a cure for writer's block

Left and right brain- we know what they mean even if the scientists can’t agree. Left brain is kind of dry and schematic and full of ‘makes sense’ ideas. Right is weirder and woolier and engages feelings and memories and though you can’t quite say why something works it just does.

As a writer I have left brain story ideas and right brain ideas. I have left and right brain days too. I tend to favour my left brain ideas because they ‘make sense’. But the well soon runs dry and my writing becomes ‘thin’. Thin writing is always bad.

You have to shift the gunsight into the right brain zone. Right brain is where the real gold is, the great writing- always. Keep moving that sight, trolley it around, until you start getting the feeling of being ‘full’ of images, sensations, feelings, colours, the smell of it. That ‘full’ feeling will result in good writing.

How do you know when you’re getting warmer? Because instead of a ‘plot’ or a ‘story’, you have happened upon a name you just kind of like the sound of, or you have something right in your face all of a sudden, not just a visual but more, or you have some character you suddenly love…or hate.

When you start the day find something in the rough plot zone that excites you- and it can be anything- today it was for me the memory of a girl I once saw in Tokyo wearing a white plastic dress- it was enough to get started- I got 2000 words done after I had swivelled the gunsight around to focus on it. Feel yourself ‘filling up’. Then get to it. Shift into the rightbrain zone.

Good writing, as William Burroughs rightly observed, happens when your nose is right on the back tyre as it’s turning.