OUTLIERS PSYCHOLOGY AND WRITING: Your Inner Muse by Katherine Ramsland, Ph.D.

OUTLIERS PSYCHOLOGY AND WRITING: Your Inner Muse by Katherine Ramsland, Ph.D.

Welcome to my column on how psychology and writing interact. I’ve been writing and publishing since the 1980s. Initially, it was for academics. Then in 1991, I published a commercial book, Anne Rice’s biography. Over the years, I’ve shifted between these frames, adding fiction and learning much about the writing process. In this column, I’ll offer tips for your work from clinical, cognitive and forensic psychology, sometimes for process, other times for product. Let’s start with process: how to prime your brain for creative insight, especially when you’ve run out of juice. 

You know the feeling. You’re at an impasse with a character or plot point and you can’t seem to break through. Or you’ve stalled at that sagging middle. You’re frustrated, maybe desperate. Your deadline looms and you can’t entice your muse.

Consider doing this: relax. The less you push, the better your chance of getting what you need. The prolific sci fi author, Isaac Asimov, knew this. He’d learned that whenever he felt blocked it was useless to force the issue. So, he’d go to a movie. Focusing on something else allowed his subconscious to process the mental material in its own way. Once he returned, he invariably had new ideas.

Many writers, inventors, scientists, artists, musicians, and mathematicians have experienced the same thing. The solution arrives—aha!—seemingly from nowhere. But these flashes seem so random, we say. Those people just got lucky.

Not true. According to neuroscience, you can prime your brain for creative insights, and you can get them on a regular basis. They come from balancing work with play.

So, what’s the secret?

First, you make an idea stew. For this, you must gather the ingredients. Even under a deadline, you have to take time for this part. Read, watch, learn. Absorb lots of different types of information. Be diverse. Immerse in material relevant to your current WIP but also explore something new. Travel to new places. Pick new podcasts. Watch a documentary or read an article you’d ordinarily pass up. Give your muse—the cook— many different ingredients, the more the better.

Now, for the fun! Read through the material that leads up to your impasse. Then disengage. Go do something else. See a movie, make a cake, take a walk, play with your dog. Relax the calculating part of your brain so you can let the inner muse mix the stew. You’ve shown it what you need; now leave it alone and let it play. It will reshape the ingredients you’ve gathered into new combinations. Ideas will bump against one another and interlock in ways you hadn’t anticipated.

So, here’s the science behind this process. Neuropsychiatrist Nancy Andreasen, a former professor of literature, studied the brain in its creative mode. She found that a fresh approach is the foundation for a creative impulse. Those who embrace novelty have little use for the comfort of routine and predictability. They want to explore. They can tolerate ambiguity. They’re energetically curious. “In fact,” Andreasen says, “they enjoy living in a world that is filled with unanswered questions and blurry boundaries.”

She views the brain as a self-organizing system of feedback loops that constantly generate new thoughts. Using positron emission tomography scans, which measure the brain’s regionalized blood flow, she found a very active association cortex. This network of regions in the frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes is responsible for complex cognitive functions. It integrates information from various sources, including the primary and secondary sensory and motor cortices, the thalamus, and the brainstem, to help us process the world.

In other words, this is where the brain generates novel associations. First, it disorganizes the input into elemental parts. Then it integrates data items not previously linked. “Possessors of extraordinary creativity,” says Andreasen, “are apparently blessed with brains that are more facile at creating free association.” They can more easily perceive the world in unique ways because they can let go of familiarity and control. “The associations are occurring freely. They are running unchecked, not subject to any of the reality principles that normally govern them.”

As mental master chefs, creative people can experiment with their ingredients and cook up a combination that others never thought of. Once they fill the pot with diverse ingredients and no controlling expectations, they receive flashes of insight fully formed, ready for application.

Back to your muse. What this idea stew delivers for you will depend on what you toss in. If you want truly novel ideas to emerge, you must add a variety of ingredients.

I formed this process into three memorable steps: Scan—Sift—Solve. Acquire the stuff (scan), let your brain stir it (sift), and behold the breakthrough (solve). Your inner muse can’t make stew without stuff. Go get some and taste the magic.

Dr. Katherine Ramsland teaches forensic psychology and behavioral criminology in the graduate program at DeSales University, where she is Professor Emerita. She has appeared as an expert on more than 250 crime documentaries and was an executive producer on Murder House Flip, A&E’s Confession of a Serial killer: BTK, and ID’s The Serial Killer’s Apprentice. The author of more than 1,800 articles and 73 books, including I Scream Man, The Serial Killer’s Apprentice and How to Catch a Killer, she pens a regular blog for Psychology Today. She has also written a fiction series based on a female forensic psychologist, Annie Hunter, who consults on death investigations. Dead-Handed is her most recent novel.

Katherine Ramsland, PhD

https://www.katherineramsland.net/