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Hi folks, I'm writing about creativity for the month of February. I have a speaking engagement coming up; deets at the end of this post. This week I'm debunking a myth about the creativity being a right-brained activity for manic artists and how poor left-brained people are basically OCD and dull as dogs.

I'm a creative person and I know that most creative people I know are some of the organized folks in existence.  I find that to truly be creative I have to systematic about my work and very well organized. Creativity does not happen in my life without my left-brain giving my right-brain some serious limits. As far as I can tell creativity needs my whole brain to work. I'm not a neuro-scientist, but I am freakishly observant. Imagination has to reined in. Day dreaming must lead to production, or it leads to nothing. Deep thoughts about the meaning of everything are basically useless if I don't make them actionable.

So here is the secret of creativity. Light up your whole brain. If you feel that lack creativity, your brain is out shape--kind of like you play video games all day and now have muffin tops on your muffin tops because your physical body is languishing. It took me a long time to admit that my left brain was seriously neglected, and that if I didn't give it some attention, I was never going to do a creative thing with my life.  So my journey into creativity started with this: I disciplined myself to make my bed every day. It seems like a small thing but it transformed my creative process.

I learned that making my bed was a small success for everyday that I could count on. Over time I appreciated that my life was filled with one complete success every day. Even the process of making the bed became important -- the economy of motion, the tightness of the sheets, and the arrangement of the pillows.  Routine in my everyday life, helped me establish routine in my creative endeavors. I have found greater balance and my work thanks me.

What!  I know this bed-making thing is counter-intuitive. Secret: You must be counter-intuitive as much as you are intuitive to do excellent creative work.  If you are right-brained person, seek left brain activities.  Don't go crazy, just mix some in.  If you are a left-brained person, you are annoying everyone with talk of your big imaginative endeavors and your lack of even doing one thing that will bring these endeavors to life.

So there you have it. Day-dreamers, make your bed.  Bed makers, take a cup of tea and stare out the window and dream.  I hope, my friends, that you find that innovation is flooding what ever you do.  Drop by next week for more on creativity. Need a creative jolt, come to my talk:

This creativity series is conjunction with a talk that I will be offering at Covenant Presbyterian Church on Wednesday, February 17, 2016 at 6:15. It's a weekly program they offer called Onederful Wednesday. I will lead a workshop called Divining Creativity. Here are a few of the things I will dig into -- What is holding you back? What will push you forward? What will make you leap? This should shake down the cobwebs and open all the windows. Come out if you are interested. It's free. P.S. There is a meal at 5:15 p.m. and it costs $5.00 person and $20 for families. Call this number to RSVP if you are interested: 979-694-7700.

I’m left handed and never learnt to touch type. So when I started writing fiction in the days before personal computers (not that long ago, honest!), I used to scribble my first drafts in pencil with my left hand. Since the left side of the body is controlled by the right side of the brain, which is meant to be responsible for creativity and intuition, this made perfect sense to me. I’d then type up my draft using an equal number of fingers on each hand (only about two fingers from each, but involving my right hand as much as my left). This resulted in an edited second draft, which I then worked on by hand until I had a final draft, which needed typing all over again. It made sense that I should start editing my words at the typewriter stage, since the right hand is controlled by the left side of the brain, which is meant to be responsible for linear reasoning and analysis – useful editing skills.

These days, for the sake of speed and convenience, I write my first drafts straight on the computer, missing out the left hand creation stage entirely. My right hand (and my analytical left brain) are therefore involved at a much earlier stage, which no doubt accounts for the amount of editing I feel compelled to do to the text as I type. There are also many more "drafts", since the text feels endlessly fluid. It works, but is this the most effective way to create? I still find it impossible to write poetry straight into the computer, and for a long time I could not write my first drafts in this way… it was almost as if my brain had to learn how to do it first. It would be interesting to do a survey to see how many creative writers of the past have been left handed. I’d also be interested to know if the right handed authors among you find your first drafts easier when typed straight on to the computer, rather than writing them in longhand? Because in theory you should do!

But writing a novel is not just a matter of scribbling a wonderfully creative first draft - the words still need to be worked on to make them readable. So whatever hand you use to hold your pen it would seem that, with the right brain doing the creating and the left brain doing the editing, the most important thing for a writer is that both hemispheres of the brain should work well together. This ability to use both halves of the brain (sorry, blokes!) is supposed to be a female characteristic, as well as being helpful to the typist who uses both hands… so is writing a novel using a keyboard actually easier for a woman than for a man? There certainly seems to be a high proportion of female authors out there.

And what does all this mean for our children, who might never learn to write in longhand at all? Have computers trained our brains to work in a more efficient way and levelled the playing field so that more people now find it possible to write a novel? Or are they quietly destroying the unfettered creativity of the left handed writer? Perhaps returning to pencil and paper for my first drafts might not be such a bad idea, after all...