Bossing Your Subconscious Brain
How your subconscious can work out thorny problems for you, my evening with an illustrious Canadian, and a whole bunch of book reviews.
A few months ago one of my students turned in a draft of her manuscript that included some notes she’d meant to take out. After a story she hadn’t finished yet, she wrote a whole page of what looked like yelling at herself about what she needed to do next. Write scene X better! Figure out how to develop X character! She’d written her notes in the imperative mood, as if she was bossing somebody around. And she was—her subconscious mind.
I knew the next time I saw the manuscript, she would have all these problems worked out, because I have used this powerful technique myself, especially when I’m stuck on a problem. When a host of issues on the last draft of my novel were brought to my attention, I wrote each one down on a separate notecard and turned them into assignments—sort of to myself, but sort of not for me, since I’d tried already to wring all the insights I could out of me, and me was stumped. I kept the Problem Box on my desk and shuffled through the cards from time to time.
It turns out there was another me, a dreamy, off-to-the-side me, who could keep turning these problems over like a rock tumbler in the background of my consciousness until something promising and shiny emerged: a new idea. As much as I would have liked to have the answer to my narrative problems overnight, it took much longer than that. (Have you ever waited for a rock tumbler to shine up a stone? Keep waiting, buddy.) But the important thing is, eventually a new thought emerged. And the thought would pop into my brain when I wasn’t trying to force it out—when I was jogging or doing the dishes.
A few weeks ago I heard a terrific episode of one of my favorite podcasts, Hidden Brain with Shankar Vadantam, called “Who Do You Want to Be?” Vadantam interviewed psychologist Ken Sheldon about how “to make sure our choices align with our deepest values.”
Much of the episode was about Sheldon’s studies of how to help people figure out what they truly want to do with their lives, when there are likely many other people around them supplying their opinions on the matter. According to Sheldon, in part because of all this psychological noise, individuals are not that great at predicting what choices are going to make them happy.
However, there’s a useful technique to use in decision making that Sheldon said he learned about from studying artists describe their creative process. And that is to deliberately and clearly ask the subconscious mind the question. Sheldon said:
“There's an important idea in creativity theory of the four stages of creativity that you start by asking yourself a question, you don't know the answer, you want the solution to the scientific problem or the new approach to painting that seems to be in there. Something intriguing is calling to you. So you ask yourself this question and you don't know the answer. And so then there needs to be an incubation period where you go and think about something else. What happens is that your non-conscious mind keeps working on the problem while you're thinking about something else, just because you sort of consciously posed that question to yourself and then you went away and now it's working on it. And so hopefully along comes a moment of inspiration, an aha moment where some stray thought or idea or image pops up and you recognize, ‘Whoa! That's interesting. What's that about?’ And you start to work with that idea and you realize that it's the solution to the problem.”
Sheldon said that the key to this technique is to deliberately ask yourself the question—perhaps by writing it down, as my student and I did when we were stuck on problems in our writing. Vedantam observed, “It's important to actually try and grapple with the problem consciously, even if it turns out that the answer lies in our non-conscious minds.”
So, give it a try. If you’re stuck on a creative project or a question of how to direct your life, give your subconscious an assignment to work on it. I did suggest that my student be more gentle with the assignments, the way a good boss or teacher would be. Instead of, “I am so stupid! I need to totally rewrite the beginning of this story,” put it in the form of a question, like, “How can I improve the beginning of this story?” In this way, you can turn your subconscious into a trusted, if semi-flaky subcontractor.
The Book Recommendation Portion of The Tumbleweed
If you haven’t read Miriam Toews’ work, I suggest you back away from this newsletter and start digging into her seven books right now! It was my immense honor to be asked to interview Miriam for her appearance at the Tattered Cover for the paperback release of her latest masterpiece, Fight Night.
The paperback actually came out one day after our talk, so the bookstore hid the books away and couldn’t bring them out until after the discussion. It felt like being a part of something illicit!
I was asked to lead the discussion just a week earlier, so I started to cram all the Miriam Toews reading I could into seven days. I was dazzled. I think Toews is a literary genius. Fight Night was funny, heartfelt, and moving.
I was especially struck by her narration technique—it's first person, from the perspective of unforgettable nine-year-old narrator Swiv, written in the form of a letter to her dad, who has left the family. The letter framework seems to drop away at times, even though it underlies everything. And at times Swiv's grandmother and mother take over the narrative with their rants—Swiv reports what they do and say, using their words, and lets their thoughts filter through her consciousness, the way some people can hear their mother’s or grandmother’s voice advising them even when she isn’t there.
Toews has figured out how to write with all the advantages of first person (personality, specificity, focus) with the flexibility of third-person (broader perspective, the ability to tell the story from more angles). It's first-person narration, but with an acknowledgment that the narrator is as much a part of the collective (her family) as she is an individual.
Women Talking slays. But you knew that already. Toews shows absolute fidelity to the material and the characters. She has a keen understanding of what the lives of illiterate women would be like, inhabiting this Mennonite community that's out of time and separate from its surrounding country, which lends a uniformity to the women's experiences, and yet, Toews realizes each character as an individual.
I was impressed by a similar sort of narrative technique she uses in Fight Night—it's first person, but because it's first person from the perspective of the man who is keeping the minutes of the meeting, the narrative mostly consists of the voices of people who are not the narrator. In these two novels, Toews’ style expands the possibilities of first-person narration. I just might try it myself!
The Happenings & Links Portion of The Tumbleweed
I’m heading to AWP in Seattle, and I’m proud to moderate the panel “Writing the Real West: Diverse, Urban, and Contemporary,” starring fabulous writers Erika T. Wurth, Jonathan Evison, Leland Cheuk, and Sameer Pandya. The panel will take place on Saturday, March 11 at 9 a.m. (Rooms 338-339, Summit Building, Seattle Convention Center, Level 3).
At AWP, I will also be doing a book signing at the Texas Review Press table (#601). They haven’t told me what day or time yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as I hear!
For The Millions, I interviewed my friend Chip Livingston about Love, Loosha, a book he edited that collects the correspondence between our teacher Lucia Berlin and her friend Kenward Elmslie.
For the Daily Sun-Up, Colorado Sun’s podcast, Claire Boyles, Wendy J. Fox, Rachel King and I talked to Kevin Simpson. We also got to chat about our books on KGNU’s Morning Magazine.
For the Minneapolis Star Tribune, I reviewed Oindrila Mukherjee's The Dream Builders. In this debut novel, as a new city rises in northern India, the fortunes of its inhabitants are irrevocably altered.
For America, I wrote about Michelle Gallen’s Factory Girls and Angie Cruz’s How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water. I loved reading these books as a pair and discovering connections between them.
As always, The Tumbleweed welcomes your questions and comments about writing, reading, taco eating, rabbit wrangling, the difference between buffalo and bison, and Deion Sanders.