Next time you think you have nothing left to write about, think again. Beyond our daily prompts and weekly writing challenges, it’s always good to have a few trusty post ideas you can rely on. Here are five — give them a try next time you feel stuck.
Write a meta post
Sure, we’ve advised you in the past against starting a post with a generic “sorry for my absence!” apology. Sometimes, though, the story behind your silence can itself be a worthy topic to explore, whether your reason is mundane (work, finals, kids) or not (you’ve been hiking in the Andes). Instead of apologizing for not writing, find an engaging way to tell us why you haven’t posted anything recently.
Prompt yourself
Writing prompts are useful because they come from the outside, ready for us to take them apart and make them our own. Nothing stops you, however, from reverse-engineering the process. Write a prompt with someone else in mind as the audience — your parents, your friends, a blogger you follow. Then, write a post in response to that prompt (you can include the prompt in the post or omit it; it’s up to you).
Start rhyming
Our mind instinctively gets looser when we focus on how to write something instead of what to write about. Just pick any random topic and write about it — while rhyming. Whether you go for laughs (a string of limericks on your botched dinner last night?) or choose a more heartfelt topic, rhymes produce a fascinating distancing effect, giving tired, mundane topics a fresh coat of paint.
Go by the numbers
As our current obsession with stats and infographics shows, we all seem to love numbers (as long as we don’t have to be tested on them). Write a post based on concrete figures — the number of hours you’ve spent on various activities yesterday, or the story of your week told through the dollar amounts you spent at the supermarket (or café, or costume store…). Or go all-out with a Harper’s Index-style list of loosely related data.
Draw on a masterpiece
Follow the lead of this week’s writing challenge, and get inspired by a great painting. Pick one of your favorites, upload a copy to your post (with most older works, finding Creative Commons-licensed images — or public domain ones — is easy), and write about the painting’s effect on you. Or about the first time you saw it in real life. Or about what’s going on inside the head of a person depicted in it (if there is one). Or… you get the point — the possibilities are endless.
Still not sure what to write about? Check out our previous installments in this series. And if you have a fail-proof post idea of your own to share, we’d love to hear it.
