"How do you come up with your ideas?"

All fiction is truth.

This is the 63rd blog I’ve published in 63 weeks.

Every week, someone asks me the same question:

“How do you come up with your ideas?”

Easy. 

I pay attention.

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I used to work in finance. Before I could start working with any investment products, I had to pass a few financial securities exams. 

It’s the same for most industries. Healthcare, real estate, IT, law, engineering, skilled trades, education … You name it. You get your certification. Then you can work.

But writing is different.

You know what I did to become a writer?

I woke up one day and said, “I’m a writer now.”

When I started writing, I thought good writing was all about word choice. I thought it was about cadence. I thought it was about grammar, voice, and flow.

And yeah, all of that matters.

But it all clicked for me when I heard David Perell talking on his “How I Write” podcast.

“Writers are professional observers,” he said.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

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I wrote a blog in February 2024 about how great writers are masters of perception.

Here’s an excerpt:

“In “Lila,” Marilynne Robinson writes:

‘The fields were tenderly overrun by life, the plow was healing in the furrow, and the corn was humble before God.’

She was describing a cornfield in Iowa.”

(Yeah, I just quoted my own writing. Deal with it.)

The point here is that every brilliant, beautiful, breathtaking observation that’s ever been written down comes from the same life, the same world, and the same existence in which you and I live.

It’s even true in fiction. As Stephen King says in On Writing:

“[Fiction writing] boils down to two things: paying attention to how the real people around you behave and then telling the truth about what you see.”

In the Bible, Ecclesiastes 1:9 says something similar:

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”

That’s a lot of words to say this:

I come up with my writing ideas by paying attention to my life.

I try to be a professional observer.

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More practically, here’s what it looks like:

Example A)

I scroll Twitter/X/LinkedIn. When a quote catches my eye, I read it, save it, and let it percolate in my brain for a week or so before sitting down to write.

Example B)

When I’m having conversations with people, I try to note things they say that spike my dopamine. Odds are, if I find it interesting, other people will, too.

Example C)

I watch what happens around me. 

Some people are magnetic. Why?

Some people have a knack for making other peoples’ day. Why?

Why are some moments more impactful than others? What was the circumstance? What happened?

When I look back on my day, what 5% of that day stands out to me? Why?

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Everything that has ever been written is due to the same simple fact:

Someone was paying attention.

You don’t have to be a writer.

But you should be a professional observer.

It’s a pretty cool world out there.