Over and Over Again

 

How do you avoid repeating yourself? Do you reinvent your approach to storytelling, or do you lean into what already worked and risk creative stagnation?

I’m working on what I hope will be my next novel, I have had to confront this issue quite a bit. What I found is I have a love affair with the weather in my writing. To be fair, it might actually be an obsession. Not the horrible Toxic Love Story kind of obsession. More like, I really love this character and want to write for them always, obsession. And that’s fine, I think, but I ask you, how many ways are there to describe the menace of a sudden winter storm racing down an icy mountain top to ravish an unsuspecting victim clinging desperately to a frozen branch to survive a wind that has suddenly grown sharp teeth? A lot, apparently. And it’s my job, as the writer, to explore every single one of them. If I want my writing to stay interesting. But how?

I find that when my writing feels a bit stale and moldy, like that loaf of bread that keeps dying on the top of my fridge, it’s time to switch it up. Time to get outside and let myself become refreshed by the conversations flowing around me. Sometimes plucking an interesting or funny turn of phrase from an overheard conversation, or song, or even the gentleman at the end of my street, who has been enjoying a one-on-one conversation with the air for as long as I can remember. Is that stealing? I don’t know, but public transportation has been a well of inspiration for many a character in need of a refresh.

And finally, I found inspiration in, no tomatoes please, television and movies. I am a visual person. When I write, I am writing what I see in my mind. When my mind is covered in fog, my writing follows. But, somehow, seeing the scenery in a show in a fantastic location, like Shetland or meeting a cool, interesting character like DCI Carl Morck from Jussi Adler-Olsen’s Dept Q, shoots a spark directly to the center of my creative spirit that pushes me back on course.

Reading, listening to music, yoga, breathing, a walk on the beach, there’s so many ways a writer can jumpstart that creative spark when it grows dim, but the one thing I find I cannot do is read in the genre I’m writing. Mainly to avoid any unintentionally thievery, if you will, but also not to psyche myself out by engaging in unhelpful and often false comparisons.

I wonder if I’m alone in this practice? Do other authors limit what they are reading while writing in the same genre? Or am I alone on Paranoia Island?

From what I’ve seen, writers have as many rituals as athletes when it comes to getting that book from t brain to paper. Some we’re aware of, some have become so ingrained we don’t even notice anymore. In the end, it all comes down to whatever works!