We’re all writers. If we aren’t plunking away at a draft, we’re likely devouring published work and honing our craft through generative workshops, prompts, conferences, and critique groups.
But what do you do outside of writing? What fills your cup and offers a valuable shift in perspective that can be utilized in your creative prospects? Surely scrolling social media and watching endless YouTube shorts isn’t fulfilling your needs. Here are a few hobby ideas to get you started.
Learn a new language
Most of us had to take a foreign language in high school or college, but have you ever dusted off those flashcards or workbooks? I know I didn’t. Last year, I took up Irish. It’s been a great investment.
Once you start studying a language, you begin to think differently, putting together sentences and metaphors with a different flair. It opens you up to the poetry that is expression. If you’re a fantasy writer, you can study a language that best reflects the tone and culture of your main cast. If you’re penning historical fiction, consider delving into the mother tongue of your novel’s setting. Language learning is also a phenomenal way to exercise your gray matter. Even if it doesn’t serve a narrative’s purpose, you can’t go wrong with doing micro-lessons through apps like Mango (which might be offered through your library).
Snap some photos or dabble with paints
Taking on an artistic hobby outside of prose can be useful. It offers a shift in perspective. With photography, you can snap something from a certain angle (shifting POV); mess around with exposure and lenses (capturing a tone); hyperfocus on something small (highlighting choice details); and find the beauty in the mundane. Don’t worry about taking expert-level photos or painting with the effortlessness of Bob Ross. Allow yourself the space to be unrefined, messy, aesthetically promiscuous. Enjoy a new way of viewing the world.
Take up an instrument
Music is poetry strung together with thematic intent. An album, like a novel, is meant to be savored from front to back. In music, you’ll find the rhythm in sounds, much like cadence or tactful syntax. You’ll revel in the way a beat can live in your bones and consider how that feeling can be transposed onto paper. A song can invoke a visceral response, through frisson or a strong sense of being understood—like any great work of fiction. Learning an instrument provides an outlet where you can play with melody, the rhythm of lyrics or chords, and find the heartbeat of an idea.
Get crafty
Arts and crafts are a wonderful way of getting your hands into something new without a high entry fee. You can learn how to weave a pattern out of a ball of yarn. You can create scrapbooks for your works in progress. Roll a ball of clay into something semi-recognizable. Train a new muscle without the pressure of perfection. Allowing yourself the space to create for the sake of having fun will open your mind.
Shop for antiques
There’s something cozy about searching for hidden treasure. Antiques hold history, and much of that deserves to be resurrected and cared for. Maybe you’ll create a backstory for the family portrait you found, the creepy doll staring with its lifeless eyes from the corner of the booth, or even the cashier walking you through a bid with the owner. Meaning can be plumbed from the past, and there’s a wonderful truth to the realization that we walk through life creating tales from a single item.
You might also consider taking up a sport, delving into a video game outside your comfort genre, going on a hike, or even putting together a jigsaw puzzle.
Every hobby will offer your life something more. More experiences means more story fuel. In most instances, what you enjoy doing will find its way onto the page, intentional or otherwise.
If you have any other hobby ideas you’d like to share with the class, leave a comment. I’d love to hear about what you do to keep your mind sharp and the creative juices flowing while you’re away from your desk.
[Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash]
Amber Herbert is a (mostly) speculative fiction writer living in Colorado Springs, CO with her husband and their two gremlins. Lipstick Covered Magnet was her first novel. With a BA in English literature and a decade of experience as an editor, she’s a sucker for poignant, evocative prose and phenomenal character arcs. Her favorite genres are high fantasy with complex worlds and magic systems, heady sci-fi, and atmospheric or psychological horror. When she’s not writing or critiquing literature, TV, and film, she enjoys baking, finding new midwest emo/pop punk bands, playing tabletop games, learning a new song on the drums, and snapping photos. You can find her at https://amberherbert.com.