How to be a Better Writer: Try Something New

For sure, you have to be lost to find a place that can’t be found, else ways everyone would know where it was. – Captain Barbossa, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

If you want to be a better writer, you have to get outside the writing circle. You can learn a lot while you’re in it, and you should always maintain a spot there. You should not, however, get stuck inside your writing circle. It is a foundation from which to launch yourself and your writing. It is not an electric fence.

To be a better writer – better at anything really – you have to look for inspiration everywhere. You have to explore the world around you, even the things you believe will be boring. Many times, that “boring” subject contains something interesting. You just have to set aside your preconceived notions and be open to learning from a new avenue or in a new way. When you do that, your brain is stimulated. You find yourself thinking in new ways. Your writing is forever enriched and altered by the excursion into someplace new, and, in some cases, you even discover a new interest.

Sometimes, of course, the “new” fails to inspire. That doesn’t mean you should quit trying new things. It just means it’s time to return to your foundation. Ground yourself in your world and what you know, then, to paraphrase Barbossa, get yourself good and lost. A failure is only a failure if you let it be one. Just because ceramics is not your preferred mode of art doesn’t negate other art forms. Perhaps you’re better suited to photography or drawing.

Then again, maybe you need to pursue something else entirely. Be adventurous. Go after the thing no one would ever suspect you to have an interest in. Most likely, you’ll end up loving it, and that thing will transform the way you think about your role as a writer as well as the way you write.

Want to be a better writer? Try something new. I triple-dog dare you.

Image: Frontierofficial (Creative Commons)