Remember, every famous folly begins with a nidus of truth, and so too the NRBES. My quest for a functional right brain began with one of the oldest cliques in the book: "either use it or loose it." Accept this as your mantra and come along with me.
Frosted fecalith #2: The disclaimer. The NRBES requires lifestyle changes that may lead to unwanted attention from strangers, minor cuts and abrasions, and suspicious glances from your significant other.
First of all, bear in mind our goal: revival of the remnant that was once your fully-functional right brain. While success may take from you all sense of time and an above average credit rating, the rewards are worth it. Writers, find the final path to the climax of your story. Artists, the beauty in every-day things that were once a blur will come into sharp relief. Musicians, let the melody soar through every cleft without making a deal with the devil. Enough already. This is how I did it. The concepts are universal. Adjust them to your life.
Step One-the day begins. I walk into the bathroom and grab the vitamin bottle not with my right hand but my left. Then it's the shave cream followed by the razor, the comb through my hair: all left handed.
I'm dressing now, but when I grab the belt I circle the waist not counter clockwise, but the other way, pulling tight and centering the prong in the hole with my left hand. It will feel weird, but do it 24 times in a row and it becomes habit.
I tie my shoes left-handed, but only on days when i have a good half hour to spare. Not even I, lord of the NRBES, have mastered this step. I keep trying. When I succeed it can lead to one thing - a NY Times best seller.
Step Two-breakfast. My right hand recovers from the shock. Laced by a left uppercut in the bath, it springs off the mat and reclaims its rightful (no pun) place. My right hand reaches for the cereal bowl, the milk, the blueberries, and I stop. Nothing short of sweaty, grunting effort puts the dominant hand back at my side. I take a breath, and force the frail opposite to sort, grasp, carry everything to the table. By this time I am twenty minutes into the day and thirty minutes behind; but the quest continues. Cereal and milk pour into the bowl, I drink my o.j. and use the spoon, all left handed.
I must admit, in the first days doing the NRBES the mornings were ugly. By the time I got out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, there were half a dozen facial knicks dripping blood into my Frosted Mini-Wheats. Milk dribbled off my chin and my left hand wielded the spoon with all the grace of a lobster holding chopsticks.
Frosted fecalith #3: Don't let Gillette fool you, in an untrained hand even the Mach3 Turbo is a dangerous weapon.
For those with the temerity to slog through the initial shock of what can only be described as a self-induced palsy, the payoff is huge. Within days of starting the NRBES my writing took on a sheen it had never had before. Point-of-view was consistent; character development seemed to be in the hands of Philip Roth. And though I still struggle with passive verb intrusions, dialogue rolls and snaps and conjugation has been a revelation.
Now faithful blogger, enough for today. By now your right brain is exhausted and your left in open rebellion. In my next post we leave the friendly confines of hearth and home and take on garden tools.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
The Natural Right-Brain Enhancement System, Part One
Hello and welcome from Wisconsin all authors, artists, and insomniacs. I am a writer still dangling from the long and winding learning curve that is the path to a published book. Dangling: yes, and precariously so. Like Quasimodo hanging from a gargoyle, my feet paw the air looking for an edge. The hope is always the same, that the next leg up will elevate me to the flat part of the curve, to the world of agents and, dare I say it, a publishing contract.
Not a unique ambition. If you see yourself, read on.
An opening frosted fecalith (Google that one oh word-focused, logic-bound night ranger, and see what you get): Polishing your pitch, perfecting the outline, writing a killer query letter – I'll leave that to the speakers you can find at hundreds of conferences. I want to talk about something else, something we all have but, to our detriment, choose to ignore. I speak of the right brain.
I'm talking now, to the right-handers . The left-handers, you other 10%, no one knows what the hell is going on with you. But if you feel compelled to read on, feel free. I promise, there will be no attempt to infuse you with any of the organizational skills you so sorely need but so absolutely abhor.
Right-handers are left-brained. We are organized, analytical, on time, and listen to what is being said. All worthy and useful you might say, and rightly (no pun intended) so. But when it comes to simultaneous processing, free association, and lateral connections we're in muck butt high to a blue heron. Let's face it. In their place, this last little bit of brain salad is valuable, especially to an author stuck halfway through a manuscript, looking at a dead-end character, and finding the dreaded "hole in the plot" all at the same time. This situation calls for a new strategy. Throw away the writer's manual and grab some intuition.
And were to find it? The right brain.
Of course its not as easy as all that. As a life-long right hander you are probably like the rest of us. The parietal lobe, the frontal cortex of your right brain, they've been ignored, nay starved and abused for too long. To paraphrase Seinfeld, you've been going right so long, you couldn't go left to save your manuscript. Where there ought to be healthy folds of gray matter, in your right hemi-cranium there is nothing but a desiccated blob of grape jelly. It's taken years for this to happen, fixing it will take some time.
What you need is blogart1109's Natural Right Brain Enhancement System! This has been laboratory tested and clinically proven by a grand total of one person – me. NRBES exacts no extra time on your part, does not require the purchase of proprietary tools, books, or DVDs, and because it is on the internet, you know it has to work. The risks to life and limb, while they may prompt an unplanned visit to the urgent care center, will rarely send one to the Emergency Room or lead the dreaded reverse trans-handedness disorder.
So, all of you right-brain cripples, get out your pen and paper and start taking notes (pardon, I forgot who I'm talking to. You already have them out and at the ready). In my next post I will show how you too can have a functioning right brain, almost as good as the one possessed by your scatter-brained left-handed brother.
Not a unique ambition. If you see yourself, read on.
An opening frosted fecalith (Google that one oh word-focused, logic-bound night ranger, and see what you get): Polishing your pitch, perfecting the outline, writing a killer query letter – I'll leave that to the speakers you can find at hundreds of conferences. I want to talk about something else, something we all have but, to our detriment, choose to ignore. I speak of the right brain.
I'm talking now, to the right-handers . The left-handers, you other 10%, no one knows what the hell is going on with you. But if you feel compelled to read on, feel free. I promise, there will be no attempt to infuse you with any of the organizational skills you so sorely need but so absolutely abhor.
Right-handers are left-brained. We are organized, analytical, on time, and listen to what is being said. All worthy and useful you might say, and rightly (no pun intended) so. But when it comes to simultaneous processing, free association, and lateral connections we're in muck butt high to a blue heron. Let's face it. In their place, this last little bit of brain salad is valuable, especially to an author stuck halfway through a manuscript, looking at a dead-end character, and finding the dreaded "hole in the plot" all at the same time. This situation calls for a new strategy. Throw away the writer's manual and grab some intuition.
And were to find it? The right brain.
Of course its not as easy as all that. As a life-long right hander you are probably like the rest of us. The parietal lobe, the frontal cortex of your right brain, they've been ignored, nay starved and abused for too long. To paraphrase Seinfeld, you've been going right so long, you couldn't go left to save your manuscript. Where there ought to be healthy folds of gray matter, in your right hemi-cranium there is nothing but a desiccated blob of grape jelly. It's taken years for this to happen, fixing it will take some time.
What you need is blogart1109's Natural Right Brain Enhancement System! This has been laboratory tested and clinically proven by a grand total of one person – me. NRBES exacts no extra time on your part, does not require the purchase of proprietary tools, books, or DVDs, and because it is on the internet, you know it has to work. The risks to life and limb, while they may prompt an unplanned visit to the urgent care center, will rarely send one to the Emergency Room or lead the dreaded reverse trans-handedness disorder.
So, all of you right-brain cripples, get out your pen and paper and start taking notes (pardon, I forgot who I'm talking to. You already have them out and at the ready). In my next post I will show how you too can have a functioning right brain, almost as good as the one possessed by your scatter-brained left-handed brother.
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