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}