Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Unordinary inspiration

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. This month, we’ve been talking about getting outside our comfort zones. I know it’s not something we all want to do, something we like to do, or something we remotely look forward to the majority of the time, but you know what? If we’re ever going to grow in our writing career, we need to stretch ourselves, we need to get outside those comfort zones and explore something new. So that’s what we’re doing, this month.

Thus far, we’ve talked about everything from genre swapping to playing with new points of view—and if you haven’t been around all month, I’d encourage you to go back and read the rest of the series. I really believe there’s a lot to be gained from this month.

For today, let’s talk about something a bit more abstract:

Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Unordinary inspiration

See what I mean? Unlike just changing your genre or finding someone to collaborate with, this one is much more abstract—but still just as important, if I’m being perfectly honest. How’s that? Because we all have that set list of things we generally get inspiration from, those banks of things we know inspire us, the list of things that we know we can always fall back on, when we’re feeling a little short on inspiration. And it’s important that we allow ourselves to be inspired by other things, too. Things that we wouldn’t normally allow to inspire us at all.

I’ll use myself as an example, because, hey, I know me pretty darn well. And I know the things that I like to get inspiration from, the things that I love to go back to whenever I’m struggling to find exactly what I want to write. And the thing I’m going to use, as an example, is music.

If you know me at all, if you’ve been following me or reading TMBTC for more than a few months, then you know one of the biggest things I get inspiration from is music. And you’ll also know that I’m extremely picky about that music. I never listen to music with lyrics, and allow those lyrics to inspire me. I just don’t.

But you know what? That’s what I’ve been doing lately, to get outside that darned comfort zone. I’ve been listening to whatever music I have, whatever music YouTube recommends, and allowing that music to inspire the things I write. I’ve been listening to suggestions from my friends, listening to music from more genres than I care to admit, and letting the words flow into something I wouldn’t ordinarily be able to achieve.

Know what else? I don’t generally like what I write, when I use this method. But! I know that I can do it, and I know that it’s a useful exercise for me. I know I need to be able to write with any music on, whether that be music that actually inspires me or music that annoys me. Why? Because sometimes I just need to write, and I need to be able to do it no matter what’s going on around me. We all have those moments, you know?

It’s something I’ve been trying, because I knew if I was going to write this month's series, I needed to actually try out the things I was recommending. I needed to actually do these things, and make myself get outside my comfort zone. Besides, I also felt like I’d been in a rut for a little bit, and some of these exercises have really helped me get out of it.

So try it. I challenge you. If I can do it, so can you. And it doesn’t even have to be music. It can be whatever thing you never allow to inspire you. Try to find a way to be inspired by it. Let it flow into the words you write, and see what happens. Sure, you might hate what comes out of it. But you never know—you might also find something really cool, that you’ll be able to use from here on out.

Have any of you done this exercise before? What were your results? Let me know in the comments, or message me on Facebook!

[love]

{Rani Divine}

Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Collaboration

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. This month, as you know, we’re talking about the many ways to get outside your comfort zone as a writer, and hone those amazing writing skills along the way. We all have that little box we’ve built around our writing career, that list of things we know, things we’re good at, and things we’re comfortable doing—and this month we’re breaking down those walls, so we can grow in our writing experience and expertise, and become even better writers than we already were. We all know you’re already a pretty amazing writer, don’t we?

So far in our series, we’ve talked about things like switching from your favorite POV, changing up your genre, and even writing something completely different from what you’re used to… and today, I have a doozy for you.

Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Collaboration

For most writers, this is something you wouldn’t even dream of doing. Why? Because we tend toward being introverted and mild control freaks, and sharing creative control means that we have to let someone else in on everything. We have to share. We have to work with someone, to be social when we’d rather sit in our jammies and write.

But you know what? Collaboration is one of the best ways I know, to make you think in an all new way, as a writer.

I am actually collaborating on a novel, as I write this. It’s on my list of things to do today, to write a couple scenes in the novel I’m working on with a friend of mine. So I know a bit of what it’s like, working with someone to write a story. I also know, at this point, that it’s extremely helpful having someone to work with, especially when you’re creating a world map and need opinions along the way.

Don’t worry though; I’m not saying you should write a novel with someone. Not unless you really, really want to. I’m saying that you should try it, that you should try working with someone to write something you’ve always wanted to write. Maybe there’s a story inside you that you need to get out, but you feel like it’s missing something. Find someone you think might be able to fill that gap, and work with them to get your vision down on paper. Whatever it is, whether it’s a poem, a short story, or a full-fledged novel. Just collaborate. Work with someone. Share thoughts and ideas and goals for your characters.

There are, of course, a few ways to go about finding someone to collaborate with. Hopefully, you know a few writers, or have a few friends who also write, maybe not as extensively as you do. I’m sure you know their work, and you know what they’re good at writing. That should give you an idea of who might be a good fit, for the story you want to write. You could also go to your friends, people who aren’t writers, but who you know have a story inside them. In that case, in many ways, you get to take the lead on the writing process, and show a bit about how it’s done. Whatever the case, you’d be working with someone, to write a story with a vision from both of you.

For me, it means working with a friend of mine, who actually knows a lot more about the genre than I do. He’s a close friend of mine though, so I already knew we got along and guessed that we would work well together. So far, it’s going well. I’m very far ahead of him in my writing, but since he’s not a writer by trade, that’s to be expected. In any case, we’re having a lot of fun, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I feel like I’ve learned more about myself as a writer since starting this collaboration, than I learned in the entire year prior.

That’s how powerful it can be, to start working with someone else. And that’s why I challenge you to try it.

[love]

{Rani Divine}

Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Changing POV

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by, and I hope you all had the most fabulous weekend ever. Me, I was celebrating my father’s birthday for three days straight… and I would like a nap. You know how it goes.

All month long, we’re talking about something that’s very important for us writers. We’re discussing some of the ways we can get outside our comfort zones as writers, and grow along the way. We all know how hard it is to grow as a writer when we’re locked inside our little box, the walls we’ve built around us of things we know and things we’re good at—and we all know that in every part of life, it’s important to step outside that comfort zone now and again, to stretch ourselves and become newer versions of ourselves. It’s like doing updates, but it takes more time and effort.

Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Changing POV

We all have that one POV we just love writing in, don’t we? There’s that one POV that calls to us, that flows from our fingers so easily that we hardly even know we’re writing when we’re doing it. And then there’s the others, that we know we can do, but that we really don’t like to do, and so therefore don’t work with them as often as we should.

Me? I love writing in first person. If you’ve read the Druid Novels, you’ll know though that I’m proficient in both first and third person writing. I like both. But first person is the one that just flows when I sit down to write it. I even have an entire series of science-fiction novels that are completely written in first person. They’ll be released one of these years… editing is a process, when your books are over two hundred thousand words.

Thing is, if I had the choice, I would always write in first person. Why? Because it’s the one I know I’m really good at. It’s the one I’m comfortable in, the one where I can just sit back and write without having to think about the words I’m using or the pacing or the timing or anything else that I always find myself thinking too much about when I’m writing in third person. But I write in third person a lot. Why? Because I know that if I only write in first person, that’s all I’ll ever want to do. That’s all I’d ever know. And I don’t want that to happen to me. I don’t want to be stuck in a rut, where I can only write first person—even for stories that really need to be written in third. I’m not even going to broach the idea of writing a novel in second person, though I’ll mention that I also make myself write in that POV from time to time as well, just to see if I can.

Point is, it doesn’t matter which POV you love. You need to know how to write either one, and forcing yourself to do so is a really good way to stretch yourself as a writer. If you’re like me and you love writing first person, maybe try doing what I did with the Druid Novels: have one character be your first person narrator, but write the rest of the characters in third. Mixed POV is, after all, something many readers greatly enjoy.

Growing as a writer is as much about stretching yourself beyond your comfort zone as it is learning to do things we might not always want to do at all. It’s about learning the things we don’t care much for or about, and discovering new ways to use them, to suit our own needs. Whether that means writing a full novel series in mixed POV (like I did) or making yourself as proficient in first person as you are in third, is entirely up to you.

Happy writing, friends!

[love]

{Rani Divine}