How to never run out of good ideas

A while back… 

Someone left me a VeryGoodCopy review. It read: 

“VeryGoodCopy is a source of good, inspirational content. Eddie never runs out of good ideas.”

Wonderful sentiment, of course. It made me happy. I read it and smiled.

But the feeling was fleeting. Because it’s not true. 

Fact is… 

I’m constantly running out of ideas. 

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Every day, I look at a blank page and a blinking cursor and I wonder, What’s next? 

What’s the next word? The next sentence? What’s the next idea here?

And most days, nothing comes to me. I just sit there, cracking my knuckles, biting my nails, picking the skin off my thumb. 

Eventually, I get tired of thinking. And I go to “The Well.”

The Well is my Google Drive.

Actually it’s the “Kernels” folder in my Google Drive.

Seconds after double-clicking this folder, I’m scrolling through hundreds — literally hundreds — of documents. Each one is a kernel, the very beginning of an article.

(Each document is identically formatted: there’s a 30-point headline at the top of the page and a few 11-point bullets below it. I like formatting my ideas consistently because, in a way, it makes them real.) 

And the more I scroll, the less anxious I feel. My fingers get a break. I’m OK again. Because now I’m swimming in ideas. Now, something good is imminent.

And therein lies probably the most valuable advice I can give any writer:

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Become excellent at writing down your ideas.

Be draconian about it. I’ve made writing down article ideas in my “Kernels” folder an unbreakable habit. It’s like a curse:

I pause movies to write down ideas.
I interrupt conversations to write down ideas. 
I wake up in the middle of the night to write down ideas. 

Yes, maintaining The Well is a sacrifice. It takes discipline and diligence and time, effort. But the payoff is huge because it helps me start writing. 

And starting is the hardest part. 

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