The Over-Thinking Brain

The Plague of Over-Thinking

“Overthinking is an annoying reflex of being human.  Often in overanalyzing a problem or replaying what to say or what to do, I feel like a cow shooing a fly that will never go away.”

                                  Mark Nepo

         I am working on a third draft of my novel.  The first draft happened like magic—the story told itself, words flowed out and the characters took on a life of their own.  My old writer friend, Mary Virginia, 95 years old and possessing an ungoverned tongue, read it and told me to stick with my art.  So I wrote a second draft; parts of it flowed and the characters acquired more depth.  When I read it after that, I thought it was better than the first draft, but still lacking something important.  So I put it aside.  And then I tortured myself with thinking.  I read several works of other Southern writers with a critical eye for style and content.  My brain told me, “Everyone is better than you; give it up.” Your brain will do that to you; there’s a crocodile waiting in the depths to snap you up when you least expect it.  Then I had a dream about large earth moving equipment digging a deep hole for the foundations of a building.  In the dream, I am watching, with a hardhat on my head and rolls of blueprints tucked under one arm.  The dream told me that the key is digging down, uncovering the deep stuff, and not trying to raise the building until the foundation is dug. 

         We humans can think something to death.  We can ponder and poke and rethink and rework and analyze until we want to pull out all our hair and scream bloody-murder.  Sometimes, thinking is a good thing.  But, sometimes, thinking is the problem and what we need to do is allow the answer to come, not from up in our brain, but from down in our gut.  Sometimes, dreaming, imagining and fantasizing will get us farther than thinking.  At this point in writing my book, I’m going to have an imaginary conversation with each of my characters and see what light they may shed on my dilemma.  I’m going to the history museum in the little town where I grew up and see what “foundational” material I might find there. 

         Sometimes, what we need to do is stop thinking and start experiencing.  No one ever felt the heat of the sun, or heard the crashing of the waves, or danced to the rhythm of the music by thinking about it.  Do it and then let the feelings, the sound, and the movement inform you.  Stories come from living.

                          Thinking about you,

                          Jane