Not a one-track mind

I’ve basically been taking this same quiz over and over since I was in elementary school. Back then, it came in a book of quizzes I had to ask my mom to buy me from Scholastic Book Orders. That was before I had internet. I encountered it many times since then, in many different forms. The questions were different, but I always came out the same: right-brained and proud of it.1

Even though (for the most part) I answered truthfully, there were probably the odd occasions when I purposely chose an answer I knew to be right-brained, in the simple hope of being reassured of my creative destiny. After all, that was probably the week I wanted to be a singer, or an artist, or a writer…or something creative like that. I would not allow myself to be left-brained. Who cared about logic when I could be creative?2

I guess something has changed. This year’s result came out 54% one way and 46% the other, with the left side winning. So am I both? Maybe I’m neither. Maybe it means that my brain is on the fence. (Isn’t that an image?) Either way, I guess I’m straddling the line between creativity and logic. I used to be so determined not to encounter that line, let alone be on the left side, yet here I am.3

Then again, I always looked at it too narrowly. I simply associated the left side with math and science, and the right with art and poetry, so when my brain stopped caring about numbers entirely and started only caring about words, I was thrilled that my right side was finally reigning triumphantly over the left. What I didn’t realize was that it may have actually been the other way around, and secondly, that writing involves more of the left brain than I had originally thought. In fact, a perfect writer would probably be exactly 50% on either side. The right side would take care of the uninhibited, creative ideas, while the left would take care of recording them in an organized, readable format.4

However, in the last few years, I have noticed that I work in the opposite way a writer should. My left side is too overbearing right from the start. I edit my ideas before I even get close to putting anything on the page, and in many cases, that means the page remains bare.5

In a way, I think that’s what led me here. In Creative Non-Fiction, the stories already exist, so there are no wild and crazy ideas to shut down before they are fully formed. My hope is that once I finally begin filling pages, it will extend over into my other chosen genres, Drama and Screenwriting.6

Who knows, maybe the left side of my brain will selflessly sacrifice 4% to the right side. Maybe I’ll actually end up with that balance that I now want as strongly as I used to want to be assured that I was right-brained.