Who's in control here, left brain or right?

THANKS FOR TAKING THE QUIZ AND CHIMING IN! THE WINNERS ARE:

Bonnie Ferguson

llamannerdymama

BJ @ Dark Side of the Covers

PLEASE EMAIL ME AT Pamela@PamelaPalmer.net, TELL ME WHICH ONE OF MY BOOKS YOU'D LIKE ME TO SEND, AND INCLUDE YOUR SNAIL MAIL ADDRESS.

We've all heard the terms 'right brain' and 'left brain' and the theory that the right brain is home to our creative sides and the left to our logical. And most of us, I think, consider ourselves more one than the other. Creative or logical. Right-brained or left-brained. So which would you expect an engineer-turned-fiction writer to be? That's an interesting question, at least to me. Because it turns out, I am one. For the most part, I'm a logical person--calm, thoughtful, rarely emotional. So I always assumed I was firmly left-brained. Then I took a left-brain/right-brain quiz and landed squarely in the middle. It probably shouldn't have surprised me, considering I'm a novelist, but it did.

So what does this mean for my writing? Some days I feel like I'm two people battling for control of one brain. Here's my current situation: I'm finishing up the first book in my Vamp City series (which is a good thing since it's due in three weeks). The thing is, this series is different from the ones I've done before. Yes, it's a romance, but it's a multi-book romance with the same hero and heroine throughout. Five books, one story. The problem is, the left side of my brain (we'll call her Left-Brain Pamela, or LBP for short) is in a panic. And Right-Brained Pamela (RBP) is laughing at her.

LBP (in her neatly-pressed business casual work clothes): "We can't send the story out like this! It's only a fifth of the way done."

RBP (in gym shorts and bare feet): "Darling, it's the first book of five. Of course the story is only a fifth done. But we're sending it out anyway. It's due."

LBP (crossing her arms, expression turning mulish through the panic): "We don't know the rest of the story. What's going to happen in book 2 and book 3, let alone 4 and 5? And what about that character we were supposed to have saved at the end of book 1? We left them hanging!"

RBP (swaying to the music blasting from the stereo): "You worry too much."
LBP: "What if we get to book 3 and realize we should have set up something differently? What if we get to book 5 and find we should have set up EVERYTHING differently? What if...?"

RBP (giving a careless shrug): "We'll figure it out when we get there. We always do, you know that. We always write this way."

LBP (throwing up her hands): "That's the problem! I hate writing this way. I need to know what's going to happen. Everything that's going to happen. Now. Before we write it."

RBP: "You always say that and every time I let you try to map out the whole story in advance, it never works out."

LBP: "It would work if you didn't always yell, 'Stop! The character wouldn't DO that.'"

RBP: "Well, he wouldn't."

LBP (getting that mulish look again): "It still would have worked."

RBP: "No, it wouldn't. You can't force the characters to do something they don't want to do just because you thought it might work before we started writing the story." (smiling gently): "I know you like to control every aspect of the process, but it doesn't work that way. Not for us. It's best to discover the story as we go along."

LBP (expression starting to turn panicked again): "But this story isn't one book. It's five! And once the first one is on the shelves, there's not going to be any going back to change it."

RBP: "Of course not. But that's real life, doll. We rarely get to go back and fix things. We have to deal with the situation that exists, not the one we wish existed."

LBP: "But we're writing fiction. It has to work out in the end."

RBP (smiling): "That's where you come in. That's what you're so good at."

LBP (huffing with an exasperated roll of the eyes): "So it's all going to be up to me to get us out of this mess."

RBP (laughing): "What mess? It's unexplored territory, that's all. And we'll find our way through together as we always do. I'll think up all kinds of exciting twists and turns and you'll sort them into one logical series of events after another. It'll all work out, you'll see."

So now you know what a day in my brain is like. And if you were wondering if all authors are a little crazy, I've probably answered your question.

Actually, LBP has been hounding me for the past couple of weeks (ever since I finished the first draft of this book). "I need to know what's going to happen in the rest of the series. I need to know, I need to know!" I finally heard RBP's calm, reassuring voice through the racket this morning and LBP's voice began to die down. There are still things I want to make sure I've thought about and looked at, but I'm no longer crazed about knowing the whole story up front. I can't know it, not really. Not until I write it. And I don't need to. I haven't with any of the books I've written yet and all have been part of a series, if not quite as intertwined as the Vamp City series is going to be.

Come September 1st, when Vamp City book 1 (A Blood Seduction), is off to my editor, I'll be setting aside the entire series for six months as I dive back into the Feral world to write Feral Warriors #7. LBP will be in a minor panic, as usual, preparing to read all six of the previous Feral Warrior books to make sure she's one hundred percent back into that world as she gathers plotting charts and character charts and various other tools. Meanwhile, RBP will be kicking back on the sofa with the the t.v. remote in hand and a stack of movies by her side as she prepares to launch into her favorite activity to fill the creative well--a good old fashioned movie marathon.

And it will all begin again.

If you're interested in taking a left-brained/right-brained quiz yourself, here's a quick one: http://www.intelliscript.net/test_area/questionnaire/questionnaire.cgi

I'm giving away a signed copy of one of my books to three commenters. Your choice. If you take the quiz, tell me what you thought of it and if you were surprised by the results. If not, just tell me whether you think you're more right-brained or more left-brained. Or, like me, if you come down squarely in the middle.