Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone Can Be Refreshing (and Lucrative)

Let's face it - we all love to write about what we know. It's much easier to wax lyrically on the familiar than to mentally stretch ourselves beyond our immediate area of expertise.

Yet we're interested in our topic and go that extra mile for our clients. They benefit and so do we: they obtain the information they need and we add to our database of potential articles. Not to mention improving our research skills.

If that were as far out of my comfort zone as I needed to stray, life would be very easy. Just do some fascinating research about an equine topic, write an article and send it as a .doc file via email to the client.

Which might keep life easy, but would it be satisfying?

As absorbing as the written word can be, readers need more to hold their interest, and that means photos. Fulfilling my duties as the Equestrian Writer for the DC Examiner.com has forced me to learn where to find and how to take good photos. Initially this was tough and I found the whole process arduous. But now I enjoy the challenge. Not only that but I've learned how to use publishing software to upload articles and photos and add hyperlinks. All foreign territory to me a year ago.

And there I was feeling pretty pleased with myself when I was asked to write a proposal for a sales letter project. Copywriting is an area I've always admired from a distance but which existed far beyond even the extreme edges of my comfort zone. But I thought 'why not'?

I launched into a lot of research, including the brilliant articles at http://www.copyblogger.com/ and began to write. I found it both hard work and fun and to my delight the proposal was accepted. I enjoyed writing the sales letter and the client is very happy with the result.

Having already written a few ebooks of my own I then accepted my next challenge: writing one for a client. My own books only consist of the written word, so I again had to learn new skills: incorporating photos and pointing arrows into the text. I sent the finished product to the client and waited anxiously for a reaction. I'd done my level best, but self-doubt was creeping in. Imagine my relief when the client expressed delight with the book!

And now I am making the movie to go with the book. As if I haven't stretched myself enough already.... But  I've grasped an important point: working outside my comfort zone keeps me interested in my work. Plus I'm no longer a one-trick pony. For an equine writer this is not a bad thing!