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Have you run out of fresh ideas for stories or articles? Are you hanging from the last knot at the end of your rope? What are you going to do?

There’s an easy answer to that last question. Sometimes it’s not the lack of material out there for a writer to use. It is everywhere. Resetting your mental perspective on ideas could sweep a multitude of viable avenues onto your storyboard.

Hunting for Stories

Find a newspaper or tackle Yahoo! News feeds and see what you can find. Here are ten possible idea sparkers found in less than fifteen minutes.

1.      Elizabeth Taylor

2.      Japan’s earthquakes

3.      Earth’s axis

4.      Housing slump

5.      Pennies saved

6.      Control tower scare

 7.      Volcano in Africa

8.      Skin care for guys

9.      Another oil slick hits LA coast

10.   Sports themes–Michael Jordan 

Have News, Now What?

On the surface these all seem uninteresting. How could any of them spark ideas that haven’t been done to death?

Let’s see what could come of them with a bit of thought expansion.

1.      Elizabeth Taylor—everyone talks about her beauty, her film career, etc. On the non-fiction side, experts will comb through everything in her life for their fodder. On the fiction side there is much to think about. Here was a young girl who was beautiful, with violet eyes, who loved to act. She was given that chance and excelled.

But, what could have happened to her without that chance? What could a beautiful young girl, without such talent, experience during her teen years? What if she really preferred a career behind the spotlight—say, as a set designer? Her talent could be in art. Such scenarios abound.

2.      Japan’s earthquakes—tons of ideas come from this news. Of course, there’s one aspect that many wouldn’t use. This goes along with #3 in our list. (Underlying info revealed that when the big quake hit Japan, three things happened which explain the destruction. One: the area of the quake dropped the landmass approximately two feet in altitude, two: Japan’s landmass was drawn 6.5 inches closer to the United States, and three: the quake caused an axial shift of the Earth.

Those facts hold significant ideas in their grip. Non-fiction possibilities: what impact may these geological realities warn us about, interv