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Write Swap

I haven't had a lot of down time in the last few months (years?) but I do spend a couple hours here and there indulging in crappy tv to wind down at the end of the day every now and then. One of my indulgences is the show Wife Swap where two families switch Mom's for a week to discover how other families live and tackle all of the issues that come up when you're living as a family.

Today I was thinking, when I am writing a lot it can be easy to get stuck in a rut and start writing in circles. There are lots of different writing exercises out there to get our creative juices flowing. But maybe the next time I get stuck in a rut I'll send an email to one of the other writers I know and ask what THEY are writing. Coordinating a swap with someone else stuck in a rut and switching ideas could help out a lot. What would happen if a Romance writer wrote a Mystery Thriller? Or a Journalist wrote a Fantasy?

Even if you don't know someone else who writes, you can swap genres yourself. Head to the library and go down an aisle you wouldn't normally travel. Pick up a book outside of your comfort zone and see if you can write something similar. Mix it up a bit, and you may learn you have strengths you didn't know you had.

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