There is a poem that goes what are little girls made of and what are little boys made of. At least this is what I remember from a long time ago in my life when the word Internet had not yet become a word and Spam was a canned food. Anyway, I stumbled upon some old notes and dug a few scribblings up on where do articles come from ?

Personal Experience

You and I are the sum of all things that have directly or indirectly happened to us. Whether it happened a few seconds ago or whether it happened to our Grandfather when he was our age. These are interesting things and even more interesting when told skillfully.

Professional Experience

Different things happen to different people specially when one is in a different working environment. The tale of a movie star can be different from a heart surgeon but both are interesting and refreshing to reader. How the movie star tackled a role and how the surgeon interacted with a patient can be told. Heck! even a jobless man’s journey is a worthy tale to tell.

Observations taken: second-by-second; hour-ny-hour; day-to-day, week-by-week; month-by-month; and year-by-year.

Close your eyes. And concentrate on the sounds around you. I can hear the electric fan whirling like dervishes. The clock’s syncophated tic-toc. The carpenter hammering outside. And the train as passes the rail tracks. And then the drone of motorcycles passing by. Just to name a few.

What else if you were observing using your eyes?

Things that happen around you make good material.

Yes, there are a number of sources for an article or a post. The first three mentioned were up-close and personal. Something the observer had first-hand access to. The following are things that an observer can learn from or view from other sources – mostly second-hand but equally effective as basis for articles and posts.

Ideas from events in past,present and in the future
News from other blogs, media – both traditional and on-line

Ideas from books and periodicals

Originally posted on July 23, 2010 @ 3:05 am