The Writer 11.2019

(Ron) #1
writermag.com • The Writer | 9

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.


  1. 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.
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