How to use your life as inspiration for articles!

Looking for an idea for a new article or blog post? Look to your everyday life for inspiration!

Everyday life can provide great fodder for a writer or blogger. In my life, I'm constantly performing research. Sometimes, it's a question that arises while watching a television show or reading a book. Or perhaps I'm seeking information about an illness that's affecting one of my pets. Or even a recipe for how to bake a potato (yes, indeed—I Googled "How to bake a potato" a few months back.)

Don't let your research go to waste! Use your research, combined with your own experiences, as the basis for an article or blog post! In short, if you were wondering about topic X, chances are another person is seeking the same information.

Also, look to your hobbies, profession and other areas where you're an "expert" of sorts, and write about what you know. And don't pack it all into one article! Write narrowly-focused articles on various facets of a topic and interlink those articles to create a comprehensive guide for your readers. In fact, if you have a lot of information to share on one specific topic, you may even consider starting a niche blog or website on that topic.

Personally, I find it very rewarding to write articles that are derived from my everyday life. This is particularly the case with my pet care articles. Whenever one of my animals is sick, injured or unwell, I'll write about it. By writing about these ailments, a frightening, painful or otherwise unpleasant experience is not in vain; it's turned into a learning experience that affords me an opportunity to help other pets and pet owners who are in a similar situation.

One example: recently, my dog developed an aural hematoma -- a pocket of blood in her ear. So I wrote an article titled Aural Hematomas in Dogs—Causes and Treatment of a Dog's Ear Hematoma, and in doing so, I am providing valuable information to other pet owners with an animal who has developed an aural hematoma. So at the end of the day, my dog's discomfort was not in vain, as her misfortune has benefitted other pets; her experience had a purpose. It's my way of making lemons into lemonade.

Another benefit? Your body of work turns into a life road map of sorts. I enjoy looking through my article titles, as I'm transported back to a particular point in time. I suppose it's a non-fiction writer's diary of sorts.

This article dovetails with my most recent article, "How to use your interests as inspiration for an article or blog."