The Padded Room

There is a famous quote by Einstein... "There is nothing that is a more certain sign of insanity than to do the same thing over and over and expect the results to be different."

Many people are familiar with this quote - it has been around for a while and been paraphrased, reinterpreted, misinterpreted, and even popped in the middle of an Usher song. So why does it endure?

As a writer, who is trying to hone a particular set of skills on my path to publication, there was a penchant for me to live in my own head a little too long and to establish a routine or a style that may not be conducive to my goal of continual improvement and the eventual cracking of the 'professional writers code.' It dawned on me a little while ago that I needed to find a balance between staying true to my own voice - and changing things up in an effort to break from the above definition of insanity.

This has been quite liberating, and surprisingly so. Now, I write at all different times of the day (when I can), I attack brainstorming and the editing process is ever-changing ways, I listen to music while writing, go for a run before sitting down to write for the day, and generally find new ways to get under the skin of my protagonists in an effort to breathe life into proceedings. This may not sound like much, but to a fellow writer who may read this, shaking one's routine can be enough to send your axis spinning out of control.

But that's the entire point. If nothing changes, then nothing changes. What is there to lose about trying to mix things up and trying to shape the clay in a different way? I'd rather break free and play rather than rock back and forth in the padded room of my writer's mind.

Happy writing!