being added to, fine tuned, changed, moved around, often abandoned as useless... but mostly (eventually) written out.

Now, keep in mind that just because this somewhat haphazard system happens to work for me does not necessarily mean it would work for you.

The main point I wanted to bring up is that when my creative juices hit a "drought" period, I just start working from my backlog of developed and half-developed ideas. There's usually enough material to keep me going for a month, or more.

There's actually a cool "bonus" that has arisen: Ever since I started following this "system" (about 15 years ago), my dry periods have become notably shorter. Why? My guess is that it's because I don't feel "under pressure" to create. And so, things just start flowing again, all by themselves.

Thanks for reading, and have a CREATIVE rest of your week!

How about YOU? Is creativity easy for you? Or is it sometimes a struggle? Do you run into "dry" periods when you just can't get creative? How do you work past them? Give me a shout back... Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — NOT A CROSSPOST!!!)
Created at 20210204 23:54 PST
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