how to find what you should be writing about

In the Bhagavad Gita , an ancient story from India on how to alive with purpose, one grapheme tells his struggling counterpart:

Y'all don't know what to choose because you don't know your True Self.

Oof. Ouch.

Every bit both a yogi and a writer, I don't think in that location's one sentence more than appropriate — or more cutting — that captures why so many writers struggle with the ongoing and always present dilemma that every writer experiences on his or her artistic journeying:

"But what should I write most?"

I congenital a corner of my business organisation effectually helping writers solve for this very creative struggle. From 2012 to 2016, my paid-membership online writers' group served hundreds of writing prompts and lessons to a community of 300 writers from 17 countries.

While ane intention I had for the group was to help members learn how to write improve , I also wanted to assistance writers savour their writing journeys, rather than feel locked in a constant creative struggle.

As the years unfolded, I noticed a design:

The most significant growth for my writers happened when skill-building practice intersected with personal topics that guided writers into amend knowing their true selves.

Don't go me wrong. Fun creative writing prompts are great for jump-starting creativity or unsticking your voice. No one wants to know more most what happens when Bigfoot goes vegan than I do.

And yet, if you really want to feel like beingness a author is enhancing the quality of your life?

At some point, y'all will want what you're writing about to intersect with the life that you're living — and, for information technology to ameliorate inform you of how you lot're living it.

Answering the question "What should I write near?"

Of the hundreds of prompts, lessons and conversations I've offered to help writers write more and write amend, there's one six-give-and-take question that is the most directly path into answering the elusive question of what to write near:

"What have I been avoiding lately?"

Every bit yous think through this, try to distinguish what you're fugitive from what y'all don't like, what you lot're agape of or what you don't want.

The departure is that "avoidance" implies a selection has already been made in the direction of what's being avoided. What you're avoiding is already calling for your attending. Think of that book thought yous've been mulling over for years. Or a weblog postal service idea that is still simply a few bullet points, but clamoring for your attending. Mayhap there's an essay competition yous tin't seem to commit to.

Whatever it is, what you lot're avoiding ha already been chosen on some deeper level of your consciousness.

If you're struggling to figure out what to write, the simple answer is to write about what you're avoiding writing.

And if there isn't a specific project or topic on your side burner, instead ask yourself what you may exist fugitive in your life nowadays, across your writing. Maybe there'south a tough-love admission near how you lot've really been feeling lately, or a featherbrained argument with a friend that'due south replaying in your listen.

The signal is to examine what you're avoiding, because the nature of avoiding it implies that it matters to you, and — since y'all've already chosen it, deep down — you'll demand to eventually choose it fully to move toward it.

In the deed of writing, you may yet discover why you've been avoiding information technology.

Exploring your inner landscape on newspaper can help you illuminate shadows behaviors, habits, worries, fears and other natural machinations of the mind — the sneaky stuff that causes resistance in writing, creating and doing. The healthier the rapport between yous and your true self, the easier it becomes to choose your choices fully.

Avoidance volition show yous the manner

Asking yourself "What have I been avoiding lately?" is a simple question, and it'southward a fast method for pinpointing a writing topic that's near to the experience you're living in the moment.

Amend nonetheless, the question produces a personal, meaningful inquiry that may help you better sympathise what you're resisting and why you're resisting it.

Whether yous're resisting a book topic, a web log post, submitting an essay to a contest, or fugitive something un-writing-related altogether, y'all tin can apply your writing as a procedure for meliorate agreement.

Hither are two simple scripts y'all can apply to tap into what you've been avoiding lately:

• "If I'm being really honest with myself, what I've been fugitive lately has been ________. I've probably been avoiding information technology ever since ________."

• "Where is my avoidance coming from? My go-to excuse for not doing it has been __________. But perchance I'1000 actually resisting it because ________."

Something powerful begins to happen when we write through the very questions, topics and struggles that inspire more than self-knowledge.

Kickoff and foremost, nosotros answer the question, "What should I write about?"

Better yet, when we employ our writing to face the topic of "what we've been avoiding lately," our writing becomes a tool even more meaningful than for just telling stories.

When nosotros write about topics that explore the journeying of life as we live it, nosotros get to know ourselves ameliorate and better.

Writing becomes an assist for our own healing, self-actualization and pursuit of happiness.

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they're useful for our readers.

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Source: https://thewritelife.com/what-to-write/