The other day I wrote a post about 5 fears I have. JKash commented that he thought it was a decent post and I also thought it was a pretty good topic. The odd thing about that post was that I constructed it quickly. I was watching some nature show while I was running on the treadmill and they had video of snakes killing smaller creatures. It frankly scared the shit out of me and I wondered if there were other things I could put together to fill out a post. I’m always monitoring ideas that I can turn into a post. As I walked home from the gym I came up with 4 other fears I had and that was the outline for the post. I took my after gym shower and then sat down at my computer. I immediately wrote down the 5 fears, accompanied them with pictures, then wrote a brief description about each. Total post time was under a half hour. Yet in this short amount of time, I was able to create an idea that was “good”. Why can’t I always do this?
Coming up with ideas for posts is both harder and easier than you think. It’s easy if you take your time, monitor what happens around you for ideas, keep a log book of these interesting topics, and then expand on them appropriately. For instance, right now I have almost 0 in the pipeline. I probably have 40 drafts of ideas I’ve started but never come to fruition mainly because they aren’t that good. Or they sound good at the time and I wait on them and they develop into shit. Even though I have nothing brewing, that doesn’t mean I might not be able to produce a good post within the hour. Post ideas strike at different times. Sometimes my brain will be on active search for post ideas compared to others where I’m engrossed in something else. So the easy part is that they can come quick but it’s hard because constructing something that is good is challenging.
To delve into why the fear post was good is a worthwhile exercise.
- EVERYONE has fears. The topic relates to every single person on the globe. The post doesn’t relate to something specific like sports or a movie, it’s a universal feeling.
- Short and sweet. The post was around 300 words which is about a 2 minute read. People get bogged down on longer text unless it’s truly gripping.
- Visual pictures supported each description. Even if you didn’t read the description, you still understood the post. This would not be the case with this post.
It’s really that simple. There was nothing fancy and the post made sense. So now I have to take these concepts and apply them to every post that I write moving forward. A lot of times I write posts like this one mainly for myself. They help me break down the work myself while still sharing what goes through my head to this audience. That’s why any feedback that comes in the comments is always helpful because it helps me improve my work.
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