Taking Time to Try New Things
Howdy, friends! Did you see my new story on Saturday? (It’s here, if you missed it.) I wrote it completely for fun. One of the writing communities I belong to has this neat challenge every month called a genre stretch. The idea is to try writing outside your comfort zone, to try new things and to stretch your writing muscles, in theory making you a better writer overall. “Deserts and Domes” was my story for the February genre stretch. Each month, two genres are offered, and you can write in either one. Or you can combine both, which is what this story is. Genre 1: Gilded Age romance. Genre 2: Dystopia. You see the appeal. It’s like a writing prompt, but you can write basically anything as long as you incorporate the basics of both (or either) genre. I prefer to do the combo, versus just one, because it provides more restrictions and also gives a basic form to the plot. I also did April’s, which was: Genre 1–Campus Novel; Genre 2–Slipstream. So far I’ve been pretty pleased with the results. As a writer, you have stories you like and ones that you’re more lukewarm about, even when they’re decent stories, and I’ve liked both I’ve done this year. I don’t know, but there’s something about working in broad, new genres that is very stimulating to creativity. That’s what they say, right? Keep learning, keep trying new things, and you’ll only get better, and you won’t go stale. And it’s…