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How to Recycle a Previous Writing Topic

Wisdom adapted from inventor Thomas Edison

Paul Ryburn, M.Sc.
5 min readFeb 24, 2021
Public domain, United States, via Wikimedia Commons

As writers, the world provides us with a nearly limitless supply of potential topics. However, one can’t be an expert in all of them. Therefore, we sometimes find ourselves running out of things to write credibly about, and creative block begins to set in.

At that point, we might receive the following advice from top writers.

It’s often easier to recycle an old topic, and write about it again from a different perspective, than it is to find a new one.

To get some inspiration on how to do that, let’s take a look at the mindset of American inventor Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931).

Edison was one of the most prolific inventors in United States history, holding more than 1000 U.S. patents as well as patents in other countries. He was a successful businessman as well, incorporating over 100 businesses. The quadruplex telegraph, the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, the carbon telephone transmitter, and the Kinetograph motion picture camera were all devices Edison either invented or improved.

The reason Edison was such a successful inventor was that he was able to take a problem and examine it…

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Paul Ryburn, M.Sc.
Paul Ryburn, M.Sc.

Written by Paul Ryburn, M.Sc.

I write about writing, ideas, creativity, homelessness, intuition, spirituality, life lessons. Ex-college teacher Twitter: @paulryburn

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