[personal profile] redheadedfemme
This article from Slate is really interesting. It goes into the mechanics of how the brain produces words and sentences, and how it gets into the famous writerly "flow." I also learned why I couldn't help but be a writer (besides the fact that I read so much, and always have). 

Kellogg is always careful to emphasize the extreme cognitive demands of writing, which is very flattering. "Serious writing is at once a thinking task, a language task, and a memory task," he declares. It requires the same kind of mental effort as a high-level chess match or an expert musical performance. 

Now, as it happens, I love chess, and also bridge--two cognitively-demanding games, for sure. (And also Scrabble, I suppose, to a lesser extent.) I also used to play the violin in junior high. 

I wonder if other writers have this same combination of hobbies. 

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Words To Live By

There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away. ~Emily Dickinson

Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it’s always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins. ~Neil Gaiman

Of course I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in. ~Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The road to hell is paved with adverbs. ~Stephen King

The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read. ~Mark Twain

I feel free and strong. If I were not a reader of books I could not feel this way. ~Walter Tevis

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one. ~George R.R. Martin

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