$1000 for Ideas?
How About 0$ For Ideas?
Look it, I’m not against any writer here on Substack writing a course about how to create ideas for writing. Really, I’m not. Recently, he posted a “writer-vert” to advertise for his course. In it he claimed a three step process to come up with 100+ ideas.
The article beginning with a question from an invisible and unknown questioner. “I don’t know what to write about XXX?” (XXX is the writer of this article whose name i don’t wish to reveal).
XXX responded with two questions.
“What do you mean you don’t know what to write about? Is it:”
(I assume the following two questions are to the original asker of the question.”
“You got 100’s of idea, and don’t know what to focus on?”
“You literally have zero ideas?”
And XXX goes on to say,
“Either way, there is a fix.”
I always have been bothered by the person that asks a couple of questions and knows what the problem is. Seems a bit quick to get to the conclusion.
Now the writer saying, “there is a fix” is saying, I have the fix. Later in the article he writes, (paraphrasing), but It’ll cost ya, $1000.)
In the article XXX also seems to think that a Blog will be the solution. After all aren’t all writers Blog writers? I know I’m not. Did XXX miss me?
The article has the following claim “Find Your First 20 Blog Post Ideas With AI.” Really, this statement should be, “Steal Your First 20 Blog Post Ideas for free from writers that contributed, unbeknownst to them, to the AI repositories and will not be paid for your use of their work.
This is a no-no in my book. Real writers don’t use AI for writing. If they do, then they are not real writers.
If you want to learn to write, then WRITE. Don’t avoid the pain and challenge. Writing is not easy. It is not something to take from some magical faucet (AI). Writing comes from our brains and life experiences. If you can’t ideate, then it is almost as if you don’t have any life experiences to write about. Do you have any life experiences.
Coming up with with ideas is not difficult.
I’ll state this fact again, in caps and bold:
COMING UP WITH IDEAS IS NOT DIFFICULT.
And you don’t have to spend mega-bucks to learn how to come up with ideas.
You only have to know where and how to catch them. Testing your ideas, testing them in notes is a good thing also. If you don’t have people who know you posting to notes here on Substack may not be so useful. On the other hand if the passing grade for doing so is just the number of comments and hearts that you get, you still need people reading your posts. You also need people that are committed to responding. There are lots of requirements for this to work.
A while back I wrote an article about the concept of a pearl. Here is a link to that article:
And here is another article showing a different way to come up with ideas:
More and More Pearls
A short while ago, I wrote about pearls. Here’s a link to that article (https://thisreallybothersme.substack.com/p/do-you-collect-pearls). Like an embryo, this idea, which has been present in my thinking and life for quite a long time, has become center stage. Read the …
A pearl is something you notice somewhere that catches your eye. The catching can occur in the minutest of ways. You notice something in the corner of your eye and this starts off your thinking.
A requirement of noticing the pearl is that (a) you are clear of judgment and (b) that you are clear of judgment. The pearl will be fleeting and you must be ready for it.
The next story that I wrote about pearls described a way to visualize a field of pearls. Here is the link to the story: https://thisreallybothersme.substack.com/p/more-and-more-pearls
100 ideas is nothing. I could probably generate 100 ideas in less than 30 minutes. These are useful bonafide ideas that can produce an article or a story.
I don’t ideate in one shot. Currently I’ve accumulated 3000+ ideas in less than 3 years. I’ll never write 3000+ articles. The ideas are there if I need them.
I recently wrote an article about AGI. Here is a link: https://thisreallybothersme.substack.com/p/agi-artificial-general-intelligence
I know there is huge interest in AI and in particular AGI. In the article I list 11 mechanisms of human intelligence. Here Is that list of mechanisms if you didn’t click the link above.
The brain provides a mechanism for thought.
Thought encompasses reasoning.
Thought encompasses problem-solving.
Thought encompasses both abstract and concrete recognition processes.
Thought involves symbolic manipulation.
Thought involves inference.
Thought involves creativity.
Thought involves sensing.
Thought involves feeling(s).
Thought involves control (physical and non-physical).
The brain has a mechanism for efficient encoding, storage, retrieval, and housekeeping in the repository we call memory.
Guess what, and this is really important for you idea seekers. Pay attention please. From these eleven human thought mechanisms I will write ten+ articles. One article will be written for each of the human thought mechanisms.
Ten+ ideas from a single idea. OMG.
There are two ways to look at ideas. An idea represents a potential article. It is a potential article of because it only represents the pearl of an idea. It is the seed that will be born into an article or a story.
Another way to look at an idea is that it represents an experiment. Will your idea fly? When you throw it out, is it like Velcro and will it attach it self to a reader? We call this interest. Or will it fall on the floor and roll into a crack? Best yet, will it land with some evidence that this idea will bear fruit? That at some point the fruit will be turned into an article.
Obviously there are all kinds of ideas.
My idea of using ideas as experiments is a way to test them.
if you publish your ides in the notes format of Substack, you may not get enough readers to know if an idea is “good.”
If you publish your idea in the long form format of Substack, you may get some useful statistics but that too is fraught with issues.
The real question is are you here for money or are you here on Substack to write? Ask yourself this question and answer it. Don’t avoid it. When you have answered it, you will have a better idea of how to proceed.
Whether you are here for the money, or the subscriptions, or the follows there is one thing that is true, you should write as much as you can.
Don’t wait for the ideas to come. It is more important to DO. As the saying goes, DO NOT TRY, DO !!
The more you write, the more you will be able too write. The more you are able to write, the more ideas will come gushing out. That’s right, gushing. Typically, when I write something, I have as I am writing, more ideas will come with that writing. Listen, and take my word for it. Writing more is the key and not following three step plans to ten step plans. Such plans are all over Substack, Medium, and other platforms by people that are not writers. They are the sellers and marketers. Speaking of selling, here is a link to another idea I pursued about selling:
Literally, look around you, there are a million ideas all around you. All that you need is one idea to start.
Some other pointers:
Be patient with yourself.
If you get frustrated, stop, take a deep breath, and return after a break.
Throwing 1000’s of pages away of attempts into the trash never usually helps.
Be patient with yourself.
Keep at it. Your way may not be their way.
Finally, this “course” was free. It may work for you. It may not. If this approach is here, so are many others. Find them.
Closing Comments
I hope you enjoyed reading this article. I enjoyed writing it. If you did like it, please leave a comment. If you can clap for it, please do so. Even better, please subscribe to this newsletter. I am now publishing on Vocal and Substack. I am in the process of moving all of my articles to these platforms. If you have friends, please pass this article on to them. Have a wonderful day, and thanks again for reading.
You can reach me at therenguy@gmail.com.
NOTE Regarding the Use of AI to Write: My writing is done so without the use of an AI Writer.