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. 

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:

JOIN THOUSANDS OF SUBSCRIBERS

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. 

LEARN TO PERSUADE

WRITE BETTER.
MARKET BETTER.
SELL MORE.

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