Bloganuary day 3! Today’s prompt is:
Write about the last time you left your comfort zone.
This is such a great prompt for writers, because stepping out side our writer’s comfort zone is something we should be doing on a regular basis in order to grow as a writer. It doesn’t have to be a big leap outside our comfort zone, but as often as we can, we should try new things.
For me, my comfort zone lands in the warm and fuzzy, feel good stuff. In real life, I focus on the positive side of life and am not a fan of confrontations. Which makes writing conflict a big challenge for me. And in Western storytelling, it’s firmly believed that without conflict there is no story. So that’s been an ongoing, constant case of stepping outside my writer’s comfort zone.
I’m constantly reading up on the writing craft and trying new things. Which provides me with small stretches outside my writer’s comfort zone as well.
But something else I did was I tried my hand at writing short stories. They’re not masterpieces, but they were fun exercises. Since I write YA Fantasy, I took one of the short stories a step further and wrote an adult contemporary romance in third person. I also attempted to write it in past tense, but realized on a recent review that I didn’t do that well! haha (It’s on my to-do list to fix.)
Venturing outside our writer’s comfort zone is a great way to explore new horizons and find areas of writing that we might otherwise have never known we enjoy.
Once I’m more comfortable with writing conflict, I’d really like to give the kishotenketsu story structure a try. While this will actually play more into my comfort zone, it will be something new and I look forward to it!
What is your writer’s comfort zone? And what have you done recently to step outside of it?
#bloganuary – Join the fun: https://bloganuary.wordpress.com
Good luck to you in exploring other areas beyond your comfort zone. Love the cat photo too. 🙂
Thank you 😊 The cat was too cute to pass up. I’ll admit that I cheat and use the built-in free Pexels photo library that comes with WordPress. But I’m not a photographer and writing is time consuming enough, so it’s a resource that I’m super grateful to have access to and so easy to use.
I write scripts and like yourself have also been writing short stories which is a different discipline and it’s very slow progress as you have been finding out yourself.
But I’m also a songwriter and I’ve just signed up for a 30-day song-writing/production masterclass from a multi-Grammy award winning songwriter/producer that begins on Monday. I know nothing about production and already feel way out of my comfort zone! But I’m going to try my best and see where it leads me!
Keep on pushing yourself Tanya, it’s the only way forward!
Script writing is also something that I’ve considered taking a stab at. Easy thought to have when you get feedback saying “you have too much stage direction in this chapter” hahaha. But in all seriously, I find myself turning to information about screenwriting often while trying to get a better handle on this world of writing. There’s so much that the industry has to offer when it comes to good storytelling.
Congrats on taking the plunge on the class! That’s an exciting adventure to begin. I hope it goes really well for you. Onward and upward for both of us 😊
Yes Tanya, good story telling is at the core of all good writing. And in script-writing strong characters, of course.
I feel a little intimidated by the course coming up, but determined to make it work for me.
And you’re right, here’s to a good year for us both!
Paul
> I feel a little intimidated by the course coming up
For what it’s worth, my approach to things that make me nervous or that I’m feeling out of my depth with is to go in with the goal of learning one thing. That’s it. I shift it from being about something I need to learn to completion, or about figuring out how to perfect it, and focus on finding that one Aha moment that lights it all up for me. If I’m lucky enough to find that early on, then I look for the second one. For me it helps to take the edge off the monstrosity of what I’m about to do lol.
But no matter what, have fun with it. It makes no difference whatsoever if we fail miserably at something, so long as we’re smiling and laughing the whole time. ❤️ You’ve got this!
I agree, I now focus hard on one thing until I understand it before moving on. Doing this also helps gives me confidence. This also makes it more fun.
I’m sure we will be great!
Have you tried the 100 word stories? I enjoy them. The one I participate in is offered by rochelle at https://rochellewisoff.com/ I am just in today (3) on the Bloganuary. https://onetahayes.com/2022/01/03/easy-answer/
I have not tried that, but in light of my Day 5 post that will publish in the morning, it just might be something I should be giving a try. Thank you for sharing the link! Good luck, have fun, stay safe! ❤️