Coming up with new ideas for blog posts is easy if you’'re just getting started, but once you’ve been blogging for six or more months, you start running into walls. Big, scary walls.

That’s when you need to begin thinking out of the box. It’s not hard. In fact, it’s effortless when you know what to do.

I'’ve written thousands of articles during my lifetime and during that time I'’ve developed a simple system for generating new ideas, even on topics you think you’'ve written to death.

When we write, we tend to censor ourselves. We want our first draft to be perfect, so we try to be both the Writer and the Editor, which doesn'’t work at all.

If you really want to get deep down into your soul and find the nuggets you have to offer, I recommend you do a brain dump.

Open up your word editor, pick a topic you want to explore, and start freewriting. Keep writing, and don'’t stop. If you run out of stuff to write about, just repeat the last word you wrote until something pops up.

Explore the topic fully and let your mind run wild.

When you'’re done, you should have over one thousand words of mostly rambling, but you'’ll discover the occasional nugget in there.

Reading books is one of my favorite ways of generating original ideas. And by original, I am referring to ideas that haven'’t been covered to death already online.

There tends to be an echo chamber effect online, especially among blogs in the same niche.

By reading books, you get out of that, and stand out as someone who provides a fresh perspective. You could even read fiction and get great ideas for blog posts.

What angles haven’t you covered yet? There are many different styles you can use when writing a blog post. Here are a few examples:

I'’m sure you could come up with many more if you tried. The point I want to get across is that there are amazing different angles you can cover, and running out of ideas is not an excuse.

Look at articles on the topic you're going to write about and take a peek at the comments. On popular blogs, you will sometimes, see hundreds of comments from people telling the author about what wasn'’t covered, what could've been covered better, and other vital nuggets you can use in your blog post.

It is the people telling you what they want. Incorporate the wishes and wants in those comments into your next post.

It will make your article more complete, which means it will get shared and linked to more. And it certainly doesn't hurt that it gives you tons of new blog post ideas.

Keep a small notebook with you at all times to capture inspiration and ideas. If you're high-tech, you'll use your iPhone.

The smallest thing can trigger an avalanche of post ideas. You could be sitting on a bench staring at a couple walking by with their dog and suddenly your brain goes click.

We all get ideas, but very few of us capture them. If you want to use your inspiration, you have to be proactive, and you have to step out of the box.

Are you ready to do that?