The 3-Fold Path to Writing

When the left brain writes without the right brain, the result has no value.  Nothing new gets said.  When the right brain writes without the left brain, the result has no value.  It is too disorganized to say anything intelligible to the reader.  You need both.  Unfortunately, neither side likes working with the other.  That is where YOU come in. 

You must be the horizon that both connects and separates the two.

Psychology has talked about this trinity. So have some religions.  They give it different names.  Freud called it id, superego, and ego.  The id is impulsive and childish, full of life energy but no control.  The superego is all about control, and following rules, but has no humor, no compassion, no creativity.  The ego is the self that negotiates the world, reining in the id without crushing it and softening the superego while honoring its sense of duty. 

I like the image on the Tarot card called The Chariot.  The most common image shows a person standing in a chariot pulled by two sphinxes (sometimes they are horses): one black and one white.  The charioteer holds the reins loosely if at all.  Whether the two beasts are resting or running, they are perfectly balanced. 

How does this work in writing?  The left brain likes things to be tidy, to be the same every time.  This allows it to process information faster and faster, and it feels very pleased with itself. Anything unexpected or unusual confuses it. It doesn’t like to wait until the creative right brain can figure things out.  So the left brain will want you skip over any idea or demand that would need input from the right.  It does this by writing the first thing that comes to mind and moving on as quickly as possible.  The result is boring and the reader’s right brain stays asleep. It the left brain then becomes stuck and can’t think of what to write, it yells over to the right brain for help, but gets no answer.  Why would the creative genius that is the right brain care to help the disrespectful bullying of an unappreciative left brain? The left brain, getting no answer, swears the right brain is lazy and finishes the writing however it can just to get it done.  Then, when the result is weak, it says, “I can’t write” and it has a tidy excuse for its bad performance.

And that statement is true.  The left brain can’t write.  Nor can the right brain. Only YOU can write. And it is you who must remember that when the right brain is asleep, it is not lazy.  It is Snow White and the poison apple is boredom.  To wake it up, you must be more than the mirror of your two brains: the jealous queen and the innocent child.  You must become the king, who is missing from this fairy tale.  The absent king allows the mischief to happen.

The king’s job, like that of the charioteer in the tarot card,  is to guide his people onto the right path.  To pull the load evenly.