Good morning everyone and welcome back. I hope this week has been nice to everyone so far. After giving up on Monday, Tuesday was much better. I'm hoping that means today will bring all of the good news I could possibly ever ask for, and then tomorrow...piles of money? I don't know, but we'll see.
Last week I talked about writing what you know and what you don't know. I mostly used the knowledge route as my primary example, but something else that's really fun to do sometimes is also change up genres. Like with most things, if you do the same thing over and over again, at some point you're going to get tired of it. You might not realize that's what happening, but something in your brain is going to click that 'it's so easy' or 'I can do this in my sleep' and while there's still the creative process the excitement isn't really there anymore. It's times like that when you force yourself to change things up!
Let's say you are a literature writer and you go for the dramatic, emotional, really kind of existential stuff. Everything you write is really cerebral and complicated, but not to you anymore. Sure there are points when you get frustrated and take a break, but for the most part you know every ounce of what needs to be done in order to make your story everything it could be. Writing isn't so much of a fun hobby/second full-time job anymore as it is a part of your day that happens to involve a lot of writing. So, in an attempt to change things up and reignite that creative spark, I say write a young adult or even a children's story. It doesn't really matter what kind at that point, because there are just some topics you don't bring up in those genres or they are glossed over so lightly they are pretty much non-existent. Make your main character a happy little girl who just wants to go on adventures and make friends, and she makes the world around her one of bright colors and imagination. I mean sure, you can make that depressing if you really wanted to, but this is a story little girls just like her in school will read, so let's give her a bunch of friends and a not sad ending, alright?
The reason why it's important to change genres once in a while is because it forces your brain to remember how the creative process works again. It makes you have to think in a completely different way, especially if your protagonist is something that you also aren't used to (like the little girl) because suddenly you have to remember what it's like to think like a child in the way you see things. Like, to do the kitchen is where the pantry is, where the groceries go, maybe certain things that don't go in the medicine cabinet, the appliances work, and where the phone book (people still have those, right?) is somewhere next to the can of pens that may or may not work with you need them. To a little kid, depending on the exact age of course, the kitchen is where food is made and snacks are potentially hidden everywhere.
There are a lot of other ways to get those creative brainwaves going that I could go into, but I simply don't have that kind of time. Though, Robert Brockway at Cracked.com has a wonderful article up today that has a bunch of other options you can look at too, so I do recommend checking it out as well. What do you think of the tips he gives?
Thanks everyone for stopping by. I hope the week is nice to everyone now. I'm still waiting to hear back from my insurance company, so if anything in this post didn't make a whole lot of sense I'm sorry, but constant heart burn means I haven't been sleeping as much as I would like to. Also though, in better news, we are so very close to my sales goal for 'The Light Rises', so please keep telling everyone about it! It would be awesome! For now though, have a great rest of your week and I'll be back on Friday!
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