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Science has shown us that the brain is composed of two parts, one on the left and one on the right. Each half acts independently and merely communicates with the other; one half can function normally without the other half.

When someone's brain is surgically modified to remove the connection between the two halves, that person can continue to function normally. Rare people have even been discovered to have only one half and even this goes unnoticed until autopsy because the person seemed entirely normal while alive.

Each person has two minds and each mind operates with only moderate awareness of the other. The left mind thinks of things in sequence, considering only one idea at each moment. It looks for the repeating sequences that allow us to learn rules and use language. On the other side, the right mind uses unordered thinking to study problems that do not relate to time. It looks for visual patterns like faces and thinks about the connections between ideas.

The left brain's use of language and rules suggests that it is the smarter of the two brains. It talks for us and writes for us and allows us to understand the meaning behind sequences of words or letters when we hear or read them. The more rules you are given to guide your writing, the more easily the left brain can write without consulting the right brain.

The right brain knows nothing of sequences. It sees connections and relationships, but it would have trouble understanding the difference between two different words that were spelled with the same letters. It cannot grasp the rules of grammar, so it is useless for telling us how to write.

Unfortunately for our left brain, there are no rules to tell us what we should write. The left brain cannot understand metaphors; it only works with literal truth. It can list the features of an object, but does not truly understand what a thing looks like. It does not think about the emotions associated with an idea and it cannot see connected concepts because it has no understanding of relationships.

If all you do is think with your left brain when you are writing, the result will inevitably be boring. The reader's left brain will see the rules that you are using and predict where you are going, until the reader stops reading entirely. It is the right brain that contains all creative and original thought.

For a painter this will present little problem because painting has no clear sequence and so your right brain naturally takes over that job because the left brain can make no sense of it. For a writer the opposite is true. We need to rely heavily upon our left brains for everything that we do, so there is great danger of becoming entirely rule-dependent and ignoring our right brain entirely.

One solution is to make your writing more like painting. Get a blank sheet of paper without lines and start writing words in an unordered way. Start at the center with the main idea of what you want to write, and then let your right brain guide you by surrounding that idea with related concepts. When you see a strong connection between two concepts, draw a line between them; this is your right brain working and we want to encourage it. You should get a drawing like a web with words scattered across the page and patterns forming from the lines between them.

The goal is to describe your ideas without sequence so that your left brain gets confused. If you want to use your word-processor instead of a pencil and paper, then start by getting the whole of your idea in your mind at once. Try to think of your plot without order, think of the start and the finish together and forget which comes first. As you do this, type random ideas that occur in your story and resist the urge to organize them in any sort of sequence.

When you look at what you have produced, your left brain will not be able to make any sense of it. This is good because it means any thinking you do must be in your right brain. Stare at your web or your list of unordered ideas and ponder it with your right brain. Metaphors, analogies, new connections, and ideas should present themselves to you. Make a note of every idea your right brain produces until you feel you have enough inspiration to do some great writing.

For more about this, find a copy of Writing the Natural Way by Gabriele Lusser Rico. That book is where I found the information for this essay and it has inspired me to try to engage my right brain in my writing. Even so, I do not recommend the book; it is tedious and repetitive. The idea of using your right brain to help you write is its only good idea and since you already know that there is no point in reading about it again.