Playing it Safe as a Writer

I'd gone to the Oak Rooms for lunch today, and straightaway I spotted something really nice on the specials board - a halibut dish with a herb mashed potato and a fancy sauce flavoured with capers. It sounded really nice and I nearly ordered it, but then I sat down and looked at the menu and before I knew it, the waitress had come over and I'd plumped for one of my usual favourites - beef lasagne with salad and chips.

The lasagne was very nice and I did enjoy it, but I have had it rather often recently, whereas the fish special was something that might not be on the menu again for weeks. So I ended up kicking myself for missing a chance to liven up my lunch and tickle my tastebuds with something new.

So why didn't I take the chance to try something new? Why did I end up playing safe and going for the 'tried and tested'? Am I just a boring person? Have I no sense of adventure?

I don't think so. I often try out new activities. Only this past few months I've added belly dancing and jewellery making to my schedule. I like to have a go at something I've never done before.

It could be that I've just got into the habit of eating certain dishes, and once you've got a habit established, it takes more effort to deviate from it than it does to stick with it.

I think we writers can get like that with our writing too. We always write horror stories because that's what we like to read. We always write rhyming verse because that's what we were brought up on. We wouldn't think of writing a literary short story because we're used to writing for magazines, and that's what we know.

That was one of the things that I enjoyed most about teaching my class this year. At the start of the year, everyone made a note of what sort of things they wanted to write. It was interesting to see at the end of the year what everyone had actually written and what they had particularly excelled at.

One girl who seemed to only want to write poems and adventure stories for teenagers turned out to be an excellent article writer and also wrote some very moving love stories. Someone who was into poetry and short stories made an excellent first attempt at a television script. And another chap who said he'd come on the course because he never finished anything and needed motivation was turning out high quality work faster than I could mark it! And he won £100 in a writing competition to boot.

Yes, there's a saying which goes, 'If you always do what you've always done, you always get what you've always got.' So if you're feeling a bit stuck with your writing and wondering why you're not managing to finish things or why you seem to keep getting rejections, why not try writing something completely different, something you'd never have thought of writing?

Tell yourself it's just an experiment. Allow yourself to have a go at it without putting any pressure on yourself to be absolutely brilliant at it. Just go along for the ride and see what happens.

You may end up surprising yourself. And if you don't like what you end up with, there's always your regular writing menu to fall back on.

But give the specials board a chance - just this once!