September 13, 2005
Probably the single most difficult aspect of my freelance life is coming up with story ideas.

I just want to clarify--this is for nonfiction, for magazine and trade journal articles. For fiction, I have significantly more ideas than I know what to do with or time to deal with.

I spend part of every week on the Writers Market website going through their listings, looking for good paying markets that I can write for. My specialty areas would be health and consumer spending, I guess, the consumer spending fairly new. I tend to focus on health options. I've got two or three regular clients that I recently finished doing articles for and need to pitch new story ideas to. And sometimes it's tough. One is an online magazine and they've got a ton of content already on there, and it seems like every time I pitch the editor an idea she says they've already done it. I search their archives--which are huge--and it always seems like the story's been done. Both of the two markets I'm thinking of are online mags, actually, which may be one of the drawbacks of online mags. They have a huge need for material--a plus for writers--but that can also mean they have done everything under the sun.

I'm probably not systematic enough about it, letting story ideas appear out of the ether. I know that when I sit down with a pad and pen and consciously start brainstorming, just listing ideas, that I generally come up with a few that work. Which is probably what I'm going to have to do this morning.

Anybody have ideas on how to get story ideas?

Best,
Mark Terry