Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is try out one of these twenty challenges. I promise that it will help your writing. You can even go back and try some other challenges because it won’t self-destruct.

1. Read a biography of your favorite author.

2. Book a trip to somewhere new.

3. Edit a story of yours that is at least a year old.

4. Find a writing buddy. (There might be one in the writers’ den.)

5. Beta-read a book for a friend.

6. Write a sonnet.

7. Take photographs of graffiti throughout your city.

8. Ask a grandparent or a child to tell you a story.

9. Write a short story without using any adverbs or adjectives.

10. Analyze the story structure of your favorite film.

11. Buy a book on writing.

12. Ask your librarian to recommend his or her favorite book.

13. Wonder about the objects in a lost and found.

14. Wait in line without looking at your phone.

15. Read some profiles on a dating app or look at ads in your local paper.

16. Write a story about an obscure holiday.

17. Look up at the clouds and see what shapes you find.

18. Watch people in a hotel lobby.

19. Listen to a new album.

20. Read a book in a genre that you normally hate and try to find something you like.

Did you try a challenge? How did it go? Tell me in the comments below.