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In the first creative writing course I took in college, I felt like my life was boring. I had nothing interesting to write about. The professor\xa0told us to pull from childhood memories, so I wrote a poem about feeding the cows on the farm where I grew up. When I read the poem aloud in class, I expected a little laughter, but instead I looked around and everybody was engaged. They asked questions about the cows, and they asked about the process of feeding them. They encouraged me to add more sensory details.\n\nTurns out my rural upbringing fascinated these kids\u2014most of them had\xa0grown up in the suburbs. What seemed familiar and ordinary, even boring, to me offered unusual and engaging content for others.\n\nThis was a revelation, and it has served me well. My\xa0world and the way I experience and process it serves as fodder for my next writing projects. That's what I want you to discover, too. Someone, somewhere, is going to be\xa0delighted to read about your world and the way you experience and\xa0process it.\n\nSo, do you need ideas for your next writing project?\xa0Take inventory of your life.\nTake Inventory of Your Life\nIt sounds so simple, so basic, but I don't know how many\xa0writers take time to reflect on all the content available from the life they\u2019ve lived and the life they're living. From where you sit, you can generate fresh ideas by reflecting on your past, dusting off memories, and tapping into your existing knowledge base.\n\nTo discover what lies inside you just waiting to contribute to the core of our next story or article or essay, I'd like to offer a few\xa0categories you can start thinking through. As you do, you can throw the information into an idea file like a spreadsheet, Evernote, or your bullet journal for easy access\u2014maybe in the same place you're storing your 50 headlines. That way you\u2019ll have material on hand when you need to write and pitch something new.\nWork Experience\nGo all the way back to your first job, even if that means the candy stand in third grade you set up at the local pool or your summer job weeding\xa0your neighbor\u2019s flower garden. Ideas like those can be leveraged for articles like \u201cJob Ideas for Industrious Kids\u201d or \u201cElementary-Aged Entrepreneurs.\u201d\n\nKeep going and list all the jobs you\u2019ve ever worked. Describe what you did, who you met, challenges you faced, lessons you learned, information and skills you gained.\xa0This adds to your collection of material to draw from, as you might recall a stressful interaction with\xa0a colleague or a disappointing encounter with your boss or the time you spilled an entire cup of root beer all over yourself during a meeting with the acquisitions editor of a publishing house. Not that I know anything about that.\nPeople You Know\nDo your friends and family members have experiences or stories you could use in your work? A good friend of mine, for example, is an inspiring entrepreneur whose philosophy of work fit a publication I often write for, so I interviewed him for an article. List people you know and key facts\xa0you might\xa0use in your writing sometime, and then\xa0when you're looking for an idea, you can flip through these notes about friends and, with their permission, feature their story in an upcoming piece.\nPlaces You\u2019ve Lived\nRecord all the places you\u2019ve lived. While the locations, climate, and demographics may seem ordinary to you, city people may be fascinated by an essay about country living, as I discovered with my cow poem and countless people have found when reading Wendell Berry. Or maybe you\u2019ve lived on another continent and can contrast life there with where you\u2019re living now. Or you could talk about cross country moves and cross-cultural challenges. Tap into your life for\xa0material related to locales you know well\u2014they don't have to be exotic to hold interest.\nPlaces You\u2019ve Visited\u2014and Plan to Visit\nList all of the places you\u2019ve visited and your upcoming vacations to see if you can generate a fresh take on a\xa0trip. Find the right slant\u2014for example,