What to Write About Next

I do love having the freedom to write whatever I want. Because I'm supposed to be retired it doesn't matter if I don't earn from my articles, but it's great if I do get some extra cash to supplement our tiny pensions.

I’ve got too many article ideas swimming around in my head at the moment, and not nearly enough time to sit down and research and then write them, even though I'm supposed to be retired. I’ll get through most of them eventually, but I need a place to list them down so none of them get forgotten. So I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone in this blog post. A short list will follow, but they’ll just be subjects without anything about how I’ll approach them. You don’t know who you can trust not to steal your ideas on the internet.

Still, a blog should be helpful so I’ll mention how I got some of the ideas. That might get you going on some idea generation of your own, if you need it.

1. The Taklimakhan Desert – I started this for one of the Helium contests, but stopped when I realised I wasn’t going to be able to meet the deadline. Gone are the days when I can work through the night and entertain guests in the daylight hours.

2. William Hogarth – a customer at Constant Content saw my article about jade, liked it and asked if I could do something similar for artists. He asked at the wrong time, when I was crawling up the wall at home with no internet connection and having to answer emails at the library. But I can still offer him some articles. This could be the first.

3. Leadership – I read something about this in a business ezine and reckoned I could write something at least as good.

4. Keyboard instruments – got this idea from someone’s blog.

5. Maralinga – no idea what this is but came across the word and fancy finding out.

6. Egypt – I haven’t done half what I should have after our holiday this year.

7. Menorca – ditto last year. The photo above is a view from the northernmost tip of Menorca.

8. Madeira – ditto the year before.

9. Poole – where my new home is.

10. Torquay – where my first home was.

11. North Dorset – where my last home was.

12. York – where I recently spent a weekend.

There I think I should stop. As I was writing this, more and more ideas were coming to me. Now, apart from the first two, I just need to work out the angles that might sell and get on with it.

But tomorrow I’m going out to meet a friend I haven’t seen for a couple of years. I’ll be taking the train from my new local station. Must remember to take my camera. Wonder what ideas I’ll come up with during the day.