Get Inspiration from Quotations

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin




Early on in my journalism training, I was taught to look for key
quotations. Often these statements would be in the lead of my story or they
would drive home the point of my story.  



As writers interviewing other people
for the content of a chapter of a book or a magazine
article, I encourage you to be looking for these key quotations. They will
help you as you craft your stories.


When I read inspirational quotes, I get insights and encouragement. I look for them from many different sources like my own reading of books
or blogs or articles online. When I find them, I will often cut and paste them
into my social media plans for the future. It's been my pattern for years with
my social media feeds for the day: I begin every day with an inspirational
quotation and an image.



In the social media world, you can attract more attention, retweets and responses if you include an image. Through the years of my using
social media, I have collected images of different people into a file labeled
“Twitter Images.” These images are stored alphabetically so when I need one
again, it is easy to locate and use again.



Here's an example I saw today:









“Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more,
but those giving more.”
-- H. Jackson Brown, Jr. 



I add the image and then save it into my HootSuite. It will begin my
day of social media postings on Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 6:05 am. Yes on
inspirational quotations, I am way ahead on my postings. I use Hootsuite (the
paid version with unlimited posts to schedule—and I take full advantage of this
feature and schedule my posts way ahead of time—at least some of them).




I have another reason I'm way ahead on my inspirational quotes. Several
weeks ago, I was behind on gathering these inspirational quotations. I learned to use another feature of HootSuite which I had not before. This program stores all my
old tweets which number in the thousands. I went back and took the inspirational quotes for a month (at least
one year ago so no one would remember) and worked them into my future schedule.
I created a pattern of beginning every day with this inspirational quotation. Do
you have a pattern or grid for your tweets? I do and it makes it simple to
schedule with this grid for certain types of tweets in mind.




Do you get inspiration from quotes? Do you use them and see them
on a regular basis in your writing life? Let me know the details in the comments
below.



Tweetable:



Inspirational quotes are often seen in articles and online. What do you do with them? Get some ideas from this prolific editor and author. (ClickToTweet)