Reading stimulates thought process

Reading mainly stimulates an individual’s thought process, making one think harder while sharpening comprehension and memorizing skill. While reading we try to guess about the content of next pages and understand the situation better, at the same time recalling characters and storyline. Reading also strengthens an individual’s concentration level.

Builds vocabulary skill

Voracious reading exposes a reader to numerous new words, phrases. Such exposure definitely sharpens vocabulary skill and develops command over the language.

Expertise on a subject

If you want to master a subject, don’t forget to read it first. Reading will build your knowledge and who knows tomorrow you may have your own book. Suppose you want to gain optimum knowledge in Anthropology, start reading books of the same subject. Soon, in 5 years time you will be an international Anthropology expert. If you are a research aspirant, it will help you too.

Reading helps writing

You can pen down great things only when you are filled with great knowledge from within. We are like a pitcher, always thirsty for knowledge. Fill yourself with knowledge, read voraciously; then only you can write great things tomorrow.

Travel world through books

If it’s not possible for you to travel the whole world on your feet, book is the best choice. If past enchants you, different cultures and places haunt you; why not grab a book and see the world through pages? Even while seeing the world on foot, you may miss many things and won’t come to know historical detail, but reading won’t disappoint you. Quench your thirst through books.

One of the most common methods, and one that you should most definitely be employing already, is to keep an idea notepad with you at all times.  Not necessarily an actual pen and paper mini notebook, but something to function as such.  If you have a smart phone, like an iPhone or Blackberry, you can use their note taking features to quickly jot down anything that pops into your head.  This keeps you ahead of the game with a wealth of ideas that you can look to later, when you find yourself in need.

Read.  Can’t stress that one enough.  The more you put your energy towards learning new things, or reading new ideas, whether through books or magazines or online articles, the more information you’re taking in that you can call upon at a later date.  Extraordinarily useful when coming up with a new topic to write about.

Find a friend or colleague to bounce a few ideas off.  Let them know about the concept and tell them some things you were considering, or ways you want to approach writing about the idea.  The input they have could help you guide yourself into a brilliant new direction you couldn’t have thought of on your own.

If you find yourself struggling to think of anything while sitting at your desk, take a break.  Go outside for a few minutes, get some fresh air and clear your head.  You’ll find yourself feeling much more refreshed, and after wicking away the fatigue, you’ll be in a much better place to re-energize your thinking.

Finally, as a last resort, twist around another idea you’ve already read about or heard about.  If you can’t find an idea all to your own, borrow someone else’s.  Don’t just rehash an article or book that you’ve read before of course.  But take what you learned there, or the basic concept, and apply it to your own outlook, and your own unique writing voice to manufacture an entirely new piece of work.

There is not any particular set location in space and time where you can look for writing ideas, rather you can get writing ideas from almost anywhere and at anytime. Magazines, books, blogs, periodicals, forums, movies, questions asked by others, answers to those questions, old blog posts, old articles, or your immediate physical surrounding can be a good starting point. However, there are many ways to get ideas to write upon, you should only choose the idea that fit into the bigger picture keeping in mind the nature of the medium and the expectation of the target audience from it. If you are just starting out with writing then avoid taking any complex topic, and try to keep the sentences short.

Be a voracious reader. Books can be a good source for sourcing writing ideas. Try reading books from different genre and as many as you can. Blogs can also be effective in sourcing writing ideas. Do not confine yourself to reading blogs from your niche only as reading blogs from your niche alone will limit your ability to see the bigger picture, the context in which your readers see your blog. Reading blogs from different niches will also infuse freshness to your thinking. Writing updated versions of old articles can also be considered. This will open many writing avenues for you.

The bottom line is to be observant. Keep close eye on the surrounding and see what is changing and what effect will it have. Try to look for small changes; these are the things that at times have bigger impact. Always keep a pocket notebook with you to write down the observations you make and the ideas that come to you. This repertoire will keep you away from getting into the writer’s block.

Let’s face it. You got stuck here because over the days, months or years, you have become stale. You are out of new ideas and this happened because you have closed the door on incoming new ideas. You stopped reading. The lesser you read the quicker you run out of ideas and it happened to you. Writing took more time than its fair share can permit and thus the time you devoted for reading shrank. Well, by reading I do not strictly mean, reading books. Reading journals, magazines, blogs, newspaper reading and participating in forums and newsgroup etc. also qualifies.

As Stephen R. Covey would put it, it is about maintaining “P/PC Balance,” where P stands for production and PC stands for production capability. Let’s understand it in a bit detail. If you are focused solely on the P part of the equation then you are focusing on getting the proverbial golden egg while neglecting the PC part of the equation. By ignoring the PC for prolonged period of time you are killing the proverbial goose that laid golden eggs for you. It is necessary for us to keep on investing in increasing our PC.

On the other hand, if you are more focused solely on the PC part of the equation then all you are doing is enhancing your ability to work, and not doing the actual work; that is to say, you got all the goose you require but not getting them lay golden eggs for you. P/PC Balance is the key. However, you should not strive to achieve a perfect P/PC balance but moving towards perfection hasn’t hurt anyone.

One strategy to save oneself from this writer’s block could be to maintain an idea-book. You can keep a small notebook with you in which you should jot down all the small and big writing ideas that come to you during the course of the day. The list thus prepared will be your savior in the time of need.

Confession time: I decided to write this post when I myself got stuck. For more than a day I found myself confronted with this damn thing, writer’s block. It immobilized me. I did not know what to do and what to write on, and then I thought why not to write on this only, on how to write when you cannot write. This post opened up many new avenues for me and I am again full of ideas. I am out of my writer’s block, are you?

There are however other sides to the Internet that many at times turn a blind eye. While information opens our horizons to think and to reason at a more advanced level than our ancestors, such information if not censured can dreadfully carve certain behavioural patterns that leave an indelible mark in our lives. The busy rush hours and constant deadlines to meet, have caused parents to unintentionally forget their parental duties towards their children.The result is a generation that grows craving for attention, affection and at times finding it through the wrong outlets. Parents should therefore take the time out to censure the information that their children are being exposed to.

Windows Vista comes equipped with certain gadgets that help curtail the exposure to risky information and people that children may encounter and also limits the possibility of them downloading files to the computer that may contain viruses,Trojans etc. The gadgets allow you to control the sites the children visit, the time they spend on these sites, which video games they can play etc. To turn on Parental Controls using Windows Vista go to Start, then Control Panel then User Accounts and finally Set Up Parental Controls from there you establish the controls you wants to set for your child.

For traditional users of Windows XP this comes through the web service Windows Live Family Safety at www.fss.live.com and from there you follow the given instructions. The Internet should be seen as a cyber library but care at all times must be taken to control the information that we take in and give out from our favorite chair.