74. Are You Ready For Creative Expansion?

In this episode I explore what happens when writers feel creatively restless—when the work that once excited us begins to feel too safe or familiar. 

I dive into the intimate process of following new themes and subject matter that truly call to you, even when they feel risky or don't fit expectations. I also share my own vulnerable journey of stepping outside my comfort zone, offer practical 15-minute exercises for gentle creative exploration, and address the fear that comes with being a beginner again. 

This is for writers feeling that gentle tug toward something new and different, this episode offers permission to try things that might not work while discovering new rooms in the house of your imagination. Tune in to learn more.

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Transcript

THE WHOLE WRITER EP 74 - Are You Ready For Creative Expansion?

[00:00:00] Nicole Meier: I've been thinking lately about those moments when we feel creatively restless, when the work that used to excite us feels well, maybe a little too familiar, maybe a little too safe. If you've been feeling that gentle tug towards something new, something different, then this episode is for you.

[00:00:28] Nicole Meier: Welcome to the whole writer, a place where we talk about what it means to show up as a writer, not just a better writer or a more productive writer, or a published writer, but a whole one. Someone who's grounded in their voice, in their community, in their creative path, even when the world tells them to hustle, compare, or conform.

[00:00:49] Nicole Meier: I'm Nicole Meier, a multi published author and book coach who believes that nurturing the person behind the page is just as important as refining the words on it. Each week we'll explore the terrain of riding life with honesty, warmth, and practical wisdom, creating space for you to write from a place of wholeness rather than depletion.

[00:01:09] Nicole Meier: Whether you're drafting your first manuscript or publishing your fifth book, you'll find conversation and companionship for the journey here. So settle in, bring your questions and your curiosity, and let's discover what it means to write and live with authenticity and purpose. Welcome back to the whole writer, everyone.

[00:01:31] Nicole Meier: I'm so glad you're here with me today on this solo episode. It's just you and I. Before we get into our topic today, I wanted to share that I will be taking a break next month as a creative, I know when to rest and refill my creative well. So for the month of August, you'll find replays of listener favorites, but never fear.

[00:01:52] Nicole Meier: I'll be back in the fall with an all new fresh season intentionally crafted just for you. Alright, now onto today's topic. I've been thinking lately about those moments when we feel creatively restless, when the work that used to excite us feels well, maybe a little too familiar, maybe a little too safe if you've been feeling that gentle tug towards something new, something different than this episode is for you, because today we're talking about creative expansion.

[00:02:27] Nicole Meier: Not just writing more, but writing differently. Writing in ways that surprise even ourselves. When I say creative expansion, I'm not talking about productivity. I'm not talking about writing faster or publishing more books, and I'm not necessarily talking about changing genres either. I'm talking about something much more intimate than that.

[00:02:50] Nicole Meier: I'm talking about allowing your creativity to follow a theme or a subject matter that's calling to you. At first, it might appear as a whisper, a fleeting thought, a question that keeps surfacing a story idea that feels different from what you usually write. But if you keep listening, that whisper often becomes a shout.

[00:03:12] Nicole Meier: It becomes something you can't ignore, something that demands to be explored, even if it doesn't fit what's expected of you, even if it feels risky. Maybe it's a story about forgiveness when you usually write about adventure. Maybe it's exploring what it means to belong when you typically focus on individual journeys.

[00:03:33] Nicole Meier: Maybe it's diving into questions of moral courage when you've been comfortable staying in lighter territory. Here's what I've learned. If there's heart in the motivation, if there's something that is truly calling to you, there will be heart in the process. There will be heart in the story itself, and isn't that what matters most?

[00:03:56] Nicole Meier: Here's something I want you to know. You have permission to try things that might not work. I wanna say that again, because I see so many writers feeling paralyzed by trying to be perfect. You have permission to try things that might not work. You have permission to be a beginner. Again, you have permission to write something that doesn't fit neatly into your usual categories because so many of us get stuck in one lane that feels safe.

[00:04:25] Nicole Meier: We found our voice, we found our audience, we found our groove. And that's beautiful, truly. But sometimes that safety can become a cage of our own making. I wanna tell you about something that happened to me a few years ago. I had written three novels, all centered around sisters or family dynamics, and that was my thing.

[00:04:46] Nicole Meier: You know, sisters, I understood sisters. I could write sisters with my eyes closed. But then I started feeling this restlessness. This quiet voice asking, what else? What else can you explore? What else lives in your imagination? That restlessness led me to my fourth book titled City of Books, which came out in 2024, and let me tell you, it was terrifying to step outside my comfort zone.

[00:05:14] Nicole Meier: Instead of focusing on family dynamics, I found myself drawn to bigger questions. What does it mean to belong to a community? What happens when we have to choose between isolation and connection? What does it cost us to stand up for something we love? How do we reckon with the weight of our past decisions?

[00:05:33] Nicole Meier: These weren't sister stories. These were human stories on a different scale entirely. I was writing about community fighting to save their beloved bookstore about people who had to look honestly at what they'd chosen and what they'd lost. I remember sitting at my desk feeling like I was learning to write all over again.

[00:05:51] Nicole Meier: The voice was different. The scope was different. And you know what? It was one of the most nourishing, creative experiences I've ever had. Not because the book was perfect, no book ever is, but because I was growing, I was expanding, I was discovering parts of my creativity I didn't even know existed. Now, I'll be honest with you, not everyone connected with this new direction.

[00:06:16] Nicole Meier: In fact, one reviewer gave me one star because I included a homeless mother and daughter, and to them it was quote, far too political. Really. I didn't see my book as political at all. But that goes to show that not every reader is our ideal reader. And yet, and this still amazes me. This book got picked up and published in other countries in other languages because they loved the themes of community and standing up for something we love.

[00:06:47] Nicole Meier: Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this would happen. Now, I'm not saying that every writer listening should up and write something wholly opposite to what you're used to. I'm really not. My leap was a bit dramatic and expansion doesn't have to look like that at all. Maybe for you it's simply exploring a deeper layer of a theme you already love.

[00:07:09] Nicole Meier: Maybe it's asking one new question within your familiar territory. Maybe it's allowing a secondary character to have their moment or diving into an emotion you've only touched on before. The key here is listening to what's calling you, even if it's just a gentle nudge rather than a complete departure.

[00:07:31] Nicole Meier: Now I know that diving into a whole new book can feel overwhelming. So let's start smaller. Let's talk about some gentle ways you might begin expanding right where you are. Try this, take 15 minutes and write in a completely different genre that you usually work in. So if you write literary fiction, try your hand at a thriller scene.

[00:07:52] Nicole Meier: If you write poetry, try a piece of flash fiction. If you're a memoirist, try writing romance. Remember I said just 15 minutes, so don't feel like I'm suggesting a whole new manuscript. Another exercise might be to write from an unusual perspective. Write from the point of view of the house in your story or the family pet, or the photograph on the mantle.

[00:08:14] Nicole Meier: Let yourself be playful with it. There are no stakes to doing this because honestly, no one is watching over your shoulder. The key is to approach these exercises with curiosity rather than pressure. You're not trying to write the next Great American novel in 15 minutes. You're just exploring. You're saying hello to parts of your creativity that might have been waiting patiently for an invitation.

[00:08:38] Nicole Meier: I love that idea. So let's be honest about something. Expansion can be scary when we try something new or beginners again, we might be clumsy, we might be bad at it, and at least at first, we are playing. I felt this so acutely when I was writing City of Books. There were so many days when I looked at what I'd written and thought, this feels like a risk.

[00:09:02] Nicole Meier: But here's what I learned, that fear is information. It's telling you that you're growing. It's telling you that you're pushing against the edges of your comfort zone, and that's a exactly where growth happens. And plus this story was one that was on my heart, and I'm not one to ignore my heart. So when that fear shows up, and it will try and greet it with gentleness, you might say to yourself, oh, hello, fear, I see you.

[00:09:29] Nicole Meier: I know you're trying to keep me safe, but I'm going to keep exploring anyway. Remember, you don't have to be good at something new right away. You don't have to show it to anyone. You don't have to publish it or perform it or even finish it. You just have to try and here's something beautiful that happens when you expand creatively.

[00:09:48] Nicole Meier: Everything starts talking to everything else. So that poetry that you try starts showing up in your prose. The thriller pacing you experimented with starts tightening up your literary scenes. The memoir writing you dabbled in starts bringing in more truth to your fiction. To use an analogy, it's like cross pollinating in a garden.

[00:10:10] Nicole Meier: When you plant different flowers near each other, they share nutrients and create unexpected hybrid blooms. Your creative work is the same way. When I was writing City of Books, all those years of exploring sister relationships in my previous novels suddenly became relevant in a new way. I was writing about a community, but communities are made up of relationships.

[00:10:33] Nicole Meier: All that emotional work I'd done before became the foundation for something bigger. Your creative expansion doesn't waste your previous work. It builds on it, it deepens it. It gives you new tools to explore the themes that matter most to you. So the question is how do you begin? You start exactly where you are with exactly what you have.

[00:10:57] Nicole Meier: Maybe you set aside 15 minutes this week and try one of those exercises I mentioned. Maybe you pick up a book in a genre you've never written in and pay attention to how it works. Maybe you have a conversation with a friend about a topic that's been tugging at your imagination. The key is to start small and to stay curious.

[00:11:18] Nicole Meier: Expansion doesn't have to be dramatic and meaningful. Sometimes the most profound growth happens in the quietest moments when we're just brave enough to try something new. Writers, I want to leave you with this thought. Your creativity is not a finite resource. It's not a well that can run dry. It's a thing that flows when you expand creatively, you're not leaving your old self behind.

[00:11:47] Nicole Meier: You're not abandoning what you're good at. You're simply becoming more of who you are. You are discovering new rooms in the house of your imagination, so be gentle with yourself as you explore. Be patient in the process. Remember that every writer who has ever moved you, every book that has ever changed your life came from someone who was brave enough to try something new.

[00:12:12] Nicole Meier: Your creative expansion is not just a gift to yourself. It's a gift to all the readers who are waiting to discover what you have to offer when you're writing from the fullest, most expansive version of yourself. Alright. Thank you for being here with me today. Thank you for your courage, your curiosity, and your commitment to growing as a writer and as a human being.

[00:12:34] Nicole Meier: I'll see you next time on the Whole writer.

[00:12:42] Nicole Meier: If you want to check out my coaching programs for fiction writers, visit nicolemeier.com. That's M-E-I-E-R. And if you like this episode, I'd love you to take a minute to leave a rating and review for this podcast. This will help more writers like you to discover the show and to get going on their writing journey.

[00:13:02] Nicole Meier: Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, happy writing everyone.