Dealing with a Chaotic Brain
Welcome to National Novel Writing Month!Now… go write.
I’m kidding. Sort of.
I’ve never managed NaNoWriMo because of my chaotic brain. I’m an instinct writer, and that means my brain looks like its been ransacked by a tornado. Yet I still write, and I still manage to get things completed.
The secret?
I write what I want to and where I want to in the story. It doesn’t matter where the scene is, if its banging around in my head it gets written down. I’ll sort it out later.
Honestly - I get more books that way. The process is chaotic, and recently I’ve discovered one of my novels is actually two novels. Whoops? Maybe? But not really - that just makes the series larger.
How to Harness Your Chaotic Brain
1. You don’t.
2. You let your brain go write what it wants to write.
3. Don’t analyze it. Don’t question it. Don’t judge it.
There is one caveat to this…
When we focus on something it gets bigger. This can be good if you’re writing a novel. However, this can cause massive problems if this is something you’re afraid of or a mental health issue.In the past several years there’s been a lot of fear going around the world. And while fear of any type or thing is a legitimate body response - focusing on it when you don’t need to wears down your body.So we need to do something empowering to put our fears in their place. For writers, that looks like turning them into fictional victories.How does this help in the real world?I was chatting with a retired police officer (and writer!!! Check out his work here: Sig Swanstrom) who taught me that when we run through scenarios in our brains about what we’re going to do in order to triumph over dangerous situations - we teach our brains and our bodies that we can win. That we can be victorious over our fears.
Now this doesn’t warrant an obsessive repeated scenario which consumes your every waking thought - but getting up out of your chair and shadow boxing invisible villains into the dust - that’s training your brain and your characters to win.
And anyone who reads your work in the future - gets that training too.
Pass on the victory.
Let your chaotic brain work for you.
Your stories are amazing!
Chronic Writer
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