How to Come up with Writing Topics - Brainstorming Ideas for Articles

So you've joined HubPages or other writing site and are ready to write. Now what? How do you come up with ideas for topics? Thinking up interesting and useful topics is such a challenge at first, but, trust me, coming up with those topics gets easier with time. At least, I think so.

The topic for my very first hub was the most difficult to come up with, maybe because I was so nervous and afraid to put something out there. To avoid putting myself out there with any particular subject, I wrote a hub about getting over the fear of writing that first hub! Once I published that first hub, ideas were slow in coming, but they came. With time, they do come more quickly. After some point, it becomes a matter of having a lot of ideas while lacking the time to get them all written down!

Wherever you write, you can utilize many methods to help you come up with writing ideas.

I get ideas all the time now just from things I'm thinking about. I'll cook something new and think, Oh, I should write a hub about this. Something will happen with a friend, and I'll think the same thing. I find a new way to save money and have to write about it. Ideas come sometimes, too, from unexpected sources.

Being ready to jot down these ideas provides me with a source of writing topics to refer to later. So be ready! Have a notebook or journal ready. I even carry around a very small one in my purse.

Right now I have over 100 ideas in a notebook. I don't know if I'll ever write about all of them, but keeping a notebook with me constantly helps me to always be thinking about article ideas--and writing them down.

Make a note of everything you think of--a new recipe your create, something that happened at work, a truth you learned about parenting, or funny pet antics. The more you come up with ideas, the more your brain seems to recognize things in your life that could lead to an article.

In the beginning, I depended on photos from websites to add to my hubs. Sure, they were fine, but they weren't original, and perhaps didn't tell the real story, especially when publishing a recipe that I had created myself. The more I began to use my own photos, the more I began to see the value in taking lots of pictures. See something cute your cat is doing? Take a picture. Same with your kids. Take a picture. A bird in the birdbath? Click. Click. The first snow of winter. Click. Spring flowers. Click. A historical building in the town you grew up in. Click. Click again. You get the picture--haha. Pun intended.

Start having a camera handy, and take pictures of things--lots of things--that interest you. A photo itself could lead to a hub or article.

You can also check out the forum for HubPages staff's Weekly Inspiration Topic. I was at HubPages for many months before I realized that this option existed. Under "explore," click on "forum," and then look to the right-hand side for the "Weekly Inspiration Topic." Simone Smith gives you the week's idea, along with a number of search-friendly key words that she has researched for us. I check the forum every week to see if the week's topic is something I can write about. A typical week's topic looks something like this:

Contest-Friendly Weekly Topic Inspiration: Parenting Advice posted by Simone Smith in The Hubber's Hangout

Hubbers ask numerous questions that appear in the feed on your HubPages home page. You might see a question floating through the feed, or take the effort to search for yourself. Look at the top of the HubPages' home page. Click on "explore" and then on "answers." The questions that are "hot," "best," and "latest" will appear. Take your pick. Or look to the right of your page and pick the category in which you're interested. Under the category you choose, there will be more specific sub-categories.

If you're interested in answering any of these questions, you will even be able to start your hub from the question itself, as you will see an option when you pull up the question to "make a hub about it." At the very least, all these questions will give you an abundance of ideas.

Ask questions that you think of on the feed option. You might gather information that would make a useful hub. In addition, any time you have a question about something in your day-to-day life, think if you can make a hub about it.

Every time you "google'" or use another search engine to look something up, ask yourself if you can write your own answers to the question, particularly if you are dissatisfied with the answers you find on your web search.

As you read and comment on other hubs, ideas may come to you. You may have a different idea about the hubber's topic that you wish to explore. Comments on the hub may also inspire you. Keep you mind open as you read other hubs. You never know where inspiration will hit.

Have you written a hub or article that was well-received from readers? Look at that topic and see how you could follow up with another hub. Also, perhaps you could write about something similar that would be grouped with your topic. Any particular topic could become a niche for you, an area in which you excel, hubs that spawn ideas about other related hubs. Look at what you write well, what subjects you know well, and write more on those issues.

If you use all the above methods to come up with ideas, you're certain to come up with a variety of things that you could discuss in a hub. See if it does get easier over time!