If you hate romances, ask someone who is both knowlegeable about the field and a bit discriminating what some of the good ones are. Pick up two or three and read them from start to finish. Ditto if you hate SF or fantasy or mystery or mainstream or whatever. You can find tools everywhere, and you will find more of them in fields that have been fallow for you for most or all of your life than in the fields that you have been plowing and depleting for years. If you want to stay fresh, you cannot afford to be a snob.
Snobbery is one of the characteristics of a rigid mind . . .
Write outside of your field. I'm currently working on a novel that no one might ever see. I've been dinking with it for a few years, doing a couple of pages in my spare time or when I'm stuck on the books that I have contracts for and know I'll get paid for. It's not SF, it's not fantasy, and my agent has already let me know that although he loves the idea and the bits of it he's seen, it's going to be tough to move. I might not be able to sell it, and if I do sell it, I might make first novelist's pay for it.