Challenge Things

The idea of challenging something can be an amazing place to start writing from. 

A few days ago, I wrote a post about where you can get ideas from to write. This one is something that a visiting author, Anjum Hasan, who's here to conduct a workshop, said. 

As reading for the workshop, she gave us a couple of short stories and excerpts from longer books. All of them seemed to be addressing caste issues. She told us that it was unintentional, but that it was an underlying tension and problem in Indian society. Unknowingly, all the pieces she gave us were about class, hierarchy, and caste divisions - and of course, their repercussions. 

That's when she told us that these writers are writing about this issue to challenge it. She told us that if we are looking for inspiration to write about, we should think about what bothers us. What do we hate and want to change? If we think long and hard, we'd be able to find something that really speaks to us, that has been on our mind for a long time, and that might produce a really good work. 

What is something that you see every day that annoys you? Maybe you can think about why you don't like it. Is it because it's cruel, or is it just inconvenient? How widespread is this thing that you're thinking of now? 

It can also be a trend that you are against. One example of that could be the rising dark romance readership. You can write about what you think about it - positive or negative. Anything you see around you that you think about can be what you write about. Anything that stays with you that you think needs to be changed. 

After all, all the greats started writing because they saw something in the world that they thought could be better. 

Who knows, maybe you'll be one of them someday.