writing without thinking?

Current tuneage: Move Along - The All-American Rejects

So, I was reading two interesting articles last night. They actually have quite a bit to do with one another.

The first talked about the left and right sides of the brain and how writers actually need to utilize both sides in order to sucessfully write. By "successfully" I don't mean they are able to finish something, I mean that what they've written is good because they've written it both creatively and logically. By using both parts of the brain, the writer is able to plan out where the story is going through either outlining or freewriting (logically) and also come up with a creative story (obviously creative). For a long time, I thought it was necessary to shut off the part of my brain that told me that logically what I was writing didn't make sense - the inner critic. But as it turns out, the inner critic (as long as you don't let her take over) is incredibly useful during the writing process.

The second article discussed the need for writers to write unconsciously. This particular author compared it to Alice's little adventure down the rabbit hole. It is only when a writer is able to detach himself from the act of writing that he/she will actually be able to accomplish great writing. As I was discussing above, the inner critic is often what causes writers to pause in what they're writing, even if they're on a roll. They stop and reread what they've written, critique it, change it, rewrite it, or maybe even get frustrated and stop altogether. Part of this idea of allowing yourself to "fall down the rabbit hole" is really just letting yourself write without thinking. It's only when you later read what you wrote and realize that you don't actually remember writing it that you've successfully allowed your subconcious to take over writing.

During my writing slots today, I'm going to try and employ both of these ideas and see where it gets me. As always, some days are harder than others to even make myself write, but hopefully with the excitement of trying out a new idea, I'll get quite a bit done.

More tomorrow!