Try Writing a Passionate Opinion Piece One of my biggest challenges in writing has been finding my voice. For years I struggled to even understand what was meant by “voice.” If I wrote marvelous, well-crafted sentences, wasn’t that enough? Well, no, voice matters, and it’s something that does not come easily to most. Voice is the indistinguishable […]
If you’ve been stalled, or blocked, or wondering if your scribblings amount to more than a hill of beans—when the whole world is on fire—please let me be the one to tell you that they do. If you love writing, keep at it. What you produce doesn’t even matter. It’s the writing practice that will keep you sane.
This “novel virus” reaffirmed that my life won’t feel sufficiently meaningful again until I develop a renewed sense of purpose. Writing has always provided that for me, and I’d discarded my writing practice as if it were an empty, battered suitcase at the end of a journey. Hell, I’d thrown it over a cliff.
All writers are creative, right? They are if they meet certain criteria. But what is that criteria? That’s a question researcher Jordanous Keller wanted to answer. So he conducted an empirical study and analysis of language commonly used to talk or write about creativity[1]. Using tools from natural language processing and statistical analysis, he and […]
One of the hallmarks of genius is an ability to spot connections between seemingly disparate things, and then use your discovery to create something original. One of the most potent examples of how your brain births, supports, sustains, and fulfills creative ideas comes from the genius of Lin-Manuel Miranda, the mastermind who brought the highly […]
A study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease in April confirmed that yoga and a form of meditation known as Kirtan Kriya improved brain functioning by increasing connectivity, improving memory, and decreasing mood aberration. See an excerpt where I discuss Kirtan Kriya in Fire Up Your Writing Brain below. Over the course of twelve […]
Reading works that are very different from what you want to write is a great way to spark ideas and to shake up a tendency to be too rote, traditional, or predictable when writing. If you write historical novels, for example, reading science fiction could loosen up your tendency to be a little rigid when […]
Our brains are amazing thinking, dreaming, imagining, and producing machines, reliant upon their masters to program, nurture, guide, and direct them.
Want to keep your writing brain fired up and growing well into old age? Draw or paint an object, a landscape, a person, an abstract, or whatever captures your eyes or occurs to your creative instincts. A recent study reported in PLOS ONE: “How Art Changes Your Brain: Differential Effects of Visual Art Production and Cognitive […]
Finding or creating a visual representation of the story you are writing helps your brain get fired up and achieve the sort of global ignition that lights up the neuronal network you’ve created (related to writing that particular story). A University of Toronto meta-analysis, published in the journal Brain and Cognition, found that viewing paintings not only […]
Fire Up Your Writing Brain 