One of the best things that any author can do to keep the brain sharp and satisfied is read. They say we should read for inspiration and that it's the best way to become a better writer, but I think there is a lot to be said for simply feeding your brain things that don't directly have anything to do with writing, but stretch your brain beyond the topics you write about or the business of writing in the first place.
What I mean is, authors need to feed our brains some geeky, substantial stuff slathered in butter but with room to speculate, argue, and disagree. Things like theories on language, or pop science, or speculative statistics (like a futurist arguing over 400 pages of why it's no use trying to predict the future) are all full of the vitamins and nutrients our brains need.
Treat yourself to fun and healthy brain books like:
1. I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World, by James Geary
If you want to dig deep into metaphors and their role in our day to day interactions, this is your kind of book. I filled up the margins and back pages with notes and theories. This book blew my mind. For instance, I vividly remember reading it waiting to take off and reading about how familiarity with a metaphor is what gives that metaphor its power to evoke emotion.
And it's pretty individual. For example, if we say that learning something new is setting sail on a journey, that's a good metaphor is you like sailing, a bad one if your father died at sea, and an ineffective but neutral one if you have never been sailing and don't have much emotion tied to sailing. Is that important? Heck yeah. If you use metaphor to tell a story, it's good to understand how your metaphor choices hit or miss the mark depending on your audience.
At the same time, Geary peels back the layers of the onion showing us all how metaphors have weaseled their way into the very words we think are so simple they have nothing to do with metaphor. It gives you a whole new lens for looking at the world and language!
2. Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference, by Malcolm Gladwell
Sometimes you just need to indulge in sweeping theories about society. Whether you agree or disagree, I think it's fun to hear some, then pick apart where you think they are right or wrong, figure out what you agree with and what you disagree with, and maybe pick up a few vague views and ideas to work into the next story you're reading.
And while Gladwell's theories get attacked all the time for being junk science, I've always found them to be good general ways to view the parts of society and things about trends that we don't have good answers for. Again, it's not about whether he's right or wrong as much as it is about questioning your own views on how and why things happen the way they do. A good shake up on your concept of cause and effect can be a good thing for an author's brain, especially for when you are writing characters who don't fit with your natural decision-making process.
3. Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbabe, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
This is what I'm reading right now, and it's been amazing. Not only is it interesting in and of itself, but it questions the very fabric of what makes an author tick. He looks at how we as humans are naturally wired to string facts and events together and create a story. And that's fine and good (and could explain myth, religion, culture, etc.) until we try to use those stories to predict the future with any kind of accuracy. It turns out that experts aren't experts at all, that our existence as emotional creatures obliterates any kind of rational predictive model, and the reality is that we are all looking at a future full of black swan events, both amazing and tragic, that are outside of the scope of what we can even conceive of expecting or planning for.
Image source: Lead from katerha via flickr and middle from Kris Krug via flickr
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