Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

Writing Meditations

Creativity: where does it reside in the brain?

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Creativity: Uses your whole brain.
In the past the right brain was established as “conceptual, holistic, intuitive, imaginative and non-verbal” according to the Scientific American article “Is it true that creativity resides in the right hemisphere of the brain?”  It was later replaced by the whole-brain theory which is covered by Ned Herrmann who wrote the article. Basically, according to Herrmann, our brain is balanced.  It must use all parts to create, analyze and implement an idea.  So creativity is a holistic condition, not really a specific site in the brain.  
How can this relate to creativity pursued by writers?  I see it as recognizing the need to both explore through writing (write without reserve or even intention) and followup by demanding that we put our writing through a rigorous testing phase.  I follow my unreserved outflow of words with a more analytical, testing mind to review the work. And then off goes the non-restricted creative process again with new parameters. 
Every time I stop and reread my last thousand words, I am examining them for quality, usefulness, relatability, and connectivity. I adjust, develop, contrast and redesign my writing as I consider how it all makes a whole.  Essentially, I move back and forth between what reaches for anything and what reaches for the specific, and I parley between these two brain activities until I am content with the result.
Better storage
Back on creativity and where it resides in the brain. I suppose it resides everywhere or perhaps where it is most needed in order to solve the problem it is facing.  While researching where in the brain one finds the part marked “reserved for creative thought,” I came across an article  questioning whether creativity is a bi-product of intelligence or a quality in and of itself essential to the evolutionary progress.

Certainly, I have heard in a long ago history class that society does not have time for culture until it has dealt with the needs of survival and is able to store enough food stuffs and necessary items to carry it through seasons of low availability.  I suppose one could use that point to argue that creativity is just bi-product and creativity is not a separate necessary aspect of survival. For only after all needs are met can the people of a village find time to decorate the necessities of life with engravings, fabrics and color.  However, it seems to me and others that those abilities don’t just suddenly arrive unfostered out of the air.

Just coming up with the idea that increases production of necessary foodstuffs counters that theory.  For the idea of how to store product long enough to gain excess time to give over to less essential activities is proof of creativity.  Painting, carving, decorative weaving and embroidery are extensions of already necessary skills which means that creativity and its various supporting brain characteristics come part and parcel with all other thinking demands. 
creativity: lovely and necessary
The point of all this questioning over the location of creativity in the brain is to focus on the fact that we need all that our minds encompass to be strengthened.  Read, argue, examine, consider, connect, research, reach, etc.; do all brainy things that challenge and develop our thinking.  Creativity doesn’t recline among the brain cells eating chocolates; it searches, gathers and prances about.

Another study deals with the location and quantity of dopamine which apparently is the key chemical ingredient of creativity according to a variety of scientists.  But there are so many approaches to examining this key chemical and its interaction with the brain.  A study in Sweden linked dopamine D2 filtering in the thalamus to creativity based on the degree of filtering. Two groups have this feature (a greater number of unusual/unfiltered ideas could slide through): “highly creative healthy adults” and adults suffering from schizophrenia.  (The actual paper on this study is located at this site.)  I love the statement that this lower filtering could be described as “Thinking outside a less intact box.”  I had this image of my ideas looking out of a mesh at the active real world beyond (slightly ironic as we are talking about writing in the creative form, not reality), waiting in line to slip through and become part of a story, poem, etc. The assumption is that “highly creative healthy adults” know the difference between reality and a created world.


More studies: Yet a second study linked high concentrations of dopamine as a sign of high creativity.  They were tracking what parts of the brain have high concentrations.  Presumably creative people tended to have more areas of greater concentration.  Also a theory presented in Alice Flaherty’s study supports the idea that creativity occurred along these “dopamine pathways.” I suppose when combined with the previous study, one could say high concentrations encourage more “divergent” ideas which then were lightly filtered, providing more creativity to the individual.

Creativity does not have to worry about being a wall flower in the scientific study party.  I found numerous papers discussing all sorts of research on how it works, where it is and how to get it to be more active.  So I am stopping here on the various articles I read.  But if you wish, Google “dopamine and increasing creativity” or check out this link on a study of the writing mind.

So what are you doing to channel your creativity? How do you incorporate your whole brain?
Extra credit value: Herrmann also said that male and female brains go
about idea generating differently, so it is necessary that research groups have
both sexes present.  Hmm, so writers, here is yet another argument you
can use to encourage your spouse to participate in your writing as both
muse and criticizer.  
#creativity
#whole-brain
#writing

Creativity: Research your way to inspired writing

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Sometimes hitting the books (internet, encyclopedia, local expert) is the best way to galvanize creativity. Immerse yourself in something that interests you. The information may not become useful right away, but then an internal click will sound and that knowledge will have a place.

An unplanned immersion for me has been Alzheimer’s and Dementia. My father-in-law and my step-mother are quickly declining as these two age-generated illnesses take over and take from their lives. I wish I didn’t have to know how this is effecting these two lovely and important people in my life.  I wish I wasn’t learning how it will continue to progress, destroying who they are and who is important to them. I wish I was not aware of how my mother-in-law is trying everything she can to slow the loss of what makes her husband unique, even knowing it is snowballing, just infinitesimally slower than it would have had she not made the effort.  I wish that when I call my mom I don’t feel as if some stranger has answered the phone and I am trying to make a good impression. But all this new knowledge is attaching itself to a novel idea which came out of another area of unanticipated knowledge gain.

building creativity

My family is building a house completely by ourselves. And as I write this, my husband is laying Zip System sheeting on the roof rafters.  I have learned about digging a trench for the foundation, setting up concrete forms for that foundation, making everything square, rebar bending and placement, concrete pouring, stem wall bolts, window and door headers, floor and ceiling joists, window framing, and rafter tying. Those are just terms.  But I know how they fit together now, the many different types of nails and screws used, the back-cramping effort of smoothing quickly drying concrete, how to use wall jacks to raise long spans; it is more than I anticipated knowing when I joined my husband’s dream of building our own house for our retirement years (still far in the future).  I have become a champion hole digger, perfectly square, and I think holes can actually be described as beautiful; who’d have thought?

What I didn’t expect from these two forced gains in knowledge, experience and understanding (we might add torture, but I want to keep this positive) is that the two would link up and inspire me to write a contemporary novel.  I write science fiction, folks!

The moral of this story is use the knowledge you have gained in life and extend it through research, conversation and attention to the details around you. It will inspire you and take you to new areas of creativity and written expression. That’s after all what writers are all about, taking today (with all that came before) and turning it into words tomorrow.

What knowledge base has brought inspiration to you and found its way into your writing?  What interest could you pursue greater understanding of and use to provide specificity and inspiration to your writing?

#creativity
#writing
#research

Creativity: Multitasking the process

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Multitask the process of writing

Let’s face it, if you are working at a job that you enjoy and that also pays the bills and writing for publication in your free time, than multitasking is probably a necessary evil. I don’t advocate the idea of using up every moment for productive result at all times: cleaning house, writing, food preparation, outdoor maintenance, etc., leaving yourself without a moment to sit and relax, read a book, talk silly with someone, enjoy the view, and so on. But if you are in the same situation I and many other writers are, you are squeezing time out of anything not related to work and family.

You are multitasking for your craft during the precious moments you have garnered.

I have my own approach to this process.  When the opportunity to write is present, I do the following:

  • When I am writing a first draft, I focus all my creative energies on that work. For the most part, I won’t turn to any other writing until the draft is done.
  • If I am in redraft, everything changes.  (And you are going to see the paradox of this in relation to the first point.) That’s when I move about from work to work.
    • I redraft two ways: clarifying what is already written and adding scenes that expand and develop.
    • I plan out my next novel first with Freemind, brainstorming simple hints and ideas I have about plot and character. 
    • Next I break down each scene and enter them into yWriter for later development.
    • I edit the current work that I am preparing for publication.
    • If I have sent out a draft to my beta readers, than I jump into writing my next novel, but…
    • If at any time an idea or needed expansion scene comes to mind for the work that is out for feedback, I’ll drop what I am doing and return to that work.
    • I work on cover art, blurbs, make changes to social media backgrounds to reflect new or upcoming publications, and generally organize files.
    • I back up in two other drives (flash and external drives) everything I have going on.
    • If I am beta reading or editing for a writer friend, then I will give over a couple of weeks to that as they arrive.

 What does this look like in real time?  Let me show what last year looked like.

Real time (wish it had time travel button)
  1.  The book I was anticipating publishing had the working title Time 3. It was already drafted to the point that I needed my beta reader to look at it. She had sent me her newest work for beta read and I had just finished with that.  So I sent mine off to her in October.  (My year always starts in September, teacher and all that.)
  2. I then turned to the work that I had in first draft, Time 4, and began refining and adding scenes.  My beta reader anticipated getting her response back by November, but I had told her to take her time fitting it in to her drafting schedule and did not expect it back before December.
  3. Every now and then a flash of concern over a scene would come to mind for Time 3, and I would open it up, make some additions and then return to 4.
  4. December was just around the corner and my beta reader was expecting to get it to me by then. I asked her to delay as things were moving so well on Time 4 that I did not want the tug to redraft (damn near wrenching grasp) that would occur when her comments came back. So she held off sending while I wrote madly on Time 4. 
  5. January, I gave her the go ahead.  
  6. Worked with my beta buddy and husband to come up with a strong title for Time 3. (I now have titles for books I haven’t even thought of!)
  7. My mind was beginning to wander onto Time 5, already mapped in Freemind. I started making scene notes in yWriter.
  8. Time 4 was reaching a state of full draft and then I realized where I was ending it was not really the end. Back into mapping, and scene notes to plan out the new ending: Characters! Sometimes they yell, “Hey, we’re not done. What about….”  Mine were screaming and waving, and generally making irresistible sense.
  9. March, put Time 3 through another redraft per beta reader inspiration.
  10. April, working on the house and in strode contemporary novel idea.  Amazing what can come to you when you’re digging foundation holes for concrete.  Stopped work on Time 3 & 4 to begin mapping, character design and scene planning.
  11. Returned to Time 4.
  12. Still April, sent Time 3 off to a second beta reader.
  13. Returned to Time 4 to develop new ending.
  14. May, received Time 3’s new feedback.  And made adjustments to clear up issues.
  15. July put Time 3 through numerous edits: line, content, reverse, search and replace, formatting.
  16. Revised two book covers and updated various necessary sites. Designed cover art for Time 3 and Time 4. Prepared the blurb.
  17. Last day of July published Next Time We Meet (Time 3) on Smashwords and Amazon.
  18. In July, I received a novel to beta read.  I got to it in August. I took a couple weeks to read and draft comments on my friend’s book.
  19. August, returned to work on Time 4.
  20. Designed cover art for omnibus three book box set for all books currently published for the Students of Jump series (In Times Passed, No-time like the Present, Next Time We Meet.)
  21. Returned to preparing for the new school year.  I haven’t added to any of my ongoing projects since August 11.  Time 4 still has a patchwork ending.  My contemporary fiction idea is barely planned out, and Time 5 is looking a bit bleary eyed.
  22. So in the little bits of time that I have available, I am tweeting, reading, visiting Goodreads and Google+, and blogging.
  23. And since December 2013, my hubby, daughter and I have been building a house.  Roof is going on this month.
  24. But I managed to read three of the Divergent books, two YA books my daughter wanted me to read, all four of Jodi Taylor’s St. Mary’s books.  Another novel by Taylor.   Connie Willis’s Passage, and three other time travel books, both Patterson’s Heinlein biographies, and King’s On Writing.  So I do relax now and then (hmm, or do research depending on how you look at it). And I tweeted, blogged, found pics for Pinterest, commented….

And how do you run your never-take-a-moment-to-sit-down-and-do-nothing writing?

#writing
#creativity
#multitasking

Creativity: inspiration thru anticipation

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Overwhelmed by stuff, use anticipation to inspire.

Creativity is best when the appetite is wet.

I have already said that teaching encroaches on my writing time.  Remember the movie The Thing? That is the life of the English teacher: pursued by an engulfing pile of stuff.  The teaching thing just eats everything up.  So I need every trick in the book to take advantage of my writing opportunities.  My most often used technique is anticipation.

  •  Work taking over  your life and it’s been more than a month and you haven’t written creatively in weeks? What do I do?  I start with little self talks.  “Thanksgiving is just a few more weeks away.  Keep your grading up to date. Don’t overload the kids ’cause that just comes back and bites off another chunk of your time.  Keep it steady and high quality, but keep it under control so Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring Break, SUMMER! will all be yours.”
  • Weekly overload? I grade everything I can Friday night, having promised that Saturday will supply a slice of time for writing.  Then I am back on the grading, planning, prepping mode come Sunday, ready for Monday. Plug in any huge “thing” you want into the spot labeled “grade.”
  • It’s getting worse instead of better? When it is an especially hard year, which the last two have been due to changes in education objectives and focus, I can go nearly an entire school year without more than ten hours of personal writing time in ten months.  So those days of summer become a mantra of anticipatory excitement. 
  • Use all non-work time that can’t be given to writing time to brainstorm time. I use the moments when I can feasibly say I can’t grade, teach, plan, prep or do anything house related or family related to brainstorm and review scenes.  That means showers, the fifteen minutes before I fall asleep, putting on makeup and doing my hair, running on the treadmill, vacuuming, etc., are for thinking about what I am going to write when I get the chance. The idea is you have everything ready to go when the time to write finally comes.  You’re excited about writing because you know exactly what you are going to do. It will practically type itself.
  • Carry the image/scene/dialogue everywhere you go. Sure this may mean you never talk in the car when your partner is driving. They get over it. My husband has. I am quiet in the car whether its twenty minutes or two hours, but my mind is not. I am revolving the scene over and over looking for telling details, foreshadowing that can be slid in, characterization, and what else can be carried by the scene other than the original idea that set it off.

Next week: how to make multitasking your creativity work for you.

So how do you deal with the overwhelming activities you do to pay your bills and such to make room for writing?  Writers who write for a living are not allowed to respond.  You may smirk off in a  corner somewhere, quietly.

#creativity
#anticipation
#writing

Creativity: get it in capture mode

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Be ready to pounce on the writing moment.

So last week I blogged about how creativity can be dependent upon routine.  I do use this to a degree during the summer months, but I am just as likely to use the capture mode.

This is when you sit down to do one thing and inspiration hits.  It stops everything: “I have to write now” time. This happens to me fairly regularly. It is not that I have the kind of life that I can put things off any time I want to sit down and write. I don’t, far from it. But I have learned that when I feel the need to write, I better look around and see if I can arrange it without delay.

I teach English, probably one of the most planned, graded and time-consuming subjects to teach. I happen to enjoy teaching it, but it is a life eater. So if there is a moment free, the first thing I do is sit a quite moment and see if anything has been waiting to bubble up. There will be a rise of excitement in my chest, much like when I know there are only three more days before I am heading out on a long-awaited trip. I listen for a stream of dialogue running through my mind, look for an image rising out of the silence and words playing bumper cars between my ears.  Time to sit down and write.

This is capture mode. Grab it while the grabbing has a chance at nipping at the heels of a plot, post, character sketch, etc. I once stopped my husband mid-drive to a bicycle race to buy me a notebook and pencil. I needed to write that moment and had potentially hours of quiet writing time ahead of me between driving to the race and back over the mountains to and from Eugene’s Tandem Classic (the Burley Classic, I believe now defunct, and before you ask, this is before the invention of the laptop).  When the urge is there, take advantage of a ready mind.

This is writing on the run and has the likelihood of being intensely productive because the time could disappear at any moment, so there is no room for sharpening a row of pencils, finding the perfectly flat piece of paper or the cozy niche no one is likely to stumble into. You may have to sit in the stiff- backed wooden chair with the tippy corner; ignore the seat belt, blasting radio and kid kicking the back of your seat; lean against the wall, hair whipping in your face, paper leaping up where your fingers can’t stretch to hold it down while you write. Yup, you don’t even have time to hunt; just pounce and land on the scittering, scattering words, grab with straining claws, pull them to your chest, and start laying out one word at a time (though if any one knows of a way to simultaneous set out words in lumps I want to hear about it).

So that’s capture mode. What examples of capture mode have you experienced?  I’m sure you’ve had a few wild writing stories you could tell, so share them here.

Next creative post: building desire to write.

Feel free to follow me here, Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Pinterest. There are means to this end about this blog.

#creativity
#writing
#inspiration

Creativity: the routine of it can be inspiring

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Be ready to write

Creativity is such a personal experience.  No matter who we are, we search for it. A kid wants to say something funny to his buddies, a man needs a good line to catch the woman’s attention, a painter dreams of that perfect aesthetic impression on canvas, the computer programmer must revise for simplicity, clarity, reduced expense. Let’s not forget the writer who seeks a killer plot, equally killer characters and amazing killer dialogue, not to mention variety of diction. We are all in search of the creative moment and its reliable, reproducible inspiration.

Routine has long been tauted as the writer’s key to inspiration.  You know the drill:

  • write at the same time every day
  • create a space dedicated to writing
  • set yourself  up for the muse by having little routine steps: sharpen your pencil, restack your paper square, sort through your list of ideas, sit down and make your mind quiet, whatever
  • don’t tell anyone your idea until after it is down on paper
  • always leave your writing with a sense of urgency to write the next scene, or leave notes to pick up with next time you sit down
  • don’t stop until you have 1000 words down (or however many)
  • stop after 1000 words no matter what (That will certainly leave a sense of urgency to get back to the scene, unless of course you have been telling yourself, like a bonking runner, just 167 more words and I get to stop.)

Routine certainly has is good points. You know when, where, for how long, and how you are going to write, so there are no excuses. Bang you’re off and typing, scribbling, recording, etc.

It frees you up for inspiration to fly in or roll on.

When you are in your “place,” everyone knows to leave you alone.  That does not mean they will, just that they know.

And routine has other perks as well.

  • It’s already scheduled into your day, so work, kids, spouse, laundry, Twitter have already been factored in and can be controlled and worked around.  
  • Laundry can be done at the same time, brushing your teeth and showering can be brainstorming time, and you have an excuse not to watch that mind-numbing TV show everybody is talking about.
  • And when you are done, you can tell yourself, “I wrote today,” just as others might say, “I exercised before breakfast.” Be the first to pat yourself on the back.
  • It is scheduled into your “most creative work” time because you have worked out that you write best from 5 AM to 9 AM, or 10 PM to midnight, or etc.
  • And all those inspiring million-words-a-day gurus often provide very specific routines, and it works for them, why not you?

All very well, but this post was imagined just as I was starting up my school laptop to begin lesson planning for the new year. I had to shut the lid, send it into sleep mode and restart my personal laptop and begin this post I had scheduled into my day tomorrow.  Routine, I like it best when I can break it into a million pieces and around 500 words.

What is your routine or non-routine? Do you mix and match?

See me next week when I approach creativity in capture mode.  Don’t know what that is: see me next week, maybe I’ll know then, too.
#writing
#creativity
#routine