It's a peculiar thing that goes on in the human brain. One side covers the wild stuff involving creativity and emotions (the inner child stuff), and then the other side is the cooly calculating, logical part (like a Vulcan, for those of you who are Trekkies -- well, actually, a Vulcan may act logical put really they are highly emotional beings who through extreme rituals and years of training have disciplined themselves to control their emotions ... anyway, I digress). So, there are two parts of the human brain (who knows how many parts there are to a Vulcan brain). And it seems to me that they work hand-in-hand quite well when it comes to writing.
Really? You say! Yes, I say, but only after considerable amount of extreme rituals and years of training does it work well. You see, the best thing about writing is that the first thing one must do is simply put words to paper. Don't really think about it, just start babbling on and let your fingers do the walking (or the talking, I guess). That's the creative side of the brain that is unleashed to dash across paper (or the computer screen) with bountiful passion. It's not important that you just created several dozen typos or even purposeful mispellings, or that you have a couple of dangling participals. Just write what comes to mind, and don't stop.
Now the logical part of the brain will always want to come in and put a stop to all this silliness. It's like your mom when you were ten telling you can't do this and you can't do that. Sheesh! And this is what catches up a lot of writers. Catches me still to this very day if I am not careful about it. In fact, sometimes I feel like I have two different people arguing inside my head whenever I write. Sometimes I feel like Cybil, for crying out loud!
And that's where the years of training and extreme rituals come into play. That's why I sometimes now use a kitchen timer to force myself to write quickly so that I can get a good chunk of words down on the paper because it forces the inner child to rebel against the inner parent. But even before I started doing that, I oftentimes in the past found myself first thinking a little about what I wanted to write, and then I would just fall into it. At first, the words would come out slowly as the logical part of my brain kept interrupting, but after about ten minutes of that nonsense, I found myself in a zone of sorts and the flood gate of creativity opened. The logical side settled back and just let the creative side go with it until exhaustion (mentally, anyway) kicked some several hours later. In fact, when that does happen, I tend to lose all track of time altogether. I'll sit down one morning, struggle for about ten to twenty minutes, and then poof ... it's high noon and the Genius (the wife) is staring at me wondering when I am going to pay attention to her.
So, there's this battle that often goes on between the two sides of the brain, but still, it does work well when it comes to writing. Because once the creative side finishes that rough draft, that's when the logical part of the brain stands up and looks at the creative side and says, "Are you finished now? Have you done enough damage to people, property, and participals?" At which point the creative side, panting and sweating, nods in the affirmative and then promptly passes out.
And this is where the logical part seizes the moment. For it is the logical part that casts a critical eye on the mess that has been made of this completed first draft. It is the logical part of the brain that takes the purple prose and makes it bleed red all over the paper by editing the you know what out of what has been done even if it means getting rid of whole paragraphs, no matter how beautifully written, all in the sake of making a cohesive, flowing, and grammatically correct piece of literature. The logical part might be considered evil in some corners of the writing world, but I hold it in high regard. Although my creative side loves the beauty of the words it has slathered all over the place, the logical side makes it flow smoothly, intelligently, cohesively. Without it, no one would ever see the end product in print because it wouldn't be fit to read. So, although many would-be writers despise the editing process (which is what the logical part of the brain does best), this is actually an important, if not the most difficult part. But I assure you, with a little patience (of which even I sometimes am in short supply), a lot of red pens, and a critical eye on what's been done, the editing process is just as important to writing as the creative process. It's what gets us from the left brain to the write brain and back again ... and then hopefully, it gets us a by line.
