For years people have been amazed by my prolific writing ability. Years past, when I used to attend a writing class, we would do in-class writing assignments to read out loud. We would have twenty minutes to write them. When it was time to read the pieces, most people would have a paragraph or two, maybe a page, where I would have three pages of writing completed.

I no longer write by hand anymore, having completely embraced the technique of writing directly into a word processing program, and even though it has slowed down how much of what I write (I never learned to type) I still can produce large bodies of work in very little time.

What is my secret?

I learned a long time ago that there were two voices in my head telling me what needs to come out on paper. One voice was filled with adventure and monsters, superheroes and cowboys, and rockets into space, while the other was filled with I’s before E’s, verb subject agreement, and the proper use of their, they’re and there. I knew that these voices were important to writing, but I had to learn to shut them off or I would never get anything on the page.

The key to successful writing is learning that there are two separate functions of your brain and how to recognize their individual voices.

The left side of the brain is that nagging teacher in 4^th grade who kept trying to explain to you the difference between a gerund, participle, and an infinitive. The left side of the brain controls linear thought, logical and sequential processing, and reality based thinking.

Now, the right side of your brain is that little daydreamer in 4^th grade that looked out the window into a world of high adventure. The right side of your brain controls holistic thought, intuitive and random processing, and fantasy-based thinking.

My mother and I represent these two opposing spheres. She is very much a left thinker, always more worried about how it comes out on the page then actually putting anything on the page. While I am the one to spit it all out and worry later how it looks.

This is how stream of conscious writing works. You got to let it out and not worry how it sounds. You have to silence the left side that is worried about sentence structure and how everything is spelled. You have to give the right side free reign to do its work.

It’s like the way a sculptor looks at a ball of clay. At first, it doesn’t look like a magnificent vase, but with some work and skill it will be beautiful. But if you never have the clay, you can’t make the vase.

The same approach holds true to writing.

If you don’t put words to paper, you can’t turn them into an article or a story. Without the words, you can’t edit. So why do so many people start out trying to find the right words?

Because they have been trained to let the left dominate their thought.

Watch the video above:

Is the dancer moving clockwise or counter clockwise?

If you see her going clockwise then you process with your right side of your brain.

If you see her counter clock wise, then you process with your left side of your brain.

For people like me, the daydreamers of the world, slipping into the right side comes naturally, but for those who are on left mode all day long they have a hard time shutting the voice down.

Everyone can learn to write with the right side of their brain, but it can be harder for left thinkers because the first thing that happens is self doubt (the bastard child of the left brain) creeps in and decides that you can’t do this.

Self doubt leads to being critical, to second guessing what you have to say, and before you know it you’re staring at a blank piece of paper for thirty minutes.

Tapping Into The Right Side Exercise

If you want to learn to use the right side, you have to practice stream of consciousness writing.

Get yourself a fresh new notebook and a stop watch. If it is not a new notebook your left might become critical of the dirty pages and we don’t need Lefty starting already.

Also, don’t use the computer for this exercise. Those lil’ red, green, and blue lines seem to peek Lefty’s curiosity every time.

Set the watch for about twenty minutes for the first time. Later, you can increase this by ten minutes at a time until you reach a whole hour of pure writing.

Now pick a word.

Oh shut up, Lefty. If he is already getting fussy over the word choice, pick one below.

Dogs Trains Planes

Cats Children Horses

Apple Pies Ninjas Bugs

Just pick a word and hit the stopwatch and write about any free associations that come from that word. Just let things spill out onto the paper no matter if it is spelled right, follows any pattern, or makes any sense. The key to this exercise is to learn when Lefty comes calling and no how to shut him off.

For Example:

The black ninja ran by the pink house where Bill kept his goldfish collection. Those goldfish had been in that tank for fifteen years, and Bill never had one die on him. Well, the ninja knew this and crept quietly through the window turning those elderly goldfish into sushi.

I edited out the spelling errors afterward, but this paragraph was completely streamed having started with the word ninja.

When Lefty steps in, you stop letting your right develop its flow. Lefty tries to make sense of plots, of where the story is going, while Righty knows all along what’s going on and needs the other side to shut up.

Look, you can always go back and edit. And edit.

And edit.

But unless you let the words come out onto the paper (or screen) you have nothing to edit, and you spend too much wasted time figuring out what to say.

Instead of just saying it.