Writing Practice Prescription

by

Juliet Platt

Last year, with the kids home for summer I resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to have much time for writing or research. Not wishing to feel like the weeks were slipping by unproductively, I needed to look to other sources to keep my creative imagination alive.

While the kids watched TV or played with friends I either got on with chores or picked my way through a jigsaw. Curiously, I began to notice that writing ideas were flowing thick and fast over the jigsaw pieces or the ironing, and I realised that certain manual tasks lend themselves very well to the flow of writing inspiration. Like therapeutic basket-weaving, certain activities serve not just as relaxing, enjoyable and productive past-times, but also as a way of stimulating the creative process. And I started to wonder, what’s the link between mundane manual or logical tasks and heightened powers of imagination?

My curiosity was further sparked during a creative writing course I attended. The course tutor was Crysse Morrison, novelist and performance poet. In a very relaxed and comfortable atmosphere she invited our group of writers and nervous wannabes to throw caution to the wind and get writing. She introduced us to numerous exercises to “silence our inner critic”, and allow our imagination to fly. She talked about left-brain and right-brain functions, and again I found myself wanting to know more.

Googling “left brain right brain” throws up an intriguing visual illusion circulating on the internet. It portrays the silhouette of a pirouetting ballerina. Whether you view the pirouette as moving in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction indicates which side of your brain is dominant at that particular time. I’m fascinated by how long it takes for me to see her switch direction, and how my view of her is affected by the activity I was engaged in before I looked. Searching through files on my computer? How does that make her spin? Reading a poem? How then?

Our brain is the most amazing of all human tools. Yet we probably don’t really know how to use it properly. In our hectic modern lifestyles we find ourselves stressed-out and anxious, often unable to sleep, and frequently frustrated by the lack of creativity and spirituality in our lives.

As writers we are plagued from time to time by an unsettling dearth of ideas, or with debilitating hesitation and censorious tendencies when it comes to developing the ideas that eventually present themselves.

Is it possible that our experiences in life and in our writing indicate an over-reliance on mental processes that are typically the preserve of one side of our brain only?

Neurological science shows that the brain is divided into two lateral hemispheres, the left and right, which are each responsible for different mental and intellectual functions.

The left side typically governs muscular activity in the right side of the body, our use of logic and language, as well as our perception and understanding of order, patterns, details and numbers. The right side governs muscular activity in the left side of our body, is more imaginative, and governs our capacity for artistic ability, belief, intuition and spatial awareness. Scientific evidence suggests that any imbalance between the two hemispheres results in psychological and behavioural problems, diminished feelings of well-being and below-optimum performance.

Of course, the brain is an extremely complex organ, and popular psychology has been quite rightly criticised for over-simplifying it, such that there is a tendency towards categorising people as predominantly “left-brain” or “right-brain” thinkers.

Over-simplification of brain function can also lead to one side being promoted over the other, depending on the desired context. In the business world right-brain intuition can be judged as “wishy-washy” and insubstantial, whilst creative types sometimes view left-brain logic as prosaic and constraining.

Interesting as the simplified insights may be, it is more helpful to consider our brain function in its entirety, in order to learn how to use our cognitive and creative abilities more effectively.

For writers, the creative process of producing something that others will read clearly involves a “whole-brain” approach. The difference between “becoming a published writer” and “daydreaming about writing”, as Simon Whaley puts it in his recent “Positively Productive” piece for Writers’ Bureau, could be down to how well we integrate the two sides of our brain.

Words, language, grammar, punctuation, structure, submission guidelines and deadlines typically fire the left-brain hemisphere. Language nuance, intonation and emphasis, along with imaginative ideas and vision are typically governed by the right-brain. The craft of the writer is to bring together both modes of thinking and deliver something new, illuminating and pleasing to read.

By return, the experience of the reader is to recreate the picture in their own mind, using the building blocks of language presented to them. Both reader and writer engage their brains holistically in the creative and re-creative process.

Modern western society has frequently been characterised as the product of predominantly left-brain thinking. Our preference for logic, reason, rules and knowledge is curious. It might be the result of the predominance of right-handedness, which fires the left hemisphere of the brain with greater regularity; it might be due to the rise of scientific education, and the importance we place on commercial viability and efficiency; it might equally be a consequence of the decline of old-fashioned manual crafts, hobbies, and past-times such as cross-stitch, knitting, model-making, pottery, even origami.

Research by Katrin and Yuri Shumakov at Rostov State University demonstrates that the bi-manual nature of origami significantly enhances communication between the two hemispheres of the brain. It seems that the slogan of the Protestant work ethic “the devil makes work for idle hands” has more significance for neurological development than it would first appear. Using both hands in a creative activity seems to strengthen and stimulate both sides of the brain in equal measure, leading to a calmer disposition, better understanding of language and greater non-verbal awareness.

Dr Roger Mills, president of the Center for Sustainable Change in California, emphasises that our minds are most productive when we are relaxed and calm, and when we aren’t thinking too hard. This usually means when we aren’t allowing our left-brain to run the show with worries and anxieties about how things should be, or how they’ve been in the past.

Dr Mills says of our more analytical, left-brain processing capacity, “Used in the way it is supposed to be used …[it] is helpful and necessary in life. Used in the wrong way - against ourselves - it can be our worst enemy!”

The idea that we can use our brains differently, and change our thinking habits and patterns, is testament to the brain’s plasticity and reflexivity. In a remarkable feat of cerebral acrobatics we can use our analytical minds to create the environment and container for our imagination. This neurological “double-jointedness” can be compared to using our right hand to scratch an itch on our right elbow.

Prema Sheerin, Coactive Coach and spiritual shaman distinguishes between “head” (left-brain) and “heart” (right-brain) intelligence, and suggests that we think of our logical, safe, rule-based, head as our Personal Assistant rather than our Managing Director. In this way we can consciously find tasks to delegate to that part of our function in order to occupy it productively, and prevent its less productive characteristics of anxiety and worry from dominating proceedings. To-do lists, project plans, budgets, goals, background problem-solving, devising strategies, commitments and routines are all activities perfectly suited to our left-brain PA, which thus engaged, allows our creative and visionary MD to flourish.

When we read accounts of fellow writers’ approaches to their craft, there are two words which consistently appear: routine and discipline. Philip Pullman will not allow himself to indulge his passion for carpentry until he has completed his mandatory three pages a day. Sue Gee describes a day that is punctuated by the Today Programme at 1pm and “exactly the same thing for lunch as I’ve had for the past 20 years.”

Rather than demonstrating writing martyrdom, these are meaningful examples of writers recognising the well-structured container they need to have in place to support their creative process, and to satisfy the needs of both sides of the brain.

So what is Crysse’s advice for writers wanting to boost their creative powers and fill pages? The answer is short sharp exercises containing a set of constraints to satisfy and quieten left-brain anxieties, so that it has a job to be getting on with while the right-brain does its creative bit. Spontaneity is crucial too. The longer we linger over a piece of writing, the more likely it is that our inner critic will have something to say on the matter, so spending no longer than 5 minutes on each exercise is important. For example:

• Write a list of your favourite things without using the letter “e”
• Write down the name of the place you think of as home so all the letters are in capitals and vertically arranged towards the left hand side of the page. Use each letter to begin a new idea, which evokes home for you and write this horizontally beside each letter. Across-sticks like this can be used for any word that you feel like getting creative about, and as long as you spend no more than a couple of minutes on it you will be surprised by the results.
• Take an opening or closing line of a story and write your own paragraph from it
• Start a paragraph with a memory, such as “I remember wearing…..”

A combination of daily writing practice, short, medium and long term goals, a comfortable routine, a positive approach to life, work, relationships and leisure, and maybe the odd jigsaw, folded paper bird, or bit of wood-craft, seem to be the practical keys to keeping our brains happy and healthy, and our writing flowing.

By learning to use all of our mental capacities appropriately and wisely we can become stress-free, infinitely more creative and give our writing a boost. All we need to do is give each half of our brain the right stuff to get to work on. After that it’s like riding a bike.
Activities to maximise inter-hemispheric communication and connection in the brain are those which involve manual dexterity, such as:

Doing jigsaws;
Cross-stitch;
Origami;
Drawing;
Painting;
Writing pen to paper;
Doing the ironing;
Gardening;
Preparing food;
Driving

Further information about concepts and courses mentioned here can be found at the following web-sites:
www.cryssemorrison.co.uk - writing courses in the UK and the Greek Islands
www.oriland.com - for fascinating insights into the benefits of paper-folding on brain performance
www.principlespsychology.org - for information about the work of Dr. Roger Mills
www.healingwisdomcoaching.com - spiritually-inclined life coaching with Prema Sheerin

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