Slow connections and synapses

Image taken from the NaNoWriMo site which has been overwhelmed so far.

So, I have been pretty tied up with the novel challenge, and I haven't been motivated to do any other writing in the past few days. I am still struggling to turn off the over-thinking side of my brain, so the words are still coming slowly. Hopefully it will improve with time and practice. I have had quite a bit of free time this week, but that will change soon, so I need to get more efficient. It is still interesting so far, and kind of fun to see where things head when you don't have a plan.

I heard an interesting podcast the other day. It was an episode of Brain Stuff called "Could You Have a Savant Hidden Inside Your Brain". Savants tend to have amazing skills in certain areas such as painting, sculpting, or mathematics. The ability to see (and reproduce) things in incredible detail that most of us have a hard time understanding.

The question posed was is this ability in all of our brains, but just dormant or overshadowed by another part of our brain. It goes on to discuss experiments at temporarily disabling parts of our left brain to allow the creative right side of our brain to operate free of interference. It would be great to be able to shut down my critic/editor for a couple hours at a time while I am writing (and then of course turning it back on when it is time to edit).

The podcast is only five minutes long, and I think it is worth a listen if you are interested. You can find it here.

And apparently Seattle is not only a big reading town, but also a big writing town as well. The Seattle NaNoWriMo group is leading the way with 11 million words so far (and they lead in donations as well). The San Diego group is in 56th place with only a paltry 2.6 million.  Must be the distracting sunshine.