Comments on: How do you Find Stories for Your blog? – Open Mike

By: enjoygame

enjoygame — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 06:06:46 +0000

Where do the ideas from your stories come?
listening to Coast to Coast AM, reading books, talking to people on forums

What tools do you use to find them?
coast to coast am website, various forums, google news/blogs, reader comments

What blogs/sites/offline sources do you use to track them?
google news, god like productions forum, above top secret forum, various podcasts

How do you work out which stories to write about and which to leave out?
If a story gets me to ask questions and go off on my own to research (via google), then I write about it. If I don’t give a tory any second thought, then it’s not worth writing because others probably wont care about it either. http://www.air-shox.com air shox

By: enjoygame

enjoygame — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 06:05:26 +0000

Where do the ideas from your stories come?
listening to Coast to Coast AM, reading books, talking to people on forums

What tools do you use to find them?
coast to coast am website, various forums, google news/blogs, reader comments

What blogs/sites/offline sources do you use to track them?
google news, god like productions forum, above top secret forum, various podcasts

By: Lola

Lola — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 01:43:11 +0000

Where do the ideas from your stories come?
listening to Coast to Coast AM, reading books, talking to people on forums

What tools do you use to find them?
coast to coast am website, various forums, google news/blogs, reader comments

What blogs/sites/offline sources do you use to track them?
google news, god like productions forum, above top secret forum, various podcasts

By: Stories Lesbian

Stories Lesbian — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 03:10:03 +0000

Most of my stories i use are either original text i write myself, or reused stories i get from the copyright owners and authors.

Foxy

By: RachelAPP

RachelAPP — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 23:18:39 +0000

My blog is called Food for the mind and is about anything that interests me basically, and on which i can put my own spin.
It goes from film reviews to guitar lessons etc

If i’m stuck for inspiration, i check my MySpace friends bulletins and pages, and usually, something will attract my attention and i’ll follow a few links and might come up with something i get really excited about.

I also constantly check BBC News website and will comment if something really strikes me.

By: Rukmani Ramanathan

Rukmani Ramanathan — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 08:26:51 +0000

i have just started blogging.new to everything connected with blogging.
i intend using life experiences for contents.i am all over the NET gathering information and knowledge.
reading all the suggestions above-great for beginners.

By: Derek Andrews

Derek Andrews — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 18:44:42 +0000

Offline, I use events from my working life to give me ideas and material for posts.

Online, I watch conversations in relevant newsgroups, mailing lists and bulletin boards. I use feeds from Google News for relevant keywords cropping up in mainstream press, and Technorati for the same in blogs.

By: Richard

Richard — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 07:44:18 +0000

For unique content I try to look for inspiration outside the internet; books, people. If your always looking on internet its harder to create unique content. The other thing I like to do is write in a coffee shop with no access to internet. When you have internet acces, its too easy to get distracted checking email e.t.c. If you have no internet, all you can do is write.

By: Ken Worsley

Ken Worsley — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 18:23:33 +0000

For japaneconomynews.com, RSS is essential, pretty much the be all and end all. I use bloglines because I can use it anywhere. I tag and bookmark some items to del.icio.us from there, since I may use the same item on another Japan blog I co-write for (transpacificradio.com). But, because I’m translating a lot from Japanese, I need to watch the Japanese and English news sources in my RSS. The problem is that the Japanese end is much less developed. Things often get published on Japanese government sites that have no RSS, and don’t hit the Japanese RSS at a news site (like Kyodo) until Bloomberg or someone else (or anyone at Google news through RSS) already has it translated into English.

I find Word Press pretty much rocks. With my own server I’ve developed my own core version of it that allows it to run a lot of blogs simultaneously, to keep things slim. Paying for a server and building it myself was much cheaper over two years than paying for hosting multiple sites. The only issue is they’re all on the same IP address. I can live with that. The content is what drives them, not the tricks.

By: snwop

snwop — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 14:07:02 +0000

In my life, I have found out that the bathroom is a good place to create good ideas. Especially in my previous job, whenever I had a problem that seemed difficult to solve, I went to the toilet. While there, the solution came into my mind.

By: John Wesley

John Wesley — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 13:30:40 +0000

The ideas racing through my head and keeping me up at night turn into my best stories. I started keeping a notebook bedside and writing them all down.

By: Vida de un Consultor » Blog Archive » ¿De dónde sacar las ideas para escribir?

Thu, 01 Feb 2007 11:14:32 +0000

[...] Se pregunta Darren Rowse que de dónde saca la gente ideas para escribir en sus blogs… Qué cosas, nunca me lo había planteado. Siempre he escrito “según me sale”, sobre todo en este blog. Pero pensando un poco en ello, tendría que establecer alguna diferencia. [...]

By: LeisureLorence

LeisureLorence — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 10:34:22 +0000

I am German, please excuse my poor English.

My Blog is partly a litblog, so finding a good story is a difficult but enjoyable undertaking.
I have just two bold points to make, which my previous speakers didn’t point out yet:

1. Writing for fun – which we all should do – means for me to have a free (but not empty), stimulated mind. Sometimes it needs jogging, whine or – which works surprisingly well – black tea to get in the right mood.

2. My blogpartner.
We try to create our own world with our blog, with own insiders and terms.
In our best moments, postings seem to write themselves. It’s fascinating, how the creativity of two people adds up to a greater, more stable creativity.

Sorry again for the poor language, have a nice day.

By: Learning from a smart fox » Inspiration Bit

Learning from a smart fox » Inspiration Bit — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:50:20 +0000

[...] Guess what? Even professional bloggers run out of ideas for their blogs. But being so experienced in blogging they know how to come up with not just one idea at a time, but hundreds of them. Kudos to Darren Rowse for coming up with an idea of an “Open Mike”, when he asks his readers to share tips with him (and of course, other blog visitors). Today his question is “How do you Find Stories for Your blog?” [...]

By: inspirationbit

inspirationbit — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:38:50 +0000

I’m fairly new to blogging so I’m still learning a lot about finding stories for my blog. So far I’ve noticed that I get inspired by one of the following steps:

1. Visiting various news sites, including sites in foreign languages – usually they pick the best stories in their news section.

2. Going through the sites in my bookmarks list – that was the original idea of my blog – write about what I find interesting on Web

3. I’ve subscribed to various RSS feeds, and I find many interesting topics to talk about from other bloggers.

4. From posts like this one :-)

By: Ben Evert

Ben Evert — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 05:30:54 +0000

My niche is rather small, making beer and wine, so new ideas and products usually don’t happen everyday. I get a lot of ideas from reading books and magazines on my subject. I occasionaly get ideas from readers that e-mail me. I also get ideas from just making and experimenting.

Tool wise, I generally use Google reader and check a few feeds every couple of weeks and the occassion Google search whenever an idea strikes me.

As far as stories go, I try to keep it simple. If a post is going to be long or have a lot of concepts in it, I break it into a series of posts. Most posts are designed to print out on 1 page.

By: Dave C.

Dave C. — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 01:22:33 +0000

I’ve got to admit, Darren, your input has made a tremendous effect on how I come up with stories for my blog. Your post about where you talked about how Signal vs Noise creates stories really got me thinking that instead of regurgitating stories from other sites, come up with some interesting and unique content of my own. I’ve started looking at aspects outside of blogs and news sites for inspiration. My site is about making positive changes in career and business. I’ve noticed recently that there is wisdom to be extrapolated from “makeover” television shows like What Not To Wear, Queer Eye and Extreme Makeover Home. My wife watches those shows and if I’m paying close attention, I’ll pick up a nugget of wisdom that I can use for a story on my site.

I also have gotten into using Google Alerts to bring me information from news sources and blogs. I try not to use the information directly, but I scan a lot of stories and I can always find something to either link to or help generate an idea.

As far as picking what stories to use and what to leave, I try to do this before I write anything because I’m not big on wasted energy, but I’ll take a basic idea and brainstorm the outline of what I want to write about. If it seems pedestrian in nature, I’ll leave it be until I can come up with a better idea.

I got to give Problogger, Copyblogger and Shoemoney a lot of credit. Between those three sites, I have collected a lot of great information which I hope is making my site better each day.

By: Rodney Olsen

Rodney Olsen — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 00:42:56 +0000

Have you ever marvelled at a rainbow?

Do you sometimes get frustrated in traffic or in a busy shopping centre?

Have you ever thought about what you’d do if you won a million dollars?

There are many experiences in life that we can call ‘universals’. They’re things to which most of us can say, “me too”.

My work in radio has helped train me to look for the universals that we all share. Once found, I need to write about those universals from a unique perspective. I try to write posts about things we all experience but from my own point of view. I can find those universals by reading the paper, other blogs, my ride to work each morning, time spent with my family and a thousand other ways.

By: Nancy Montague

Nancy Montague — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 00:06:00 +0000

I feel rather low tech after reading some of these responses. I use RSS feeds and I use Google alerts. The single largest source for ideas for my blog come from forums on the topic. The questions people ask and even the answers others give. This often sets me off on one tangent or another.

By: Mahesha

Mahesha — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 23:55:00 +0000

I find ideas basically from my studies and profession. I have a passion for books, I get Ideas from them and also I do research on Internet for information. I love my local library.