Who Else Wants to Learn Something New?

Pencil, notebook, and pencil shavings to represent the effort it takes to learn something new

Do you want to learn something new? How are you when it comes to tackling a new subject or playing with a new skill?

When we’re young, everything is new and we are kind of forced to do it. Often. Right? Learning to walk, talk, ride a bike, eat brussel sprouts, memorize multiplication tables, read Shakespeare, get a job, birth a baby.

Once we learn the basics, it’s pretty easy to get comfortable. To coast with the crazy stuff that already fills our brain. Is there even room for more information in there?

Bottom line.

It’s really hard to learn something new. And it’s really hard to tell other people you are learning something new.

I’m Learning Something New: Fiction

Here’s my story . . . I’ve been writing all kinds of nonfiction things for years. Devotionals, Bible studies, curriculum, feature profiles of women, Sunday school lessons, essays.

And now I’m adding fiction to that mix.

There, I said it. The secret is out.

I’ve played with fiction but not seriously until the past couple years. I’ve been schooling myself on the how-to’s. Setting and mostly keeping word-count goals. (Thanks to NaNoWriMo for pushing me.) Deleting scenes. Dreaming up characters and plot lines and tensions.

Good writing is good writing, for sure. Nonfiction and fiction.

But fiction is like a slippery sting-ray some days. Scary, beautiful, and hard to wrap my little keyboarding fingers around it.

8 Steps to Take When You Want to Learn Something New

I suppose it’s just like anything new, a dream, a goal, and adventure. I’ve figured out the eight steps to take when you want to learn that new thing.

Pray.
Tell at least one person your dream or your goal.
Find the best resources and study a little bit. But not too much.
Begin.
Tell someone else you’re doing it.
Practice.
Find other people doing it to support you.
Repeat all of the above. Often.

This week I wrote about the people who support me and about the Writer Lady who keeps tempting to take my characters in “Waiting at the Laminated Table” on the Breathe Christian Writers Conference blog. I’d love it if you’d pop on over there to see what I wrote and to check out the Breathe Conference. I’ve attended four times and it’s an awesome resource for all eight steps. Unless you want to learn something like deep-sea diving or Latin.

And this is the best part. Learning something new, trying something new, it’s scary. Yes. But it’s oh so good for us. Even if it doesn’t go exactly as we’d like? There’s always joy. There’s always love. And there’s always Christ.