Brain rewiring--a ramble
Jun. 28th, 2006 09:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ksmithIn response to another writer's comment that they appreciated knowing that they should ask me for a story months ahead of when it might be needed...
I don't know about other folks, but I would rather be asked sooner rather than later given that (unflattering self-appraisal here) I seem chronically incapable of determining how long things will take to write. Part of this is the fact that I'm a backbrain writer, in that certain things sort themselves out when they're damned good and ready and not one second before. Part of it is that my approach to the fact of my backbrainedness (Invent-A-Word--yeah, we do that) seems to be in the process of changing. To be able to set aside a wip to cure and move on to something else is, I am finding, nice, helpful, a good thing. Working that way with the two short works and the book has proved an interesting exercise in brain stretching. It's allowed me to keep writing while also allowing me to set aside something that has stalled and move on to something else.
It's the writing equivalent of cross-training. No chance to get bored. No chance to get upset, to get stuck in the (for me) destructive grapple with a wip that isn't working. The muscles still build--they've grown flaccid over the last few years, oh dear me--but the frustration doesn't set in. I don't need that brand of frustration now.
This is a change because I used to value the exercise where I sat and stared at the page, forcing out a limping paragraph or two over the course of hours, only for the dam to suddenly burst and the words to flow as the plot jam finally sorted itself out. It was painful at the time, but in the end, it worked. Then, I grew to hate it, and to react to the hate by setting the work aside and moving on to things that weren't writing. Sometimes, you need to do this--I have worked out plot points major and minor in the process of mowing my lawn. But sometimes, all I was doing was just not writing.
I wonder if I'm in the midst of a brain rewiring where I am actually beginning to think things out in a different way, because I never used to be able to even consider working on multiple projects at one time, and now I am.
People who have done it for years can shake their heads now. For me. it's a new experience. I have no idea how long it will last, though, which I guess could be a problem later. Can't exactly remove the brain and trade it in for an upgrade, though, can I?
OTOH, it seems that the brain that is writing now isn't the brain I started with. The experience of toying with a Brand New World for 20-30 pages, and realizing that I don't have to worry about being joined at the hip with it for X number of books has been revelatory. The writing equivalent of guilt-free promiscuity. We'll see how long it lasts.
It isn't just that every book is different. The brain that forms it may become different over time as well, not just in regard to what it knows but also in how it works.
Which taken with everything else can make it damned hard to plan a career.
I don't know about other folks, but I would rather be asked sooner rather than later given that (unflattering self-appraisal here) I seem chronically incapable of determining how long things will take to write. Part of this is the fact that I'm a backbrain writer, in that certain things sort themselves out when they're damned good and ready and not one second before. Part of it is that my approach to the fact of my backbrainedness (Invent-A-Word--yeah, we do that) seems to be in the process of changing. To be able to set aside a wip to cure and move on to something else is, I am finding, nice, helpful, a good thing. Working that way with the two short works and the book has proved an interesting exercise in brain stretching. It's allowed me to keep writing while also allowing me to set aside something that has stalled and move on to something else.
It's the writing equivalent of cross-training. No chance to get bored. No chance to get upset, to get stuck in the (for me) destructive grapple with a wip that isn't working. The muscles still build--they've grown flaccid over the last few years, oh dear me--but the frustration doesn't set in. I don't need that brand of frustration now.
This is a change because I used to value the exercise where I sat and stared at the page, forcing out a limping paragraph or two over the course of hours, only for the dam to suddenly burst and the words to flow as the plot jam finally sorted itself out. It was painful at the time, but in the end, it worked. Then, I grew to hate it, and to react to the hate by setting the work aside and moving on to things that weren't writing. Sometimes, you need to do this--I have worked out plot points major and minor in the process of mowing my lawn. But sometimes, all I was doing was just not writing.
I wonder if I'm in the midst of a brain rewiring where I am actually beginning to think things out in a different way, because I never used to be able to even consider working on multiple projects at one time, and now I am.
People who have done it for years can shake their heads now. For me. it's a new experience. I have no idea how long it will last, though, which I guess could be a problem later. Can't exactly remove the brain and trade it in for an upgrade, though, can I?
OTOH, it seems that the brain that is writing now isn't the brain I started with. The experience of toying with a Brand New World for 20-30 pages, and realizing that I don't have to worry about being joined at the hip with it for X number of books has been revelatory. The writing equivalent of guilt-free promiscuity. We'll see how long it lasts.
It isn't just that every book is different. The brain that forms it may become different over time as well, not just in regard to what it knows but also in how it works.
Which taken with everything else can make it damned hard to plan a career.
