The Writer 11.2019

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Halfway down, he got bored and leapt
off the wall. He high-fived his dad and
went off to look for another route.

i recently wrote an article about
“beginner’s brain,” where you approach
everything as if you’re seeing it for the
first time. This approach lets you see
things with no preconceptions, fewer
barriers to learning. At the rock gym
that day, I was reminded of another
facet of beginner’s brain: Not knowing,
and therefore not fearing, how hard
you might fall.
I talked to a writer friend of mine the
other day over the phone. She’s working
on a book of essays about the environ-
ment in her neck of the woods, and she
said she was trying her hand at experi-
mental essays for it. “Man,” she said,
“they are ripping my butt.” After I had
stopped laughing over the fact that this
phrase came out of my friend’s sweet
mouth, I told her I admired her for it. I
haven’t tried anything new, I don’t
think, in a really long time. I tread the
same old floorboards; I sing the same
old tired tunes in the shower and get
the same old songs stuck in my head. (If
you follow me on Twitter, you’ll see that
Paula Abdul, Pat Benatar, The Chip-
munks, and tunes from the Rodgers
and Hammerstein songbook show up
with alarming regularity.)
Worse, I write what I know.
The reasons we might “stay in our
lane” are myriad:

1. We have had a taste of success:
   When you finally get good enough
   at something that you feel actually
   competent at it, why on earth
   would you move on from it?


2. You don’t know anyone who does
   anything different. Once you get
   into a groove, start becoming
   known for something, you find
   your circle of acquaintances is
   looking a little monochrome.
   Write short stories? Suddenly you
   are surrounded by short story
   writers. Good at poetry? Your

Twitter feed is full of #poetry. It

can be hard to see beyond your

mini-grove of similar trees.

3. You have become lazy. Or, OK,
   complacent. This is where I am.
   This is us, going “Oh, I’ve exercised
   and tried all the forms I really want
   to try. I’m fine where I am.”
   Of course, this is a giant load of
   horse caca. I’ll wager that you have
   some things you have always wanted to
   try. Me? I would like to attempt:

• Picture books


• Young adult


• A humorous novel


• Poetry
  (This last one is a lie. Poetry terri-
  fies me.)

so what’s the value of trying

something new and different, you ask?

Why on earth would you run the risk

of crashing and burning? For me, the

answer is sheer, free-wheeling joy,

akin to the sensation I think I recall

when I first learned to finger-paint. Or

when I bake or cook off-recipe. Sure,

chuck in an extra two handfuls of but-

terscotch chips. Put some zucchini in

that pasta puttanesca. Bacon on every-

thing. Why not?

Second: the stakes are really, really

low when you try something new to

you. If you reach for something and

you fail in colossal, spectacular fash-

ion, it’s OK! You can always say “I’m

new here” and blame it on the learning

curve. And then, when you go to try it

again, I think you inevitably become

more confident all around, and not just

in the thing you’re trying.

The last thing I’ll say about trying

something different is that I genuinely

believe it increases our skill levels. Set-

ting aside your tried-and-true and

grabbing for something brand new will

increase your sense of where your lim-

its are. And it will allow you to really

hone in on where your interests lie.

(When I left the piano after 11 years of

being forced to play it, I tried the saxo-

phone, the harmonica, and the guitar,

only to come back to the piano.)

And trying out a different form

might help you with the forms you

already think you know: In a class on

poetry recently, I learned about the

shape and sound of certain letters and

the emotions they evoke in readers. And

writing experimental essays has shown

me different ways to draw metaphors

and stretch and bend the meanings of

words to suit the purposes of my essays.

So go for that out-of-reach hold.

Try the thing you’ve always wanted to

try. And when you fall off the wall,

know that, just like at the climbing

gym, the landing probably won’t be too

awful – and that there’s always another

route to try.

Yi Shun Lai is the fiction editor and co-owner

of Tahoma Literary Review. Read about her

writing coaching and editing services; her

novel, Not a Self-Help Book: The Misadven-

tures of Marty Wu; and her daily adventures at

thegooddirt.org.

Setting aside your

tried-and-true and

grabbing for something

brand new will increase

your sense of where

your limits are.