I work with a variety of authors and find that most of them approach their writing projects from a right-brain perspective—creative, artistic, intuitive, visual, emotional and somewhat subjective.
Sometimes I chance to meet an author who has left-brain leanings. He tends to be more organized, analytical, logical, objective and desires everything communicated in concrete terms.
These two authors even choose to write in different genres using different styles. The right-brain author is more inclined to write poetry, creative nonfiction, spiritual pieces, descriptive novels, self-help books and children’s books. Our left-brain friends typically write historicals, business books, technical books and works related to how things work and societal issues.
I work with numbers of authors one-on-one as well as in workshop/classroom situations with regard to publishing and book marketing. And this is a tough topic for the more creative types. If they want to publish, they know they have to learn this stuff, but they moan and groan with every hard business truth that emerges.
The left-brain authors, however, tend to grasp the business aspects of publishing rather easily and eagerly. After writing their book for months or years, when they hear me talk about the business of publishing, they finally experience a level of comfort. They may have suffered through the writing stages. But they understand and embrace the more logical, concrete world of publishing. Only sometimes left-brain people are too rigid in their thinking and they expect (or demand) definitive answers to all of their publishing questions—“How many books can I sell in a year?” “Which marketing avenue is the most lucrative for an author?” “Which publisher is going to cut me the best deal?” “How much time will I need to set aside for promotion?”
While I often see a conflict of the minds, I’d rather see a meeting of the minds—so to speak. If only authors could rely more on their right brain while engaged in the writing of their projects and then shift over into left-brain thinking for the publishing part of it—oh what a more well-rounded and, probably, successful author we would have.
There are actually exercises you can do in order to nudge your weaker side to become stronger. The strictly analytical mind can be trained to become more intuitive and vice versa.
It would be fun to hear from you as to your right/left-brain leanings. Are you strictly right? Left? Or are you like me, rather middle brain?
Learn more about me, my books and my work here:
http://www.patriciafry.com
http://www.matilijapress.com