The divide between reason and emotion, and how it has impacted my creativity, that is, my writing. I write speculative fiction. My SciFi tends to be more science fantasy than Science fiction because I’m always trying to skirt around certain laws of space and time that in today’s science are inescapable. Here is where the divide between reason (scientific facts) and emotion (my trying to skirt about the laws of astrophysics) comes in. From being a regular viewer of the Science Channel’s How the Universe Works every Monday evening to collecting a year’s worth of Scientific American, I have garnered a little scientific knowledge, and you know what they say about a little knowledge. How can I bend those laws without breaking them? One way I do it is to either set my story thousands of years in the future, or have a civilization so advanced that they’ve found ways around those seemingly unbreakable laws of physics. There are some ways, for example, of breaking the universal speed law, i.e. the speed of light. There is a particle that goes faster than the speed of light. They discovered that in the CERN particle accelerator in Switzerland. Now to harness that and build an engine around it.
Next there are the mechanics of writing (reason), and expressing my characters' emotions in any given scene. I use the mechanics of putting one word in front of another, plus what I know about psychology (reason) to express my characters’ feelings. Sometimes, and especially if I want to spice things up with some drama, I can get them into a real dust up. What fun! If you haven’t guessed by now, I am what used to be called a pantster, but which I prefer to be called a discovery writer, that is, I discover the story as I go along writing. I’ve tried to outline, honestly I have, but it just makes me want to dig in and write the story.
That’s another way in which the divide between reason (or as Spock would say, “logic”) and emotion has impacted my writing. The Reason or Logic part of my mind says “Outline. Plot everything out. Know what your character is going to do before s/he does it.” But the Emotion or passionate part of my mind says “Write it! Never mind the outline or those other silly sheets of paper! Tell the story! Get it all down before you forget it!”
What I know about brain science is that my emotions are chemical reactions, combined with 1.5 volts of electrical charge, come together to form an idea. I am left-handed, so the halves of my brain are reversed, so that the logical, language-based, sequential side of my brain is the right side, while the creative holistic part of my brain is the left side, where most people’s logic centers are. Truly is it said that we southpaws are the only ones in our right minds. The right side likes to get everything, all my thoughts organized in some logical rational way. The left side, highly influenced by my emotions, just wants to go for it.
What I’m waiting on now are the edits to Takuhi’s Nightmare and Takuhi’s Daydream so we can get the trilogy released soon. Be looking for it on your favorite platform. Whatever news I have on it you will be the next to know. See you next week!
Rita
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