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Eight or nine times out of ten, picking up and leafing through a magazine’s or book’s table of contents, you will find at least one or more articles or chapters that will catch your attention immediately. Never mind that that article or chapter’s subject had been written about many times before. The one that caught YOUR attention stood out, most likely, because it put the topic in a new perspective.

For starters, that new perspective, aka, “spin” may have involved saying “no” to something that everyone seemingly agrees with or “yes” to something that everyone seemingly disagrees with. If most people agree that going to college is great, an author such as Caroline Bird will take the opposite tack, arguing that going to college is a bad idea. So reviewing commonly accepted concepts in your field and taking an opposite stance on one of them may yield a unique spin.

Another way to put a different spin on a topic is to examine its related issues and problems. One time, I was interested in writing a book for substitute teachers and recalled from my own experiences what substitutes had to deal with. One of the issues was the lack of good activities to be used immediately with restless students. This led to a book about activities using common objects, such as confiscated toys, in motivating students to write.

Still another way to put a new perspective on things is to establish a connection between two seemingly unrelated concepts or things. This can be tricky, but very effective if you can pull it off. Your expertise in a given field will be very helpful, and you can always connect the dots with additional research. For example, everyone is familiar with gardens, but how many people are familiar with out-of-space gardens or Mars gardens? Also, asking yourself “what if” can yield a few interesting connections.

Yet another way is simply to offer your own definition of a term or make up a term, such as mompreneurs. Look through references such as thesauri as well as regular and specialized dictionaries for common nouns. Then take some time to play around with combinations of words and see if you can’t create a word that is related to your expertise. To discuss it completely to a specific audience just may require a book that you can write! Even better, you are not likely to have much competition in attracting a publisher’s attention.

And there you have it. Choose a strategy that you find especially appealing and go to work. You may be pleasantly surprised with your results! Remember to have fun while you are at it.

Dorothy Zjawin has used her creativity in developing her published book, articles and website, http://www.profitable-pen.com

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Many novice writers, when asked about what they want to write about, respond with the name of a broad topic, such as “relationships” or “computers.” At the same time, these writers overlook an important question, “Well, what ABOUT relationships” and “What ABOUT computers?”

In other words, what main point do you want to make about some aspects of a broad subject to a specific audience?

For example, writing a letter to a friend is likely to use different language and include news that will appeal to that audience. On the other hand, writing a letter to a relative is going to be quite different and not likely use exactly the same language or news that might be presented to a friend.

So before producing that article or book, all writers need to decide who their audience and tailor their material to it, just like a letter-writer would to his or her audience. In other words, tailor the material to a given audience.

For example, the novice writer’s main point might be “Lap computers are becoming obsolete” for an audience of college students. And in the other broad subject of relationships, the novice writer might state that “Having an older brother or sister can be an advantage.” In this case, the specific audience might be young parents. Also, the best part is that both points are related to their respective broad subjects and speak directly to their intended audiences. Another benefit is that the novice writer can visualize each audience and tailor his or her statements to it.

As a result, that writer’s work will be well-focused, with interesting content, and attract his or her given audience — including an editor at some publishing house who just happens to be looking for such a topic!

Follow these suggestions and you will have a smoother road to a faster sale for your article or book.

Dorothy Zjawin’s website, http://www.profitable-pen.com, is open to ALL writers and features articles and a free forum.

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How to Catch the Writing Bug

By Stephen Bucaro

If you earn income as a writer, or use writing as a
marketing tool, you know how difficult it can be at times
to write. I started writing for my website and newsletter
a few years ago. Sometimes it would be two or three weeks
between articles. Sometimes writing would be torture. Then
one day I caught the writing bug.

Now I write two or three articles each day. I don’t have
to struggle for topic ideas. I have thousands of good ideas
to choose from. Instead, now I struggle to limit the scope
of areas that I will write about. What happened to cause
this change? I caught the writing bug.

The writing bug is contagious, and by reading this article,
you too will catch the writing bug!

How to Choose a Topic

The most difficult part of the writing process is choosing
a good topic. A good topic is one that other people want
to read about and one that is interesting enough for you
to write about. Here’s how to create a notebook full of
great topic ideas.

- Use a three-ring notebook as an idea file.

Your idea notebook should have two parts. The first part
is sheets where you jot down ideas whenever they pop into
your head. The second part is tabbed dividers where you
keep reference material and partially written articles.

Where do ideas come from? Everywhere! Ideas can come from
TV news or any TV show. They can come from a book,
newspaper, or magazine. They can come from the web. Ideas
can come from a conversation with a friend. All of these
sources are sending information and ideas to you.

After you learn how to catch ideas, your idea notebook will
be bulging with great ideas and research information for
article and book topics. You don’t need to plagerize or
copy other peoples’ work. Your article should be nothing
like the material that you get an idea from because you
have the “writer’s attitude”. Below are some thoughts from
a person with the writer’s attitude.

- I can explain the topic better.
- I know more about the topic.
- I disagree with this source.
- I can approach that topic from another angle.
- I can elaborate more on that topic.
- I can write a more concise article.
- I can break the information up into more readable short

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