Wow, we’re already two weeks into the new year. Have you gotten used to writing 2013 yet? January is the month of getting your writing life in good shape for the coming year, and we are here to help. If you’ve been utilizing our Idea Generator in the past couple of weeks, by now you have a large pool of writing ideas–possibly even more than you know what to do with. This week we’re going to stretch that list of ideas even further.
Today, gather your ideas from the first two Idea Generators (here and here). Read through them all and see what kind of patterns emerge–what categories do they fall into? For example, do you notice that many of your ideas are related to gardening or food, parenting, or nutrition? Group your ideas into categories. That’s it for today–you’ll use this list in the coming days this week.
Starting tomorrow, divide your list of ideas between the remaining days of this workweek–if you have four categories, focus on one each day of this week. If you have eight categories, you’ll focus on two each day. For each category, spend ten minutes brainstorming the topic, jotting down as many additional angles and ideas as you can come up with. Don’t think too hard about whether they’re good ideas or whether you might be able to place them anywhere; the focus right now training your brain to think creatively without restraint. Think of it as freewriting ideas.
By Friday, you will have a master list of ideas, organized by topic. Continue your writing session for each day either by working on an existing writing project or by writing a first draft of one of the ideas on your list.
