Right Brain Vs Left

[lettered]

Sometimes I think I am very technical minded. When I read, I pull everything apart into a million pieces. I deconstruct the elegance of the equation by hammering it down into raw numbers. Writers I interact with, some of you reading this perhaps, say to me, "Oh, such clever reading! I never even notice those things were there!" That is because you are creative; I am technical. You give life, while I--I don't take it away, of course. I merely dissect it after it's dead (maybe ideas die when they spew into words, onto the page. Or maybe they don't die until I read them. [Maybe that cat in the box is dead; maybe it is alive. Maybe it is both until you open the box.]). This is a very clinical job of mine that requires no power and quite a bit of cleverness. I am like a scientist, a mortician. I am very business-oriented; I host a funeral parlor.

When I write, I do not give life; I merely do the opposite of undertaking. I add up numbers on my machine. I assemble parts; I fit them together, jig-saw style. I put a lot of things in there, I feed them into the black box that you see, but I can rarely say to you, "I never even notice those things were there!" because I put them there. I am very intentional; I am filled with purpose. This may be a form of creativity, but it requires not a single leap. Leaps are genius; steady steps are merely very clever. (I told you I am very clever; I have no doubt of that.)

This is why I cannot write poetry. Poetry is all leaps. It makes me feel; it makes me think as well, but my thinking is not successful. I don't understand why certain poems make me feel they way they do, or how the words in them work on me. I cannot take poetry apart. I hate it because I cannot break it to bits and I worship it for that same reason. It's smarter than me--or, more hatefully and more sacredly, it is not about intelligence at all but something spiritual that cannot be accessed with logic. I shake my fist at T. S. Eliot, the integrity (the leaps) of whose poetry I interest-list.

But sometimes I think I am not very technical minded at all. The millions of pieces I pull apart from a piece of art require a certain kind of vision, this vision being revelation, being faith, which requires all sorts of leaping, as the saying goes. I am managing, in all this deconstruction, to see the construction itself, the creation, but also all the millions of things that went into it. Millions of things that do not exist as things separately; I look at something smooth and continuous, like a marble statue, and see it as if it was made of a billion bricks instead of carved out of a single stone. And seeing it that way isn't false seeing. Just because the author didn't mean to put it there, didn't have to think of it, doesn't mean it's not there. I'm just seeing of what the rock itself is composed, which the artist might never have understood or considered beyond what it took to manipulate the raw materials, and again I say this takes vision.

In a marble statue are billions of atoms and molecules and particles and dust motes and rubble and rock bonded together by atomic forces, by molecular bonds, by weather and erosion and time, by nature. They exist on infinite different levels, and coexist in different relationships in infinity times as many ways. Obviously I don't literally see atoms. I do see in 80 pages of a good book at least a dozen different themes, which can be broadened so that there are maybe really only two or three umbrella themes, or narrowed such that there are however many sentences come in 80 pages. But I see these different themes and can make almost every word connect to them.

I could reorder every word--of course, I could reorder every word and write the book all over again. But I can also make every word relate to every other word; I can make each idea hark back to one of a thousand threads weaving together the cloth; my view of the cloth is not linear but a web. Of course it's easy with a good book; I think that must be what a good book is. But good writers don't necessarily do it. That is not to say they couldn't. Everyone can to some extent; that is why we have the word "theme" and almost every person knows its meaning. But of course I am a snowflake.

That was longer than 15 minutes. I wonder if it even means anything? To anyone but me, I mean.

Comments

[anthimaeria.livejournal.com]

What it means to me is that I hope I can talk you into proofreading my original slash novel when I finish! It's extraordinary to have the ability to deconstruct. I struggle with it. Sometimes I take fics apart as a writing exercise, but I have to really think about it instead of this coming naturally.

[gaudy-night.livejournal.com]

Wow, if I ever met you in real life, I'd be totally intimidated by you. This is a compliment, of course. But wow, reading deep thoughts at 5:52 in the morning is, for me... darn, I need some coffee.

I'm currently in the middle of your Something Good. And, yes, I do believe you ARE the only member of the Society For The Fair & Kind Treatment Of The Baroness, but after reading the first few chapters of this fic, I'm wondering if I might join you as well.

I was kinda sorta hoping (okay, hopefully expecting) the captain and Maria to start banging each other by Chapter 4, but darn, I mean wow, you've spun this *story*.

Even in Go Your Own Way, as hot and kinky and frightening it was at times for me, there was still story.

No wonder your stuff is so well-reviewed.

[nixve.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's really fascinating! I really wish I could have more deep conversations with you about writing.

Lately I've been pondering something a little along these lines about how I relate to painting. One line out of this that really resonated with me was this one: "And seeing it that way isn't false seeing. Just because the author didn't mean to put it there, didn't have to think of it, doesn't mean it's not there."

I feel, at least for me, like that is a key insight to creating and experiencing writing/art/etc.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

fire bad, tree pretty.

[laliandra.livejournal.com]

This is fascinating! It's really cool that you have started doing your 15 minute things again.

Maybe you are more of an architect than an engineer. Sure, you're thinking about all the individual rivets and structural integrity, but also, you're just drawing lines that end up being a beautiful edifice... Maybe?

Have you ever taken one of those "Are you left or right brained?" quizzes? They are mostly stupid but kind of amusing, and I always come out right in the middle, or thereabouts.

[stultiloquentia.livejournal.com]

Oh, gosh, I get it. I can do it, too. My worst offence is an old Tolkien story, Rose Riddle, whose every line is loaded with allusions or puns or something, right down to the poor, innocent-looking bats and salamanders. Usually I try to keep a lid on it, because too much Cleverness gets in the way of Story, like too many nuts in a muffin gets in the way of chewing. But as a reader and a writer, I see every fractal and feel every tug of every little connecting thread. Every inconsistent metaphor. :P In undergrad English classes I was a close reading superstar, and later when profs started saying, "You picked it apart; that's very nice. SO WHAT?" I was quite taken aback. So now I'm always looking for the so what, and I can't write a story until I have one, which is annoying, because I have way more clever sentences than plots to put them in.

Hey! I like your poetry! I think I must not consider poetry and prose to be as discrete as other people seem to. They're all just words that say stuff. Poetry says stuff in fewer words.

[my_daroga]

I'm not sure how to reply to this, because I'm actually very insecure about my own intelligence. I know that intelligent people would probably not speak to me the way they do if they thought I was not, and they should know, yes? And I have been told I am smart. Or is it clever? But I don't do any of those things you say; I don't do the things you like about my writing, though I love reading what you have to say. I don't feel very good at reading, either, and my brain skims over important things like they're all just ladders to the next piece of plot or character development.

And I am so very sensitive about that that I find it difficult to talk about, even though I think this post is beautiful and I loved reading it and love you more for writing it and for allowing me the privilege of your company and watching you work in conversation. And you don't make me feel stupid, but sometimes I feel so very certain that any illusion I had of being smart at all is a sham.