Read Outside Your Comfort Zone
Like most writers, I LOVE reading. Voraciously. Cereal boxes, notes abandoned on a sidewalk, and book after book after book after… You get it. Most of us read for pleasure or entertainment, but then there are those books that make us feel or think. Growing up, I wasn't a fan of the thinking books. They were too hard. Too irritating to have to peel back the layers of what an author wanted me to understand when I wanted only to get lost in a new world or place. Yes, I read those damned thinking books, but I definitely didn't enjoy them and I really hated those blowhards who thumbed their nose at genre literature. Yet, even while I hated to have my reading tastes judged, once-upon-a-time I felt ashamed to say I was reading a romance novel or an adventure story instead of Charles Dickens or Faust.
It took a master's in English for me to discover that different types of literature spark different things in me—and that's a good thing. It's a very good thing to read a variety of literature. Especially if you are a writer. If you are a young adult writer, you should challenge yourself to read outside young adult literature. There is comfort in reading the same books as our friends and supporting our fellow authors. What an amazing thing it is to find a group of people – finally – who care about the same things we do. Man, I love getting together with other young adult writers and talking shop. I always find myself thinking, "These people get me."
The danger comes when we are reading and discussing the same things. Groupthink is a very real thing, and the water of our little young adult pond can become stagnant if a new stream is never introduced. Often, the really exciting books and ideas come from outside the group. People who have been off in the wild blue yonder experimenting and trying new things, while we may be writing to please the people in our group.
Whenever I am struggling with my story – when I think I'm saying something that's been said a thousand times before…and better – that's when it's time for me to take a break. Time for me to find a new author to love, or a new book unlike anything I've read before. Time for me to read a book that makes me think so maybe I can expand my horizons. That spark may come from a young adult novel, a non-fiction account of the war in Afghanistan, or a bawdy vampire bodice ripper. No judgments here. The key is to find something different and new. Something that pushes you out of your comfort zone.
And when you come back to your work, you may find you have something new to say.
