Sitting down may be as bad for you as smoking. We would all like to spend less time sitting down and more time moving, right? And if you are writing a book, you are probably already worrying about what’s going to become of your bum (or is that just me?)
The Leprechaun of Irish folk-law, a cobbler by trade, has a secret stash of gold. If you catch him, he has to tell you where to find the gold. Ideas are like that; if we catch them, they must reveal their gold. But like those little green men, they have an irritating way of disappearing when you need them most. They seem solid, but if we don’t hold on to them for dear life, they are here one minute and gone the next.
When you are writing a book or blog, your mind will often lead you down a dead-end. Then it is time for you to apply the question cure.
As a journalist, I immersed myself in questions every day. Questions sparks a story idea. How do start-up companies find money for growth? What led that company to go offshore? I’d ask everyone involved questions and their answers became the story.
Quoting is quite hard to do elegantly. Too much attribution is laborious to read. Too little is rude at best and borders on plagiarism. Not the attributes we want in sticky stories – which are memorable, inspiring, thought provoking.