I was sitting at the kitchen table the other day and realized, at 3pm, I hadn't had any water all day. Just the thought of pouring myself a glass of water and drinking it was enough to keep me rooted in my chair. Every doctor, every website, every random person on the street will tell you to drink 8 glasses of water per day, and I had been doing it steadily for some time. But, wow, water is boring! You're probably laughing, but I know you've been there about something similar. You have the same thing, day in and day out, and you once loved it, but now it's boring.
It takes a long time for me to bored of something I really love. Water is just an example here. What I'm really referring to are the things that make up life. Family is almost never boring because it's always changing. Friends are much the same way. But what about creative pursuits?
Cooking is a creative pursuit I'm still working on. I don't really enjoy doing it so when I get stuck in a rut, it becomes impossible to get me to make food some days. I dread it! In order to snap myself out of it, I like to try new recipes every week. I find out what my friends are making, browse magazines or pinterest, and then pick something new to make and look forward to. When I have “New Recipe Fatigue,” I fall back on favorites before I feel the prick of boredom again.
When it comes to exercise, I have to change it up a lot. If I'm hooping, I always need to be learning a new trick and using it. If I'm doing yoga, I need to be perfecting my posture or working towards a more advanced asana. Even with walking, I try to walk a little faster each time or go a little farther. I'm not a competitive person. I don't look at what my friends are doing and think I can do better. Instead, I compete with myself. I set goals and I try to achieve them. If I don't do these things, boredom sets in and I no longer care about continuing with the activity.
The same goes for writing! Even though I am writing stories set in a particular universe, there are always new story lines to explore, new characters to develop and get to know. Variety is the spice of life. By injecting variety into my work, I become inspired to continue and keep going.
Have you ever sat down to write and thought, “Ugh, I just don't want to. I'm bored by this.”? This is a good time to take whatever you were working on and set it aside. Because guess what? Your readers can tell you were bored when you wrote it. Often times, writing becomes repetitive and pedantic when the writer is bored to death of their own work. It's time to change things up! A new genre, a new character, a new plot. Instead of reaching for water, reach for the flavored seltzer. Try something new.
For NaNoWriMo, I'm trying something new. I'm still writing in the same universe but instead of writing in first person from my main character's viewpoint, I'm writing third person from two different character's viewpoints. It's a twist for me, challenging and thought-provoking. Now that I'm into the groove of the story, it's actually becoming fun to write!
Sit back and think about how your writing is going during National Novel Writing Month. Banish boredom!! And write something fresh and new.
