I recently challenged myself and other authors to write outside one’s comfort zone. For example, if you normally write sci-fi, try historical. If contemp is your thing (as it is mine), go for something outside this realistic box. When I threw down the gauntlet, I didn’t think leaving my writing place of metaphorical soft pillows and one pound weights, would be a snap, but I also didn’t anticipate it would be equivalent to running on an incline. (For all of you in terrific shape, running on an incline would be quite a challenge for me now. Actually, running with OR without an incline would be quite a challenge….) I would come up with one idea, run a few lines in my head, and then toss it away. I finally came up with a fantasy idea that was not awful, but I have yet to write it down. It scares me on some level to try something so new, like now I will have to write outside all the parameters I learned and start from scratch again, without a template or anything.

This is ironic because when my public school English teachers made me write within the lines using one of those “I am…” formats or even with open-ended writing prompts, I’d get irritated because I couldn’t be as creative as I wanted. During this challenge, however, I find myself craving a fill-in-the-blank worksheet so I have something to go by, so I can see that I’m getting it “right.” That word, “right”, is problematic in itself, isn’t it? There’s no one kind of fantasy or contemporary or historical or horror world. There’s no one straight line that makes it work. There are some basic elements, I suppose. For example, fantasy needs to have things that cannot occur in the everyday world, but then what? Where to go from there? I’m going to finally write down what’s in my head and figure it out.

Where will your writing road trip take you?

Related posts:

1. Connect with Margie Gelbwasser: Keeping Writing Fun
2. Connect with Margie Gelbwasser: Excuses
3. INCONVENIENT by Margie Gelbwasser
4. Connect with Leigh Brescia: Writing a Novel
5. Connect with Leigh Brescia: Writing Supplies