I hear it all the time. People always instruct newbie writers to “write what they know”. When I first started out, I was frankly sick of hearing that phrase.

After I removed the chip out of my shoulder, I realized that they say it because it works. But instead of slinging the cliche at people, I prefer to “mine my life for inspiration”.

For example, I just wrote a blog post chronicling a kitchen disaster I had about an hour ago. Though the events sound like an exageration, they weren’t. My day today has been full of things I can write about:

• Organizing your home after a move - unpacking boxes
• how to trouble shoot a broken dishwasher
• the importance of keeping track of business receipts
• what to do when you think your cat is lost
• how to change your address at the post office
• building great habits
• how to detox your body after a night on the town

All of those potential ideas were taken from the events of my day. And it only took me a minute or two to come up with that list. What did you do today? Can you somehow turn those into article ideas? Your assignment:

1. Make a list of at least ten things you did today.
2. Turn those ten things into an article idea or title.

You’ll be querying magazines and finding success as a writer in no time!  Part of the battle is finding things to write about. And if you pay attention, that part is actually easy.

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