Writing stuck in a rut? Throw it into reverse! By Bonnie Boots Is your writing stuck in a rut? The symptoms are easy to spot. You still face the keyboard each day with a fire in your belly and a song in your heart—but the fire is acid indigestion and the song is “Poor, Poor Pitiful Me.” Don’t fret. It doesn’t mean your muse, like Elvis, has left the building. It merely means your creative self has been lulled to sleep by sheer boredom. It happens to all of us at one time or another. We strive to establish habits that will lead us to safety and success—like “early to bed, early to rise”—then rise one day to find that our routine behaviors have trapped us in a rut. The fun and fire go out of our life. Our work suffers. And when our work suffers, we writers really suffer. Don’t sit with your head in your hands singing songs of woe. Put your pedal to the metal and throw your writing into reverse! If you only write nonfiction, force yourself to write a science fiction fantasy. If your genre is romantic comedy, force yourself to research and write a factual report on a serious health issue. Taking a turn in a new direction is a sure-fire way to kick start your creative juices, rise up out of your rut and get back on the road to fulfilling writing. Some years back, I found myself totally burned out, writing for magazines about topics I no longer had any interest in. Looking around for a way out, I applied for a writing job I had absolutely no qualifications for. I knew nothing about the subject, a fact I used as a selling point in my interview. I told the editor that because I had no background in the field, I’d approach it from a totally new direction, bringing a fresh perspective to a newspaper column I felt was trapped in a rut. It turned out that a fresh perspective for this old feature was the editor’s highest priority. She overlooked my obvious lack of other important qualifications in consideration of my promise that I would turn a ho-hum column into one that would make readers sit up and take notice. Five years later, I’d fulfilled my promise. I had a fanatical fan base and an armful of writing awards. I also had a fatal case of boredom. That sound you hear is me grinding the gears as I throw my work into reverse. I’m already off in a totally new direction, preparing to self-publish e-books with multimedia content. It can be difficult to force yourself to face new directions and tackle new topics. Even when we know we’re trapped in a rut, our ego urges us to stay with the safety of old routines. When that happens to you, be firm. Call out your inner parent, that wise, stern part of yourself that will order you to turn off the TV and go play outside. Force yourself to face new directions, explore new territory and you’ll rediscover your enthusiasm for writing and for life!  BONNIE BOOTS (www.BonnieBoots.com)is an award-winning writer and designer who says all writers should show off their talent by wearing their Write Side Out! Her wise and witty product line of gear that shows the world you're a writer is at www.writesideout.com Return to the Articles Page | 
