Finding Topics

Listen to yourself. I’ll start by listening to me. What am I going to write about? It has been a couple of weeks since I posted to this blog. What should I write about? Enough stuff has been going on. I have plenty to write about for my main blog, which is about personal finance. (TrimbathCreative.net) My news-ish blog about synopses of reasons for pessimism and optimism, constrained to be factual, significant, and apolitical has fallen into its usual quiet period as politics overwhelms the news. (PretendingNotToPanic.com) My newest blog is about moving into and living in a tiny house, so there’s plenty for it. (MyTinyExperiment.com) Once a month I post to my current podcast (IntriguingCreativity.com) which is conversations with an international consultant, entrepreneur, and expert networker, Steve Smolinsky. But what about TomTheWriter.com? Listen to myself.

How do you find things to write about? That should be in every writer’s FAQ list. It certainly gets asked often enough. I don’t know how everyone else does it, but if I am writing independently, as in not for someone else, I listen to myself. If someone else was in the room or on the phone what would I say? What topics would I be curious about? How would I say it? Start writing about that. Write what I say in my head. Then edit.

The irony is that with this blog, I prefer to write about hurdles and milestones. It is easy to decide to write about completing a screenplay, publishing a book, getting a gig, etc.; but when the majority of the work is items already posted or about projects that won’t be done for months, well, the gaps can be as long as this sentence. My latest gig is done. My screenplay is on hiatus while I work on the sequel to my scifi novel, Firewatcher. And the sequel is months from completion. Maybe I can write about finishing yet another draft. (note to self) But there is little conclusive material mid-edit. If there was a conclusion, the edit would be done. That work is a few drafts away.

That draft came up while recording this month’s podcast. We were talking about world issues, some spirituality, and a bit of creativity. Steve, my co-host, mentioned how I play with ideas. Sure I do. Doesn’t everyone?

People do and don’t. I am convinced that everyone has stories to tell, because I’ve heard them. I’m convinced everyone has opinions, even if their opinion is that they don’t have an opinion. I can imagine a great novel being written by exploring the mental machinations of one person asking “Where do you want to go for lunch?” and the other person thinking up an answer. Applebees versus a picnic leads to personal histories and preferences, and whether the two agree. Why was the question asked? Was it simply hunger, or is this a date, or mistaken identity, or professional networking? A two-sentence, two-minute conversation can stretch into an intricately layered story.

Picking today’s topic had more to do with a gap in my work schedule (so says the retired guy) than a need to say this now. But, if not now, then when?

I took the guilty and luxurious step to sit still for a while. No typing involved. Instead of asking what I was going to write about, I asked myself many other things and came around to whether I’d written to each blog recently. This blog looked left out even though writing consumes more of my life than personal finance, world issues, tiny houses, or podcasting. And now, I am writing this.

It is easy to assume no one cares. So what? Write. If they don’t care, it doesn’t matter, and you’ve got something done that can be referenced or edited later. If they do care, then write it! Someone wants to read it Get to it!

Within any day your mind deals with a long list of topics. Even boredom can be a topic; and writing about it may mean you are no longer bored. Write. That’s what being a writer is. Write.