Stop Writer’s Block: 10 Minutes to Ideas to Write About

Filed Under Content, Idea Bank, Outside the Box, Productivity, Successful Blog, Writing | 21 Comments

Plenty of Ideas — Make Things Up!

Finding Ideas Outside of the Box logo 2

A young man wrote this week,asking how he might open his mind to be more creative. We passed emails back and forth. He said he knows that he stops his ideas. He asked if I might point him to how he might open his mind to let the ideas flow.

Do you have that problem too? Let’s check.

Stop right now and make something up. I’m sure you know how. Make me taller or shorter or older or younger, or any some such. Invent a new character in your life who is all evil or who is all good. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Okay we’ve got the making things up part covered. Most of us learned that in childhood.

Making things up is the stuff that ideas are make of. The exercise training for getting better at doing that involves time spent test driving your subconscious and unconscious a bit.

I’m going to show you one way to do that using a photo, your brain, and about 10 minutes.

Old Moon in New Moon

C’mon turn the page.

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Links Leaked over the Lyrics and Quotes

Filed Under Community, Content, Links, Marketing, SOB Business, Successful Blog | 12 Comments

Can I Quote You?

Wisdom and conversation were the same thing at Tuesday Open Comments Night, last night. We heard from Oscar Wilde, Somerset Maugham, and Betty White So it was no real surprise when the links started leaking as they always do.

The Link Leak Virus seeped into every thing we saw. — The Link Leak Virus is a special strain of the indie virus with blogtipping mutations that occur in threes at Open Comment Night they become a link free-for-all.

Welcome to all of the new folks who came. It was great fun having you!

Cool links were shared in a word or twol

  • Sean’s Quote of the Day Category
  • The Wisdom Of Eight Year Olds
  • the lyrics
  • The “half the show is in the comments” comment of Successful-blog
  • Fast Company
  • The Tale of the Giant Stone Eater mp3
  • Christopher Walken Video
  • IDIOMS
  • Morris Animal Foundation
  • Tony Interviews Liz at Bloggertalks

    • Quoting Geniuses

    2
    Ellen Weber Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 7:03 pm e
    My quote - “We can learn from experts - and we seek them for mentors as well as partners. Yet, when these pros grow stagnant and compacent - we call them on their relapse, and encourage their evolution forward.”

    3
    Sean says “It’s yet another in a long series of diversions at an attempt to avoid responsibility.” - Chris Knight (Real Genius)

    6
    Ah Pek Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 7:07 pm e
    “Imagine all the people..living life in Peace….”

    7
    Joe Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 7:07 pm e
    Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away…

    14
    Sean Says:

    “You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.”

    - Albert Einstein

    22
    Mermaid Renée Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 7:18 pm e
    “To be successful at anything you have to have the guts to be hated” - Bette Davis

    26
    Sheila Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 7:21 pm e
    “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.”

    27
    HART (1-800-HART) Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 7:21 pm e
    Sudden-savage-shining-solid-soiled-solid-sanded
    Steel-shuddering-shattering-shovelling until the
    Sabre toothed rooter roots the earth
    The eater eats his fill and is not satisfied and
    Roars and reves his mathematical rage
    on the footprints of Vikings
    trapped on a sonic tape recorder
    ten million years old, ten million years old, ten million years old.

    60
    Delaney Kirk Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 7:36 pm e
    WOODY: Pour you a beer, Mr. Peterson? NORM: All right, but stop me at one. Make that one-thirty.

    61
    cat Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 7:36 pm e
    “No offense intended, I’m also fiery passionate about the brand of nuts I eat”

    62
    ME Strauss Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 7:36 pm e
    “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!”

    71
    Chris Cree Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 7:42 pm e
    OK, Instead of Bette Davis, how about a quote from Betty White?
    All creatures must learn to coexist. That’s why the brown bear and the field mouse can share their lives in harmony. Or course, they can’t mate or the mice would explode.

    73
    Scorpia Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 7:43 pm e
    More like:

    You’ve got questions. We’ve got security flaws.

    84
    Rick Cockrum Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 7:50 pm e
    Or maybe a pod? The kids look at me like I came out of a pod sometimes. Would that make us iPods?

    85
    Jessica Doyle Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 7:50 pm e
    “I fear what i do not know.” from my boyfriend eric.

    86
    Marti Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 7:51 pm e
    A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.

    92
    Service Untitled - Douglas Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 7:54 pm e
    “Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted. “

    94
    Steve Sherlock Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 7:56 pm e
    Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest… Simon and Garfunkel

    157
    Sandra Renshaw Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 9:10 pm e
    A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her.
    - David Brinkley

    158
    Char Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 9:11 pm e
    Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement.
    Brian Tracy, Eat that Frog

    207
    Ben Yoskovitz Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 10:01 pm e
    “Money…it’s a gas…”
    “Hello out there, we’re on the air, it’s hockey night tonight…”
    “All in all we’re just a ‘nother brick in the wall.”

    209
    Candice brought the lovely Christopher Walken video

    227
    Troy Worman Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 10:29 pm e
    “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” — Sir Winston Churchill

    245
    John Richardson Says:
    November 7th, 2006 at 11:55 pm e
    It was 90 degrees here in Sunny California today…

    All the leaves are brown
    And the sky is grey

    248
    ME Strauss Says:
    November 8th, 2006 at 8:10 am e
    “And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love, you make”

    The Beatles

    -ME “Liz” Strauss

    Related
    The Mic is On! It’s Song Lyrics and Quotes!

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    Bookcraft 2.0: Why Bloggers Choose Better Titles than Authors

    Filed Under Business Book, Content, Strategy, Successful Blog, Writing | 6 Comments

    books

    In a conversation with Phil early this morning, we realized we are ready for the collaboration part of this endeavor. Here’s how it will work:

    1. Phil will choose two days or evenings per week we can meet via voice.
    2. He’ll arrange his time so that after each call he has a block of writing time.
    3. I’ll arrange my time so that before each call I have prep time. I’ll send a list of the pages we’ll be talking about.
    4. When we talk we’ll cover 3-8 pages in one section, discussing what rewrites they might need to flow together.
    5. Phil will do the rewrites immediately after.
    6. Phil will hold all of the rewrites until we’ve been through the entire first pass of the book.

    Now the book is shaping up as a whole. We’ll be looking at how things fit together and flow. One of the relevant key word strings in Phil’s working title is “practical tips.” On the pages, we made a rule that each page has a real-life application of what Phil has described. During our two phone calls each week, we’ll be testing each tip to make sure that there are no repeats, that all of them can be done, and all can be called practical.

    We’ll revisit the working title even more often than we already were.

    The cover and the title are a promise of what is inside of the book. So we are careful to constantly revisit the title to make sure that the choices we make are in keeping with what our goal is.

    This is where bloggers outshine the average off the street author. Bloggers know the value of relevant key words. They know readers search for important terms.Bloggers understand from their daily publishing that they should call a book what it is, not something clever that readers won’t understand.

    We’re scaffolding down to a manscript that is beginning to be more like a book.

    –ME “Liz” Strauss
    If you’d like Liz to help you find or make a book from your archives, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

    Related articles
    Bookcraft 2.0: Find a Book in Your Archives the Way a Publisher Would
    Bookcraft 2.0 Archive Mining: How to Get From Working Book Title to Rough Cut Content
    Bookcraft 2.0 Why Read the Date Archives Not the Categories?
    Bookcraft 2.0: How Many Words Does It Take to Make a Book?

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    It Was Halloween and Links Were Leaking!

    Filed Under Community, Content, Links, Marketing, SOB Business, Successful Blog | 32 Comments

    Look Out Behind You!

    Disguises and mystery were part of a Halloween Open Comment Night as people showed up as their alterego or even the alterego or their alterego. We had our own version of the Bloggy Horror Picture Show. The Dread Arachnid terrorized us and may have eaten Boxcar Willy and we know that Darth Varder ate Jar Jar as B-B-Q even before the show. So it was no real surprise when the links started leaking as they always do.

    The Link Leak Virus seeped into every thing we saw. — The Link Leak Virus is a special strain of the indie virus with blogtipping mutations that occur in threes at Open Comment Night they become a link free-for-all.

    Welcome to all of the new folks who came. It was great fun having you!

    You should see the links that everyone was treated to..

    And now for the Ghastly, Ghostly Plot of Horrors

    Thanks to Rick Cockrum who did the honors of gathering the dirt on the despicable deeds done there.
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    Bookcraft 2.0: Even the Best Shoes Don’t Belong in a Bookstore

    Filed Under Business Book, Content, Strategy, Successful Blog | 2 Comments

    Look for Books Like Yours

    books

    If you recall, Phil, an editor, and I have been through his pages. We sorted them into four parts. I’ve read the parts through again and begun the process of fine tuning the order. This will get us to the final book map. We also checked the market at Amazon to see what books like Phil’s new book were doing. . . .

    I promised to tell you more about that.

    When I started in publishing I was a freelancer. I read everything I could about writing and one bit of advice always confused me:

    Go after the publishers who already sell the kind of book you want to write.

    To me, that advice seem counter-intuitive. Why would a publisher want another book about writing if they already had a list full of them? Shouldn’t I go to where a publisher didn’t have any?

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