If you didn't read lesson 1, you can read it here.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Article-Writing-Tips---Lesson-1---Why-Write-Articles

Okay, so you've decided to venture into the world of article writing online. Good for you. But...where are you going to get your ideas from? Well, there are more ways to get ideas to write articles than Carter has liver pills. I'm going to share just a few of these in this article.

Let's start with the easiest place to get ideas for articles...yourself. Unless you've been living in a cave all your life, you must have hobbies, interests and some skills. For example, I have quite a few skills that I could write about. I play keyboards, guitar, drums and other oddball musical instruments. I compose music. I can write, which is the topic of these particular hubs. So I have a variety of things I could write about as far as skills.

What about interests? I am interested in a number of things that I don't necessarily have skills in. For example, I am interested in history, mainly WW II and the Civil War. I am interested in religion. I am certainly no expert on the bible but I love to read it. I am also interested in entertainment. I love TV and movies and can write on just about any show on the tube. And movies? I grew up in a home that worshipped every screen legend that ever walked the planet.

But even beyond your personal interests and skills, you can get ideas from current events. If you go to Google Trends, you can find an hourly update on the hottest topics of the day. All you need to do is pick one, do some research and write about it. Research is something that we'll cover in another lesson as that is pretty extensive in itself.

Another way to get ideas for articles is to go to the Internet and see what it is that people are asking. There are a number of sites that cater to visitor questions. Ask.com would be one. Yahoo Answers would be another. These sites are all over the place. This is a chance not only to get ideas to write about but to share your knowledge with the rest of the world.

One of the best ways for me to get ideas for article writing topics is to simply go out and observe the outside world. Let me ask you a question. Do you know the color of your next door neighbor's house? Do you even know if it's a ranch or split level? Have you taken the time to look around your home to see some of the things that you've got laying around that you've probably never noticed? Right now, I'm looking around my living room and just noticed our China closet. Do you have any idea how much you could write on fine China?

Point is, the world is a limitless bed of pearls when it comes to writing. All you have to do is just open up your eyes and see what's around you. Some of it is ugly (war, poverty, disease) but some of it is quite beautiful.

Nobody should ever have a problem with finding things to write about.

In our next lesson, we're going to cover how to do research.

You don't want to miss this one.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim