The Edit
Desperate hours, pen in hand,
Inspiration shifts like sand.
Ruthless, crafting perfect prose,
Revelation’s tendril grows.
Sifting, sorting, choosing—nay–
Some must go, but you shall stay.
The Edit, © Connie J. Jasperson, All Rights Reserved
#amwriting: avoiding #nanowrimo pitfall number 1
One thing we authors often do is forget to use contractions in dialogue. If you ever plan on publishing that manuscript, DON’T FALL INTO THAT TRAP!
In some ways, this habit is fostered by participating in NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Word count is king, and new authors are sometimes advised not to use contractions to get the all-important word count of 1667 words per day.
I don’t recommend that to the Wrimos in my region because I want their manuscripts to be worth reading, and crawling through a manuscript and inserting contractions in the second and third draft are daunting tasks, even with a sharp-eyed editor helping to spot them.
Dialogue that is too formal is awkward and unnatural to the reader.
“I shall not be attending the party. I have a previous engagement to go whale-watching.”
That’s a whole lot of awkward.
………………Long Live Dead Languages……………
While I might say something like that in a joking fashion to my sister or to a friend, in reality (and if I was writing dialogue) I would use contractions. I would also use what I personally think of as common phrasing. Fact–unless I work hard to change it, my written dialogue sounds like a Pacific Northwesterner, because that is who I am.
“Sorry, I can’t go to the party. I’m going whale-watching that day.”
When it comes to dialogue, your characters need to speak in expected ways. Remember, the reader’s eye is the “ear” through which they hear the dialogue. Nothing should stop the eye from moving on to the next sentence.
Feel free to break the rules of grammar if your character shows a blatant disregard for what’s correct. If on the first draft he wants to say, “I seen that movie last week. It were rubbish,” let him, at least on your first draft. You can tone it down on the second draft. This is a way to show you, the author, the description of your characters. On the second draft, have him say, “I seen it last week–it was rubbish.” It still gets the point across, but doesn’t stop the reader’s eye.
However, in regard to a main character, or a prominent secondary character, it’s usually best to avoid trying to convey accent by altering spelling. It’s difficult and tiresome to read an author’s attempt to convey a cockney or an Irish accent, so use colloquialisms and speech patterns instead.
Having said that, there are times when a slight accent is appropriate. If the character is making a MINOR appearance, using an accent and colloquialisms will give the reader feeling that they know that character, without resorting to an info dump.
Fancy synonyms for ‘said’ are usually unnecessary and distracting. And remember, people do not smile, snort or smirk dialogue. In fact, it is often best to do away with dialogue tags altogether, once you have established who is speaking though the visual cues
Sometimes, instead of using dialogue tags, miss a few “beats.” In script-writing, beats are little bits of physical action inserted into dialogue: John put the book down and looked out the window. Sarah turned and walked to the door. Used sparingly, they serve to punctuate the dialogue, to give the scene movement, and to maintain a strong mental picture in the absence of description. They are often best placed where there is a natural break in the dialogue, as they allow the reader to experience the same pause as the characters.
Beats are an effective tool and are essential to good dialogue, but don’t overdo it. If your characters are fluttering their eyelashes, gazing into the distance or opening their laptops between every second line of conversation, the scene becomes about the action and not the dialogue, and the impact is diluted or lost entirely.
And finally, don’t get too creative with dialogue tags. Stick to ‘John said.’ Unless you absolutely need a John screamed or a Elizabeth uttered or a Joan retorted (which you pretty much never do) just say it and let the reader’s imagination do the rest.
Filed under Publishing, Uncategorized, writing
#amwriting: #NaNoWriMo–let the madness begin!
Google images, via http://www.writingchimp.com
Every November I participate in National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. Around our house it is also referred to as “National Pot Pie Month,” an homage to my culinary efforts during November.
For the last four years I have been the Municipal Liaison for the Olympia, Washington Region. This year indie author Lee French agreed to be a co-ML with me, which really takes the pressure off in regard to small ML duties. We have 165 active novelists and are gaining new wrimos all the time.
At 12:01 am on Sunday November 1st, I met with 9 authors at Shari’s Restaurant (open 24 hours) and we worked for three hours, getting our first day’s word count written and uploaded to the national site. Then we went home and wrote some more.
2015 nano calendars via tumblr.com
It is true that the primary goal of participating in NaNoWriMo is to produce a 50,000 word novel in the space of 30 days. That sounds crazy but it can be done–I do it every year. The first draft of Huw the Bard was written from start to finish during November of 2011 as my nano-novel that year. Mountains of the Moon was written in 2012, and published 2015.
HOWEVER: I spent the month of October 2011 outlining the novel. After the first draft was completed, I spent the next three years getting HTB ready for publication, rewriting it through 3 more drafts, having it edited professionally, and finally it was published in March of 2014.
Many people use the concept of NaNoWriMo to jump-start their noveling career, but there are just as many who spend the month of November writing family histories or memoirs, writing daily blog posts, writing essays, or even working on their dissertations. I know two people who write screenplays during November.
The month of November is when we celebrate the act of creative writing, and encourage every person with an inner author to let that creative energy flow.
This year, I am working on a series of mixed genre short-short stories that will be written in the month of November 2015 during National Novel Writing Month.
My intention is to write one tale a day, or two or three longer tales a week, many of them set in a Medieval village, but some set in the fantastic future. Robots, Spaceships, Dragons, Fairies, even Mad Scientists and Crazed Wizards–all will be fair game.
For me, writing the first draft of a novel is only the beginning. Once that is out of the way, the real work begins–making it fit for others to read, getting it through the editing process with a professional editor, these are tough but necessary steps. I don’t rush the revisions. I have nothing to lose by taking the time to do it right. Right now, I have three books on the back burner in various stages of dismemberment, and in December I will return to getting them through that process.
This year there will be no novel in the traditional sense, but hopefully a LOT of short stories will emerge from my fevered mind, things I can use for contests and submissions to magazines and anthologies.
Filed under Uncategorized
#Fairytales: Myth and the Power of the Allegory
When we were children we craved stories. We begged, “Mama, read me a story,” or “Grandma, tell me story.” Many times those stories were fairy-tales, tales of good and evil, magic, and heroic deeds succeeding against all odds.
And they were sometimes tales of failure—after all, in the tale of Little Red Riding Hood, Grandma was eaten by the wolf, and had to be rescued by the woodsman.
They were allegories—fictional stories that represent spiritual truths.
My generation learned about the world and the evil that lurks in unknown through those dreadful, violent, sexist, amazingly wonderful fairytales.
These tales were, for the most part, written when the world was a far different place, and men and women had clearly defined roles, and abuse was an accepted, fundamental aspect of daily life.
In Europe women were property. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that this was the way it should be, and as property, they were to be protected and rescued as may be needed. It was a time of hunger and famine—the Little Ice Age had descended upon the northern hemisphere, crops frequently failed and disease was rampant.
There was a great deal to fear out there, and it was important to protect what was yours.
From Childhood’s Favorites and Fairy Stories, Project Gutenberg
Once you understand the historical context of the times these tales were written, you understand why a prince who must prove his worth should be required to perform heroic deeds to gain the hand of a princess who is a valuable prize worth risking his life for.
You are not required to approve of the misogyny and misandry that is represented in the surface story—only to understand that society has vastly evolved over the last thousand years, and these tales are proof of that evolution. That is only the over-story—the structure that carries the real underlying truths about good and evil, truth and lies.
That deeper part of the story is called an allegory—something that only becomes apparent on further observation by the reader.
The tales I grew up on, that were such scary and yet entertaining stories were written originally during at time when:
- Tales were always told in such a way that the listener was not so much immersed in them as they were viewing them. They were told in a passive voice. This made them slightly less scary, because you knew it was just a story.
- Tales always employed symbolism—using objects to represent ideas such as love and honor, and personification—using talking animals and caricatures of people to represent ideas.
- Tales were always about morality, right and wrong, good and evil.
- The plot was simple—the hero and villain had only one goal to achieve, and would risk everything for that goal.
- Each character represented one major characteristic: love, honor, loyalty, fury, jealousy, or even lust for power.
Discrimination of either sex aside, there is a deep message in these tales. Folk and fairy tales remain the foundations of our storytelling society because while they are simple on the surface, when you examine them in a spiritual sense you can see the deeper meanings—the allegories.
Batman–Pencils by Jim Lee and inks by Scott Williams (2002) via Wikipedia
The most memorable fairytales are simple stories that everyone knows is only a fable, but is one everyone has read or heard. We remember them because of the hard kernel of truth that lies encapsulated within the entertainment of seeing the ugly duckling become the beautiful swan, or beast become a good man through the power of love.
Everyone loves a happy ending. When times are hard and it seems like the wolf is at the door, we need to know that better times lie ahead, to think that perhaps this time Grandma will eat the wolf.
We learn the power of hope and perseverance through fairytales and fables—we learn that if a person just keeps trying, the underdog can win the day.
It is that yearning for the power of good to defeat the minions of evil that powers our most iconic of modern myths—the modern superhero.
This article by Connie J. Jasperson was first published July 15, 2015 on Edgewise Words Inn, Alternate Realities and Food for Thought, a meeting place for readers and authors.
Filed under Fantasy, Uncategorized, writing
#amreading: Mad Science Institute, by Sechin Tower
I have been catching up on my long-put off reading, starting with a book by fellow Northwest indie author Sechin Tower, Mad Science Institute . I had a great time reading this particular YA novel. But first, The Blurb:
Sophia “Soap” Lazarcheck is a girl genius with a knack for making robots—and for making robots explode. After her talents earn her admission into a secretive university institute, she is swiftly drawn into a conspiracy more than a century in the making. Meanwhile and without her knowledge, her cousin Dean wages a two-fisted war of vengeance against a villainous genius and his unwashed minions. Separately, the cousins must pit themselves against murderous thugs, experimental weaponry, lizard monsters, and a nefarious doomsday device. When their paths finally meet up, they will need to risk everything to prevent a mysterious technology from bringing civilization to a sudden and very messy end.
My Opinion: This book totally lives up to it’s promise. Soap is a great character, and so is Dean. She is a little too adventurous in the laboratory, and things sometimes go awry. The story opens with her, and immediately shifts to Dean’s story, but shifts back again.
Dean is older, is a firefighter who loves his work, and has relationship issues, which launch him into the thick of things.
Soap is a feisty girl, who is launched into a series of immersive adventures. She’s a bit testy and awkward when it comes to interpersonal relationships.
The author, Sechin Tower, is a teacher in his real life, and I think he must be pretty awesome in the classroom, because the story contains a lot of historical information imparted in regard to Nicola Tesla and his scientific legacy, presented in such an entertaining way the reader doesn’t realize they’re learning.
All in all, I have three grandkids who would really enjoy this book–and Santa will be obliging this year!
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Filed under Books, Humor, Uncategorized
#amwriting: creating religion within the context of the tale
Assunta, by Titian, 1516-1518, via Wikimedia Commons
One thing we fantasy authors must occasionally deal with is developing religions within the context of the tale.
Most of what we will discuss here won’t actually make it into the written pages of your tale, but if you don’t have a good understanding of what you are writing about, you will inadvertently introduce discrepancies into your tale.
First, ask yourself “why does this religion matter?” If it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t belong in your tale.
However, when you have a heavenly power-struggle, you have some intriguing opportunities for mayhem.
Are there many gods and goddesses? What is their relationship with each other and how does it play into your story?
If you choose to create a religion as a key plot point, here are some questions to ask:
- How central to the life of the protagonist or antagonist is religion? Is the protagonist a member of the priestly class, perhaps a priestess or priest of a particular god or goddess?
- What does the protagonist gain from following this deity?
- How jealous is this deity?
- What is the protagonist/antagonist willing to do for their faith? Will they die for their deity or is it a more abstract religion?
- The priesthood—who can join?
- Can only the nobility rise in the priesthood, or can anyone with the ability to learn gain power within the organization?
- How do the nobility and the priestly class get along? Do they have a good accord or are they jostling for power?
- And within that religious organization, who has the most power?
- What does that person do with their power?
How important is your religion politically? In Rome, the church was central to their government, in some cases having more power than the ruling nobility. During the Middle Ages, Rome slowly fell under the political control of the Papacy, which had settled in the city since the 1st century AD. In the 8th century, Rome became the capital of the Papal States, which lasted until 1870.
You don’t have to re-invent the wheel here–history is full of great ideas to draw upon.
Painting by John Collier, “A glass of wine with Caesar Borgia” via Wikimedia Commons
Consider the Borgias–Wikipedia, the fount of all knowledge says this about them: Especially during the reign of Alexander VI, they were suspected of many crimes, including adultery, incest, simony, theft, bribery, and murder (especially murder by arsenic poisoning). Because of their grasping for power, they made enemies of the Medici, the Sforza, and the Dominican friar Savonarola, among others. They were also patrons of the arts who contributed to the Renaissance.
See? Even George R.R. Martin knows that the renaissance offers great opportunity for good plot twists in your fantasy project.
Now let’s examine the political environments of the medieval city-states of Venice, Milan, Florence, Genoa, Pisa, Siena, Lucca, and Cremona. Rodney Stark, an American sociologist of religion, proposes that the city-state was a ‘marriage of responsive government, Christianity, and the birth of capitalism’ as we know it. He argues that these states were mostly republics, unlike the great European monarchies of France and Spain, where absolute power was vested in rulers who could and did stifle commerce.
It has been suggested (in Wikipedia, the fount of all knowledge) that by keeping both direct Church control and imperial power at arm’s length, the independent city republics of medieval Italy prospered because their commerce was based on early capitalist principles. The church was still involved in their daily lives, but this slight, deliberate separation of church and state ultimately created the societal conditions that brought about the artistic and intellectual flowering of the renaissance.
And for you, the author, understanding the commerce and economics of your fantasy society is extremely important, so that inconsistencies don’t get introduced. The reader won’t care, and doesn’t want the background info, but you need to know it.
If your protagonists are poor, why are they poor? Is poverty widespread, or is it only the one family? Where is all the money–is it in the hands of the church or is it in the hands of the middle-class? If it’s in the hands of the church–you’ve a good plot-point to work with.
Thus if religion of some sort is an integral part of your work, you as the author must have a good knowledge of what the influence of that institution is, the structure of the priesthood, the power they wield in society at large, how (or if) they control the economy, and how this organization is viewed by the ordinary citizen.
St. George and the Dragon, Raphael via Wikimedia Commons
Many authors avoid this altogether, by having only a vague mention of religion, simply mentioning a connection with a particular deity as the reason for the ability to use and control magic.
Others make religion and opposing religions the foundation of their works. How you handle religion in your manuscript is up to you, but if you make it a central part of your tale, I suggest you create a document in which you establish the basics of your religion(s) clearly. Update it as the rules evolve, which they certainly will do over the first two drafts of your novel. During your writing process, refer back to this document regularly.
The reader doesn’t care about those details, and will put the book down if they are included. But if you don’t know what you are writing about, can’t remember what you wrote three chapter ago, and contradict yourself too often, your reader will lose the ability to suspend his disbelief.
Keeping the reader immersed in the tale, forgetting that it is only a fiction is the primary goal every author wants to achieve.
Filed under Fantasy, Publishing, Uncategorized, writing
#flashficfriday: TED (a drabble)
large dragon courtesy http://www.wallpaperfreehd.com
Drabbles are little short stories of 100 words in length, and writing them is good exercise.
Each time you write a drabble, you create possibilities that could evolve into larger stories. In 2013 I participated in a challenge to write a drabble every day for the month of May. The original prompt went as follows:
Write A 100 Word Story (“Drabble”) . . . although a 100 word story will probably take longer than expected, it can be done in a manageable amount of time.
To make a drabble work,
-Choose one or two characters
-Take one single moment/action/choice and show us how it unfolds
-Give one or two vibrant details in as few words as possible
-Hint at how this moment/action/choice is more significant than the characters probably realize in the moment
Here is my first drabble, written May 1st, 2013:
TED
Edna stirred her coffee and looked out the window toward the shed.
“Did you feed the chickens?” Marion always asked, despite knowing Edna had.
Edna tore her gaze from the shed. “Of course.” Her eyes turned back to the small building. “We won’t be able to keep him in there much longer. He’s growing too big. We should have a barn built for him.”
“Ted was always a greedy boy.” Marion stirred her coffee. “I warned him he behaved like a beast, and now look.”
A rumbling bellow shook the shed. A long green tail snaked out of the door.
>><<<
I love that scene. I keep wondering about the two ladies, and also Ted. Who is he in relation to them, who are they in relation to each other, and what is their life like, apart from the secret in the shed?
Ted will become a longer short story in November, as part of my NaNoWriMo project. I will be writing a book of short stories this year, as I need to build my repertoire. I hope to have fifteen or twenty new short tales of 2000 to 5000 words in length by November 30.
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Filed under #FlashFictionFriday, Humor, Literature, Uncategorized, writing
#epilepsy: Life in the Fast Lane
Albert Bierstadt – Autumn Landscape PD|100 via Wikimedia Commons
We have two adult children with epilepsy. Both were adults when they had their first seizures, with no prior warning signs.
Our daughter’s first serious seizure was at the age of 29. She has only been hospitalized once with serious injuries, and her medication controls her seizures well. She doesn’t like that she has it, but it doesn’t rule her life, and only rarely causes her trouble.
For our son, it hasn’t been that easy. He was 32 when he began having seizures. He has had more difficulty with his, both in accepting it and in getting it under control. Since the first major seizure, he has woken up in the hospital with serious injuries many times, not knowing how he got there.
Two weeks ago, our son had a breakthrough seizure and fell in a concrete parking lot, fracturing his skull. He had a severe concussion, an epidural hematoma, and lost a liter of blood.
This son is a software engineer and an entrepreneur. He was employed by Amazon for ten years, and was well compensated during his tenure there. He had just started his own company, writing software. He was completely focused on this, and was working 12 to 16 hour days, and getting little sleep, which is very bad for him.
But being who he is, he didn’t realize he was courting disaster.
We live two hours south of where this son lives. We got the phone call at 4:30 pm and threw our clothes into suitcases. Running out the door, we called a hotel near the hospital, and made the nerve-wracking trip up Interstate 5 to Redmond, Washington.
During the harrowing journey north, we discussed his possible long-term care, wondering how he could survive such a terrible injury with his intellect intact, wondering how we could care for him if his motor skills were too severely compromised.
But in a four-hour surgery, a wonderful neurosurgeon not only saved his life, but saved his quality of life. He emerged from the experience with no brain damage, and no loss of motor skills.
Our son’s head-injury was the same sort of thing that killed actors Ben Woolf and Natasha Richardson. When you look at the way head head-injuries can kill otherwise healthy people, our son’s recovery is a miracle for which we are grateful.
Something intriguing happened with this incident. Our son has embraced life in a way he never has before. He woke up from the surgery in an incredibly different frame of mind.
Instead of wondering why this wretched condition has happened to him and focusing on the negativity of his situation, he is now looking at his life and appreciating it in a way he had not really done before.
When he left the hospital this time, his epilepsy was just something he has to deal with sometimes, and the rest of the time his life is good. His spirits are high and his recovery has been nothing short of miraculous.
If you couldn’t see the large wound on his head and the long, curving line of stitches, reminiscent of a baseball seam in the way the long scar curves around his temple, you would never know he had undergone brain surgery only 12 days ago.
He is full of energy and ambition, and though he does tire easily, he will soon be back on track and moving forward with his current project which he intends to have on the market before January.
Sometimes, we find ourselves going for a spin in the blender of life. We never know what will happen next, and we have no control over how life affects us. But through all of this, the community of our friends supported us, and faith carried us through the dark hours when we didn’t know what his future would be.
There is so much worse out there–things that make this epilepsy thing pale in comparison. We are praying for a dear friend in Australia whose young daughter is fighting for her life, dealing with terrible complications of flu-b, necrotizing myositis. Her prognosis is grave, and I know her parents are living in that land of fear and disbelief that I lived in for 24 hours.
We are supporting another friend here in the US, who is undergoing yet another surgery for kidney stones. What we have been through was scary, no doubt about it, but thanks to a wonderful neurosurgeon, it was nothing in the face of these ongoing life and death battles.
Epilepsy is a bitch, but it doesn’t have to rule our lives. Seizure incidents are inconvenient, and yes, we know they will occur when we least expect them. They can and will have a seriously negative impact on us. We know that the next time may not have such a good outcome but we can’t let fear ruin the joy and beauty that we have today.
The real news is not that our children have epilepsy–it is what happens the rest of the time.
We have five adult children with great careers and bright futures, two of whom also happen to have epilepsy.
Filed under Epilepsy, Humor, Uncategorized, writing
#amwriting: getting the word out
You have finished your book. It has been professionally edited and proofed. You hired an expensive cover designer to make the perfect cover that is both professional and eye-catching. You’ve done all the important things at Amazon and Goodreads, making author pages at both places.
You made a professional Facebook page, you are blogging once a week, you’ve joined twitter and use TweetDeck or Hootsuite to schedule tweets, and check it every day and sometimes retweet interesting things for other folks you are following. You’ve even joined Pinterest and Instagram.
This all good, but even so, after the first rush, sales have dwindled off, and now you are at a loss of what to do to increase the visibility of your work.
Some folks join mutual promotion groups on Facebook. I have found them to be more aggravating than helpful as I get spammed by the same two authors daily–they are nice people, but they have no sense of how irritating that is. People on Facebook lose interest when they see the same books all the time.
Also, I have found the “99 cent boost groups” to be not as beneficial in the long-run as they promote themselves to be.
I’ve not figured out the magic key to gaining traction rapidly, but I do know that my Goodreads ad pays off in terms of sales, as when I receive more clicks on the ad, I sell more of those books.
Writing short stories and publishing my work gets my name out there, and each time I publish a chapter of the Bleakbourne on Heath series, on Edgewise Words Inn, I see a jump in sales. From what I can see, the only way to get your author name out there is to publish your work.
Shaun Allan has had great success getting his name out via WattPad, as has Paul Coelho. Yes, you are giving your work away, but it introduces YOUR work to potential readers who will buy your other work–and these two authors’ sales are excellent.
Asking other authors to promote your work is not really a good idea, because they have their own work to promote, and your agenda doesn’t always mesh with theirs.
If you have been out in the indie world for any length of time, you may have observed this scenario: Author A, charming and talented Facebook friend, asks Author B to be a part of their personal fan-club, working to get Author A more recognition. Author B does not have time for that–he is trying to get his own name out there. The author who was ‘recruited’ is shocked, and saddened that a friend has so little understanding and such a lack of respect for his work that she would expect that of him, but he doesn’t want to be unfriendly and thinks “well, maybe it’s only this once.”
But it’s not only the once. It’s a never-ending stream of “push my book, push my book.”
When he realizes he is being used as her personal assistant and free publicity agent, he refuses, as he feels that she has no respect for him as an author. She has a temperamental fit and unfriends him. He warns his other friends to beware of that author. While her rudeness may have been unintentional, it was a bit of an eye-opener to those who know her casually, a clue about her true character.
I’ve seen that scenario unfold several times–sometimes talented people are supremely egotistical and only associate with others if they will gain something from that association. Once they have achieved what they wanted, they have no further use for their ‘friend’ and quickly move on to more important pastures.
I try to stay away from toxic professional relationships, and believe me, the opportunities for that are plentiful in many author groups. When I like another author’s work, I would love to see that author succeed. If we are friends and they need a signal boost for a new book or an event, I will gladly tweet and perhaps mention what I like about their work on my blog. I will even mention that they are having an event, and will be signing books.
But I will not be their private publicity agent.
So even though you desperately want to increase your visibility and sales, you have to be careful how you go about it. For indies, this is the sort of thing that has to flow two ways–Author A must support Author B as much as he/she expects Author B to support him/her. Boosting the signal is a real bonus, and if a friend does this for you it should be reciprocated.
So do yourself a favor: post short stories on WattPad, and keep submitting to magazines and anthologies. Success is rarely an overnight thing–it is the culmination of the long hours and efforts you put into it.
Read METAMORPHOSIS on WattPad.
Filed under Publishing, Uncategorized, writing
#MindWandering: The Power of Downtime
Daydreaming…wasting time…selfish indulgence, or fountain of creativity?
WebMD says, quote: “Daydreaming is looked upon negatively because it represents ‘non-doing’ in a society that emphasizes productivity,” says John McGrail, a clinical hypnotherapist in Los Angeles. “We are under constant pressure to do, achieve, produce, succeed.”
Wikipedia, the fount of all knowledge, describes Daydreaming as “a short-term detachment from one’s immediate surroundings, during which a person’s contact with reality is blurred and partially substituted by a visionary fantasy, especially one of happy, pleasant thoughts, hopes or ambitions, imagined as coming to pass, and experienced while awake.”
Apparently we daydream less as we get older. I wonder, is this nature, or nurture?
What really happens when we allow ourselves to just sit and think about nothing in particular? What happens on a neurological level when we let our minds off the leash, to run free and unencumbered?
One interesting fact is that apparently, if we daydream about the past, we tend to forget what we were doing before the daydream started. This happens to me all the time.
But most people don’t ponder the past. “Daydreaming is often about anticipating the future, especially in a fantasy context,” noted Peter Delaney, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, in the July 3, 2013 issue of National Geographic.
And according to the Daily Mail, Prof. Moshe Bar, of the Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, said, “Over the last 15 or 20 years, scientists have shown that – unlike the localized neural activity associated with specific tasks – mind wandering involves the activation of a gigantic default network involving many parts of the brain.”
Also, I have just learned that daydreaming turns off parts of your brain. It’s true–our brain has an analytic part that helps us make reasoned decisions, and an empathetic part that allows us to relate to others. Researchers have discovered that when you are daydreaming, your mind naturally cycles through the different modes of thinking, analytic and empathetic. Apparently, during this time the analytic and empathetic parts of your brain tend to turn each other off.
Another intriguing thing I have only just found out is that the physiology of the brain itself, and not the “mind” controls our daydreams. Anthony Jack, a cognitive scientist at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio says, “How we daydream and think depends on the brain’s structure. …(That) structure is constantly changing in small ways—as we learn new things the connections between nerve cells change.” (Read “Beyond the Brain” in National Geographic magazine.)
We have long known that creative people are often guilty of daydreaming, but researchers have shown that daydreaming makes you more creative.
“Many times the ‘dialogue’ that occurs when the daydreaming mind cycles through different parts of the brain accesses information that was dormant or out of reach,” notes Eugenio M. Rothe, a psychiatrist at Florida International University. “Likewise, the daydreaming mind may make an association between bits of information that the person had never considered in that particular way.”
According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a wandering mind can impart a distinct cognitive advantage.
This means that daydreaming is actually good for you. It boosts the brain, making our thought process more effective. Apparently letting the mind wander allows a kind of ‘default neural network’ to engage when our brain is at wakeful rest, as in meditation, rather than actively focused on the outside world. When we daydream, our brain is freed up to process tasks more effectively.
This is good to know, because as an author I spend an astounding amount of time daydreaming, and I would hate to be simply wasting time!
(This post was first published September 15, 2015 on Edgewise Words Inn)
Filed under Publishing, Uncategorized, writer
Life in the Realm of Fantasy 