The Cyclical Nature of Ideas

One of the reasons I expect I never "made it" as a professional writer is that my level of inspiration and creativity is extremely cyclical.

I never quite know when I am going to wake up and have the ideas for 10 new articles, and when I will wake up times in a row and draw a blank.

Even when I worked as a technical writer, this was an issue. Seems a bit odd, when I look back on it, as the material I had to write about was "given" and "fixed," ahead of time. Even so, some days the words flowed easily, and some days it was like pulling teeth to get anything done.

Of course, part of my problem may be that I have been living with ADHD my entire life. I never really talk about that, as I refuse to be a victim of my own mixed up body chemistry.

Well.... that's not entirely true, as I do keep a blog about being an adult with ADHD. But that's sort of a cathartic exercise for me... not really "part of what I write," as a writer.

This past year, I have been somewhat studying the comings and goings of my writing creativity. Seems that stress pretty much kills my creative spark. I've been told that is "odd," and that most great writing comes out of pain and suffering, not out of happiness and calm. Be that as it may, it never really has held true for me.

A bit like a Wikipedia

How does someone who does not necessarily write "in volume" get the most bang for the buck?

I've been thinking that one effective approach is to use areas of specialization to create "mini websites" or wikis on the sites where I contribute.

For example, when I write on HubPages, I have distinct categories my different articles will fit into, and then I can crosslink between these articles, wikipedia style. It may not draw a huge number of extra views, but at least it opens up the possibility that "a visitor" ends up reading more than just one page.

Although HubPages (and other sites) allow contributors to have segments of "link lists," I have a feeling that using in-line links might be more effective.

This is definitely something I will be experimenting with, as I continue to build my base of articles. When you don't have the ability to write a lot of articles, you have to make up for lost ground by maximizing how much you get out of each article.