How Do I Decide What to Write About?

what I blog about–photo credit: Nemo

I’d like to claim that I pick topics of paramount importance in the writing community, the crux of conversations that just must be talked about.

But that’s not true. I select topics that interest my readers. It’s a pull-through approach rather than push-through.

You-all communicate what you’d like to read about in several ways:

• comments–what concerns you enough to comment about probably deserves more conversation. I take note of that.
• Search Engine terms–that gives me a sense of what’s interesting to new readers
• click-throughs–those are the links I provide in posts that people click to garner additional information

Lately–this past quarter–many people have been searching for help on descriptors–how to put more color in their writing. Eight of the top ten search engine terms revolve around that. As for click-throughs–same story. The articles I write on best practices–writers tips, writing skills, book reviews–as a group have strong interest, but not as much as the specifics.. I’ll keep writing them because I think there’s latent interest. Last year, those were the highest ranked articles so I think  that may flip flop again

How about you–how do you decide what to write?

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-sixth grade, creator of two technology training books for middle school and three ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller for her agent that should be out to publishers this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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