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Here’s How to Instantly Multiply Your Ideas · The Daily Writer

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Writer, where we share a lesson each day to help you cultivate the habits for creative success.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Writers are known for their creativity, but the truth is that the well sometimes runs dry.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever found yourself fresh out of ideas, here is a way to instantly get more ideas by using a strategy called idea mating.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say you're writing an article on how to be a better parent.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: First, you're going to make a column with 10 qualities or traits of your ideal reader.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: In this case, it's parents.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: So we might list 10 types of parents, including men, women, single, young, traveling, working, stay at home, or so forth.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: In the second column, make an entirely different list of random words.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: It might be a list of verbs, words from book or song titles, a list of emotions, holidays, or a million other possibilities.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: The point is that the two lists should not be related in any way.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say we chose a list of holidays.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: We would list words such as New Year's, Easter, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and so on.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then what you do is randomly mate or match a word from each column.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: For example, put a single mother with Christmas.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: What are the possibilities for an article on that topic?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Or what about traveling parents and the 4th of July?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Are there some interesting possibilities by mating those topics?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can get even more interesting with this process by adding yet a third column.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: For example, you can have a column for people, one for places, and one for things, all with three unrelated lists.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can use this strategy of idea mating, not just for nonfiction, but for fiction as well.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: It can help you come up with situations, plot points, characters, and much more.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: The author John Steinbeck said, ideas are like rabbits.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And by using this concept of idea mating, you can do this almost instantly.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: So take this and give it a shot.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been listening to this show for any length of time, you know that one of the four practices of a great writer is creativity.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to stay creative, you've got to have great input.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where writing prompts come in.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: A writing prompt is a sentence or two that helps you break through creative blocks, brainstorm new ideas, and get back into a state of flow.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Writing prompts are an awesome creative tool for journaling, storytelling, creative writing, stress relief, social media posts, and so much more.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: But the great news is that you don't have to create these yourself.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: We've put together an amazing package of 365 daily writing prompts.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: So every day for the next year, you can have a shot of inspiration delivered straight to your inbox.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: You can check it out at dailywriterlife.com slash writing prompts.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.