Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Writing what you don’t want to write

Hey everybody! Welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by, especially as we’ve finally come to the end of our series on getting outside our comfort zones. It’s been a challenging month, hasn’t it? There’ve been a lot of things I’ve forced myself to do, if only so I’d’ve tried them out before passing the idea along to you. I did a lot of stuff this month, to push myself outside my comfort zone—and I hope that you did, too!

We’ve discussed everything from collaborating to genre swapping, from poetry to changing your point of view, and now it’s time that we talk about something that’s going to be really difficult, for a lot of us. Even for me.

Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Writing what you don’t want to write

Yeah, I went there. I said it. And yes, I’m working on this one, too. I’m not just going to tell you to do it and then not do it myself. I’m not that kind of person. I just couldn’t do that to you. If I’m going to suggest it, then I’m going to do it, too.

So yes, I’ve started writing something that I didn’t want to write. And yes, I don’t like it. But yes, I’m doing it. And there’s a reason for it.

Sometimes, the thing we need to write isn’t the thing we want to write. And sometimes the thing we want to write isn’t the thing we should be writing, right now. But we writers, in our infinite procrastination, tend to write whatever thing we want to write at the moment, rather than writing the thing we don’t want to write right now. And I’m not necessarily saying that it’s a bad thing. No, in fact I’ll be one of the first people to tell you that your writing will probably be better if you’re writing what you want to write, because it’ll flow out of you so much smoother and cleaner than if you were to sit down and write the thing you don’t want to write. But that’s part of why I chose this topic, to end out our series.

Why? Because we all need to know how to write the things we need to write, whether we want to write them or not. Because we all need to know it’s okay to write crap, as long as you know how to go back and edit it later. Because we all need to write, whether that writing is what we want to write or not. And because I want you to stop procrastinating, just like I want me to stop it, too.

Essentially, I’m challenging you to stop that. Stop procrastinating. Write the things you need to write, and write them now. Write the things you want to write, too, but focus on the things you need to write. Take a day a week, maybe, and just focus on the writing that needs to get done. Then you can spend the rest of the week on the fun stuff.

Point is, you need to know how to do both, and you need to be okay doing both. You need to be comfortable in your writing, whether you’re writing what you want to write or not.

I’m getting there, myself. It’s a struggle. It’s not something I want to be working on, or something I like working on even in the slightest. But it’s something I am working on, and something I’ll continue working on until I get it right. And I’m challenging you, today, to do the same.

Let’s be writers, shall we? No matter what.

[love]

{Rani Divine}

Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Join a writers’ group

Hi guys! Welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. We’ve reached the last week in our series on getting outside our comfort zones, which means we’ve reached the end of August… which is really confusing, because didn’t June just start a couple days ago?

In any case, we’ve been having a lot of fun this month, pushing ourselves outside our comfort zones, getting ourselves to step outside those lovely little boxes we made to keep ourselves safe and warm and comfy, knowing that we know what we’re doing and that we’re good at it. And you know what? I think we’ve grown a lot, this month. At the very least, I know I have. I’ve discovered a lot of things about myself, while writing this series. And that’s pretty darn cool, you know?

Today, I’m going to talk to you about something that I’ve recently delved into. I honestly didn’t know it was a thing, until pretty recently… but I’ve gotten a lot out of it, and I think you will, too.

Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Join a writers’ group

How is this getting outside your comfort zone, you ask? Well, it involves interacting with people you don’t know, and interacting with them fairly frequently. And for someone as introverted as I am, that’s not a very easy thing to do. In fact, I just really don’t like doing it. Which is why I wanted to talk to you about this.

Personally, I joined a group on Facebook, called Flinch Free Fiction (until recently, it’d been called Clean Indie Reads—I like the new name much better). It’s a group of authors who write clean fiction, fiction that doesn’t involve cursing or swearing or gratuitous sexual encounters, and if you know me and my writing, then you know that’s right up my alley. I write clean fiction. I write fiction that won’t make you flinch. So this group made sense for me to join. You might need to find a different one, for yourself, but the point is to go out and find one. There’s this lovely tool called Google, that should help you with that. ;-)

This group, for me, is a way to get myself to think differently. It’s a constant reminder that I need to be growing and learning. It’s a way for me to share my triumphs and failures with others, a way for me to help others who might just be learning how to get into this thing called writing—and it’s also a great place to get advice, if I’m feeling stuck at any point. For me, this group is something I didn’t know I needed, until I joined it and I realized how much I needed this thing.

So today, I’m challenging you to try it.

But I’m not challenging you to try it, for yourself. See, most of us at least have an inkling of what we’re doing, when it comes to writing. We have an idea of what we like and what we don’t like. We know what we like to read and what we don’t like to read. We know what sentences sound good and what ones don’t. We know a little bit, which means we know more than someone else.

So I’m challenging you, not just to join a group so you’ll have a community to be a part of, but to join a group so you can be the one there helping people, giving out advice or answering a question when you know the answer. I’m challenging you to be social, even if it’s only online—because you’ll grow, both as a writer and as a person, when you do.

Trust me, it’s something that I’m learning to do, every day. I’m not amazing at it, yet. I comment on posts when I know the answer or when I’ve something to say that I think might be helpful, but that’s not always as often as I know it should be. I need to be more involved. I know it. But it’s something I’m working on, and something I’m growing in. Something that’s (you guessed it) pulling me outside my comfort zone.

And it will for you too, once you give it a try.

[love]

{Rani Divine}

Getting Outside Your Comfort Zone: Get poetic

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. If you’ve been hanging out with us this month, then you know this month we’ve been talking about those comfort zones, and ways to get ourselves out of them. Why? Because it’s important for us to grow in our writing abilities, and we can’t do that if we stay forever cooped up in these little boxes we’ve set up for ourselves. We all know that, even if we don’t like to admit it.

If you haven’t read the rest of the series yet, I honestly encourage you to go back and check out the other posts! I’ve learned a lot about myself and my own writing, by working on these exercises—and I really believe you’ll get a lot out of them as well, if you’ll put them to the test.

For today, I want to talk about something I know one of my dear friends will adore.

Getting Outside Your Comfort Zone: Get poetic

Yeah, there it is. I said it. Most of us here are novelists and short story writers, and because of that, I made poetry its own separate topic. Why? Because poetry tends to be the dreaded literary form, for those of us who only write stories. And because of that, I believe it’s also one of the better exercises for us to do, at the very least from time to time.

Now, I’m not saying that you need to write something with a perfect iambic pentameter. Nor am I saying that you must write a beautifully rhymed and metered poem. I’m saying that you should sit down and write a poem. Write a poem in whatever style you see fit, whatever style you think suits you best. Whatever style you like to read.

Why do I think you should do this? Because poetry, in some ways, is the opposite of writing a novel. Instead of having hundreds of pages in which to tell your story, in which to get to know a protagonist and see the world through their eyes, poetry forces you to tell a story in a short number of lines, often restricted to a single page of print space.

Yeah, I’ll be honest: I’m not even sure how to do that. But I do try, from time to time. In fact, this is one of the exercises that I’ve done almost since I started writing, because I know how important poetry can be, to writers.

See, poetry is all about word choice. Poetry is specific, it’s designed to evoke emotion and imagery through a small number of very choice words. Which means that in order to write amazing poetry, you need to have a good handle on your words. You need to know what you’re trying to say, and have a few handfuls of uncommon or fluid words, to help you say it. Knowing those words will come in handy, when you come back to doing the thing you love to do. When next you sit down to write a scene in your novel, or to work on your latest short story, you now have a handful of extra wordy words, to sprinkle throughout your writing. To make your readers think. To help them imagine the exact thing you’re picturing in your head, while you’re writing this story.

That’s the good poetry does for us. And that’s why we should always look to it, when we feel as though we’re stuck in a rut.

And don’t worry—no one ever has to know you dabble in poetry. You don’t ever have to tell anyone. You can encrypt your files if you want to, so no one will ever see them but you. It’ll all be okay, I promise.

But sharing it, eventually, can also be a really fun way to show readers your writing process, later on down the line. Not that I've ever done that. But I've heard it's a good thing to do, eventually. Eventually.

[love]

{Rani Divine}

P.S. If you wondered, I have lots of poetry. And it’s all encrypted. And no, I probably won’t be letting you read it, anytime soon.