Monday 4 February 2008

The secret work of the brain.

Something wonderful happened in bed on Saturday Night. No I'm not lowering the tone of my blog... how could you think that! I'm surprised at you. Wot appened woz, I had an idea about the start of my novel about Lottie. The beginning had been nagging me, even though I had changed it following advice from other writers, I didn't think it had that 'hook' of a promise of exciting things to come.

I was laying there at three in the morning listening to the dulcit sounds of my husband snoring, and wondering if I would get to sleep before the sun came up, when out of the blue an opening scene popped into my head. I made notes quickly before I forgot, pushed my hubby over to lay on his side, and finally managed to get to sleep.

The next day I was able to write the new opening and am now satisfied with it, and hope this will be the missing something that was needed to keep Lottie from ending up in the reject pile.

'Why are you telling me all this drivel,' I hear you ask?

I think that our brains, on a consious level don't like to be pressured into finding an answer to a problem. The more one thinks about about the problem, e.g. an all important idea for a scene, the more you think about it, the worse it gets and you end up totally confused, and think you will never make it in the literary world. When you leave it alone and think, sod it, I'll get on with something else, then a part of your subconcious carries on in seclusion without your nagging and when you least expect it...'Hey bone head, I worked it out for you, better get it down before you forget. Quit with the pressure in future, it gives me a headache.'

In other words. don't tie yourself up in knots over your work, if you can't work something out without too much angst and time wasting, leave it alone and work on something else, it'll come to you when you least expect it.

The other reason is to let all you victims of snoring partners know you are not alone!!!

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