It has been an exciting few months for a couple of my clients. Roy Raynor’s novel, Chameleon Man, His Women, His Journey came out this month. Check it out at http://www.rarpublisher.com.
SPAWN member, friend and occasional client, Sandra Cropsey’s hilarious book, Who’s There? is being presented as a play in February and March. Here’s an introduction to the play and book:
“Each day, on a chicken farm in the rural south, Momma, Sister, and Ivylee have a bizarre memorial service for Bunk’s amputated leg, which they otherwise keep in the freezer. Each looks for love and each waits. Someone knocks, but Momma’s beliefs are not strong enough for her to answer. So she looks for signs to help her understand who’s there.” Learn more about this book here:
http://www.outskirtspress.com/whosthere
It’s December first. We are looking at fresh calendar pages and launching into a new season. I see it as a season of promises. I hope you do, too. In today’s blog post, I promised to tell you how to come up with article ideas. So here goes:
1: Write about what you know. And this doesn’t mean to limit yourself to just those things you excel in or in which you are an expert. Perhaps you teach math, but you also know how to build exhibition kites and fly them. Maybe you have had a lot of experience with farming, you are raising a teen-age girl and you are a self-taught chef in your home. These are all things that you know something about and that you could probably write about—if not with authority, at least from your perspective and experiences.
2: Write about what you want to know. How many times have you been intrigued by a concept or something tangible? Do you sometimes question how something works or where it came from? If you are a writer, you are probably curious. Learn how to turn your curiosity into cash. I once saw a pair of rare and unusual Pallas cats at the Denver Zoo. I was charmed and I wanted to know more about them. So I contacted the editors at Cats Magazine and they gave me the go-ahead to do the research and write an article about this interesting species. I suffered a heat-related illness once. I wanted to know more about this condition and how to prevent it happening again, so I pitched an idea for an article to a national magazine and was able to get paid to research and write a piece on this topic.
3: Share your experiences. Your experiences and how you perceive and react to them are completely different from anyone else’s. I’ve written about my experiences caring for an older horse, presenting Hawaiian luaus on the mainland, succumbing to hypnosis, writing a newspaper column, taking in feral kittens and more.
4: Relate the experiences of others. Here’s where it is really important to tune into others—listen to what they’re talking about, watch what they’re doing and how they do it, read about their adventures and journeys. You can interview individuals and write about their experiences or use their experiences to write an essay or how-to piece. For example, maybe you know someone who works part-time in another country. Interview her, but also write a piece about the trend to work outside America and get quotes from several people who do. You could create another article featuring tips for acclimating to the customs of another country before visiting or going there to work. Can you see how a germ of an idea can expand into an explosion of ideas?
5: Look everywhere for article ideas. A successful freelance article writer does not limit himself when it comes to finding those ideas. He always has his article-search radar up no matter where he is or what he’s doing. Some of my most fascinating assignments came in the most unusual places—the Little League field, in line at the grocery store, at the post office, while waiting in an airport, during a lecture on a completely different topic, at social gatherings, on top of a mountain, while walking on the beach and even while preparing a holiday meal.
As you can see, being a successful freelance writer means being ever present in your life and with regard to what’s going on around you.
I’d like to hear where some of your best article ideas came from. Leave your comment here.
Tomorrow’s column will feature how to use magazine and newspaper columns to promote your fiction or nonfiction book.
For more about me and my books and services, go to
http://www.matilijapress.com
After the wildfire that nearly swept through Prescott, AZ, in 2002, I overheard a woman telling how the authorities told her she had ten minutes to evacuate her home. She grabbed her car keys, her purse and her small dog and left behind cash, jewelry and all her important documents. I’ve used that little tidbit for a half-dozen articles on evacuating your home, office, even your stable of horses.