Flip Your Brain with 5 Simple Tricks

Flip Your Brain: right brain/left brain spinning girl illusion gif — Click on image if not moving. Which way does she spin for you? Can you get her to switch directions?

This week for our How I Write series, my accountability group asked, “How do you balance between your muse and your internal editor? (and/or) How do you make your internal editor work for you, and not against you?” In other words, how do you find ways to flip your brain back and forth?

There’s a lot of talk about right-brained and left-brained people where the labels “logical” for the left side or “creative” for the right are assigned. And there are just as many people claiming it’s utter rubbish.

My more Vulcan-esque left side frowns and is confused by the lack of research supporting this split, because in fact, both functions are present in both hemispheres. However, on the right, the flighty and timid sprite is feeling extra whimsical today so we’re going to run with this analogy anyway. You can even take a quiz if you’re not sure which side you exercise more.

The Spinning Girl Illusion Gif

I love this illusion. She has all the grace I lack and she can’t seem to make up her mind about which way to turn. Oh wait… does she only spin in one direction for you? You guessed it… this spinning girl illusion gif is a quick test. If the dancer turns clockwise, then you’re using more of your right side of the brain and vice versa. Can you make your brain flip and get her change directions? Is it easy, is it hard? Do you find it just spontaneously happens or can you flip your brain and make her switch at will?

I then found this similar gif on Twitter… it’s the same basic illusion, but the spinning girl has two partners, each marked with slightly different lighting effects. If you have trouble getting her to spin on demand, the gif below might help you see it better. For example, if you look at the figure on the left, all three should spin clockwise. Likewise, when looking at the right figure, they should all spin counter-clockwise. Can you set your focus in such a way that two figures spin in one direction and the 3rd in the other? Can you reverse that? Isn’t it fun to do brain flips like this?

A lot of artistic types talk about their muse or their characters speaking to them, of being unable to create until that spark of inspiration hits. But others claim there is no such thing and you can train yourself to be creative on demand. Another term that comes up a lot is “internal editor”. You know, that voice that complains when you use the wrong word or says it all sucks, or wants those paragraphs or scenes switched around. Yeah… that annoying pest. I don’t know about you, but they always seem to want to get to work when I want to just write.

5 Ways to Flip Your Brain

Practice with the spinning girl illusion gif(s) above This is kinda fun and feels like you’re wasting time, but only you can tell if it’s worth it. When I’m feeling overwhelmed by my internal editor, I’ll pull up this gif and wait until I can get her going clockwise before trying to write.
Visualization Sometimes before a writing session, I’ll visualize stuffing my internal editor into an iron-bound box and shipping her off to Timbuktu for a while. This, combined with a timer, helps me flip my brain and focus on the creation of new words instead of getting caught up in futzing with ones already on the page.
Give Both Sides Time To Play It might sound weird giving your worst critic time to play, but it doesn’t always have to be on YOUR stuff. A critique partner can benefit too! So… Give that IE a vacation (forced if necessary like above), but also give your analytical side some exercise too.
Compartmentalize Set boundaries for yourself. Maybe you can only allow yourself 30 minutes rereading what you wrote previously and make changes and catch typos. Maybe you feel more creative in the morning, so use that time to create and do your edits and revisions later in the day. You might even find alternating days or longer periods work better for you.
Prime the Pump Similar to compartmentalizing… do some warm-ups to help flip your thinking before jumping in to your project. If you need to be creative, try do something for 5-10 minutes that stimulates one or more of the items on right-side brain function list below. If you need your best analytical skills, pick something from the left side.

Left-Brained and Right-Brained Activities

Left Brain	Right Brain
uses logic	feeling
detail oriented	“big picture” oriented
facts rule	imagination rules
words and language	symbols and images
present and past	present and future
math and science	philosophy & religion
can comprehend	can “get it” (i.e. meaning)
knowing	believing
acknowledges	appreciates
order/pattern perception	spatial perception
knows object name	knows object function
reality based	fantasy based
forms strategies	presents possibilities
practical	impetuous
safe	risk taking

YOUR TURN: Which way did she turn for you at first? How do you switch gears between creative and analytical tasks? Easily, consciously or do you need to wait for inspiration to strike?

And if you’d like to read about how the rest of my accountability group answered, you can find their blogs here:

* Alexia Reed * Kimberly Farris *
* Angeleque Ford * Danie Ford * Emma G. Delaney

Onions & Ogres

Yup. Layers. Changing your way of thinking and looking at the world isn’t easy and it doesn’t shift overnight. Repeatedly banging your head against the same walls can help. Wait, I mean repeatedly exposing yourself to the same ideas in different venues, formats and states of mind. I decided to subject you to some snippets from my journal this week. The self-doubt isn’t as high today, honest.

Layers, must add more layers.

I need to think in layers and realize they’re a good and natural process. Nothing is wrong with getting the action down on the page and going back to add in what they’re thinking or experiencing. I do this with dialogue all the time. I need to expand the way I think to include other layers. An onion, or even an ogre, doesn’t have one or two layers. I need to dig deeper and add more little touches everywhere.

I don’t have a slick, clean, sparse voice like Janet Evanovich or Robert Parker. I can live with this. However, I need to be able to take my bland and boring basic sentences without any punch to them and ratchet them up to the next level.

Maybe I possess no real talent for this, or else I’m just doubting myself and questioning the effort to get through this phase. Perhaps I’m biased because I’ve seen DH and others make the art look so effortless. Painters don’t sit down and produce masterpieces. Layers and layers of paint are applied to reach the final image. Sculptors also work with layers. The armature is their rough draft. The form has to be built upon to reach the final stages.

Writing is no different. I need to get past this gestural phrase. Because honestly, that’s all it is. I’m making rough sketches toward what I want the final story to become. Some of my strokes are more confident and better delineate what I’m going for, but they’re still only rough guidelines of where I need to apply more effort later.

I think this is what’s most frustrating. I like seeing things done. Either that or I like to fiddle and play with them forever. However, none of my fiddling has amounted to a significant change. Nothing seems to change the existing functionality of previous versions.

I could be just fooling myself into thinking I can do this. Then again, I should question whether I do give my all or if I coast along, drifting and not pushing myself. That’s always a possibility. I’m wishy-washy on what my actual goals are and why I want to do this. I don’t have the drive to publish I see in other Divas. I don’t know if that’s a fear of success or laziness and lack of focus and ambition.

I don’t like to think I have no drive, no passion, no desire to make something of myself. I hate how I don’t mind shuffling along and ignoring how the world passes me by some days. I feel like I should do something, be someone, but most days, I’m not sure how to do that.

I’ve always been “adequate enough” at everything I attempt. I’d say the text game I worked on for a decade was probably one of the few places where I strove to do things better all the time. I don’t know if others would agree, because I did a hell of a lot of coasting too, but for a while, I was dedicated to bringing a deeper and better experience to the players in the areas I built and maintained.

I suspect that’s part of my problem with writing. I get the equivalent of the rooms and mobs done and think I have accomplished something. Either no ACTS exist to animate them or if there are, they’re sketchy and inconsistent. All of Janet Evanovich’s characters possess the equivalent of full libraries of ACTS behind them. Her settings are rich with revisited details. They’re familiar (some even say repetitive), but also resonant.

It’s likely I’m too close to what I’ve written still, but damn, I have trouble seeing where and how to improve what’s already on the page. I find it very difficult if the improvements require cutting something out. To my mind, that aspect is the most foreign.

Why Romance, Love?

Victorian Love
When people come over and see my Romance shelf, thirty linear feet of books, they ooh and ah over how many I have accumulated. I’m more impressed by the effort that the authors put into writing them and then getting them to market.

Why Read Romance?

For me, Romance novels provide a pleasant escape from the real world and allow me to luxuriate in a world where life is somehow less complicated and everything is much more idealized. I tend to read more historical romances than contemporaries because the slower lifestyle (even if there were different hardships to endure) appeals more.

The Historical Romances also provide a further escape from the reality of my life in suburbia, complete with the minivan with two kids in the back. In the novels, the heroines have the luxury of only worrying about their own schedule, needs, hopes and dreams. They aren’t required to do the thinking for several other people in their households.

Why Write Romance?

I’ve also been missing a creative outlet in my life lately and the urge to write has grown strong again. I don’t know if my motives are pure, but I’d like to give it a go and see what kinds of stories I have in me to tell. I’m interested in exploring the themes of love, romance and human relations through my characters. I’m looking forward to some of the things they can teach me about love and myself along the way.

I know I still have a lot of growing to do as a writer, but I’m in this for the long haul.