How to Write When You Have No Idea What to Write

Last Updated on October 28, 2024 by Candice Landau

Writing is good, right? If you do it, it means you’re a writer. If you don’t, it means you’re a wannabe. Even if you’re crap at writing, if you want to call yourself a writer (and who doesn’t want to be a writer?), you have to do it. But, what if you have no idea what to write about? What then?

Because excuses are easy and mean you will never become a writer, you have to find a way to force yourself to write.

This article is both an exercise (for myself) and something you can try to show you how you too can easily get the words flowing. I’m writing this intro having already written the article. Honestly, when I started, I had no idea what I was going to write. But, now I’ve done it, I’m going to do it whenever I’m stuck.

1. Start writing about where you are

Okay, so I have no idea what to write right now. Absolutely no idea. I’m sitting in the Teahouse in Eugene, Oregon. It’s literally the only cafe one can sit at 9:50pm, well that and Barnes and Noble. If anyone out there wants to start a cafe or a tea house in Eugene, I promise you will have 100% of the market share if you go for an open-late model—there are hundreds of students and techie people who love nothing more than being glued to their laptops in a coffee shop.

Unfortunately for me, this is the time my creative juices really start flowing—late when I have no place to go. Right now in the Tea House, there is an interesting display of paintings by an artist called Simon Graves—all people who have done “good” in the world. The Teahouse closes in 6 minutes so I literally have to pack it in and go.

2. Transition to writing about your day

One of the things I did today at lunch was sit down and plot out what content umbrellas I wanted to fill on my website, and what the rough goals for these “umbrellas” would be. I definitely want to keep writing about writing, I want to write about things I make, and I want to write content that can be packaged together and repurposed. An ebook maybe? Actually, I’ve been thinking about that for awhile now. I have put SO much writing out into the world. Contently says I’ve written: 260k words (and that’s nowhere near all of my published content), I know I’ve written well over 100k in fiction, and my journals, well those must be around 500k—I have so many of them! How is it possible that I still haven’t written a book?

Considering my day job includes writing, I guess it isn’t really all that surprising. Last year I went to a Wordcrafters and Wine meetup and one of the women sitting next to me said that sometimes she thinks of going back to her old job as a school janitor as that was when she wrote best. It’s interesting that for so many writers it works this way. I guess that more repetitive, menial tasks free up your brain so you can think about other things, like your book, for example. In my role as a content marketer, it doesn’t work this way—I have to think about my job at my job, almost exclusively because I do “brain work”. There is no space or time for thinking “free”.

In fact, if you’re interested in finding out more about the effect repetitive or menial tasks have on your brain, read this article—it’s fascinating!

3. Identify what you’re getting enthusiastic about

I think I’ve identified what I’m getting most enthusiastic about—finding the spare time and the head space that enables one to think about writing and then to write. I’ve noticed it all this week. Anytime I’ve switched from thinking work to physical work (tidying mainly) I’ve been able to think more about my personal writing projects—yesterday at lunch, Saturday, Sunday—the result was output.

The awesome thing about thinking about the best state of mind for writing (this is new for me), is that it means I’m starting to think like other, published writers. In fact, when I went out and did a bit of research, I came across a great article by Justin Kramon, on the Gotham Writers website. Read this quote, then go read the article, then come back here and finish my article!

When writing became a priority for me, I started asking myself what factors in a day job would allow me to do the writing I wanted to do. The answers helped me to make some small transitions in my work situation that made a big difference for my writing.

I’m not entirely sure what my transition is going to be, but it’s on my mind.

4. That thing you got excited about? That’s what you should be writing! Keep going…

Stephen King is known for keeping only 1 of every 3 words he writes. He doesn’t just sit and perfect, he writes prolifically then deletes later.

I write a couple of books a year in non-fiction word count, which compared to fiction, is not my true love or indeed, specialty. I’m good at it, but stories are really where I excel! I find myself thinking more and more these days, “what if I applied the amount of work I do for others to my own projects? What if I spent that amount of time and head space on my own writing?”

Although I haven’t been entirely strict about it due to an immense workload at work, I’m trying to make a bigger effort not to do work outside of work and instead to focus on my personal goals. It’s a good way to ensure I’m productive at work, and a good way to give myself that time I desire on my own, to take steps toward fulfilling my own goals rather than someone else’s.

Really, one of the most difficult things at the moment is that my day job focus on writing, which means that when I get home, I’m often too tired to keep writing, or I have to keep writing an article because the work day has been filled with other tasks: meetings, editing, scheduling, a million other time-consuming things.

Only, if you did read the article I mention above—the one from the Gotham Writer’s site—you may have noted this paragraph:

“The worst day job you can have as a writer is one that’s writing-related.”

But why would you do anything other than the thing you loved doing? I don’t know. I guess there’s a lot to think about there…

I could go on as this is a fascinating topic, but I think you get the gist. Don’t know what to write? Here’s your formula (or at least one that works for me):