Storystorm 2020 Day 10: Rajani LaRocca Uses Her Subconscious

by Rajani LaRocca

I’m a doctor as well as a writer. I take care of grownups all day, and write stories for kids all night…well, actually pretty much every minute of the day not spent taking care of my patients or my family. And as a doctor and a writer, there’s one thing I know for sure:

We write with our brains.

Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash

OK, not literally with our brains—writing usually involves hands. But the work of writing comes from our brains.

Duh, Rajani, you may say. We don’t need to be doctors to know that!

Aha, gentle writer, I say to you. But what part of our brains?

I’m not going to go deep into brain science here. I’m not going to delve into the workings of the cerebral cortex, the hippocampus, or the amygdala.

I’m talking about the conscious vs. the subconscious.

Photo by Christopher Rusev on Unsplash

Most of the time, we use our conscious mind. It’s the stuff we are aware of right now—the input from our senses, our actions, and our thoughts.

But there are times when the conscious mind gets stumped. You can’t figure out what happens next in your novel—all your ideas are predictable and boring. You have no idea how to make the rhyme work in a stanza of your hilarious picture book about unicorn hats. You cannot imagine coming up with thirty different story ideas in thirty-one days to start off 2020. You think, and you think, and you think with your conscious mind, and you’re coming up empty.

But the conscious mind is only the tip of the iceberg.

Photo by Derek Oyen on Unsplash

Most of what our brains do is actually under the surface of all that stuff we’re thinking about. The subconscious mind makes connections, draws conclusions, and remembers things we thought we’d forgotten. It helps us solve problems when our conscious minds are stumped. It might just be the wellspring from which all our creativity flows.

Photo by Ezra Jeffrey-Comeau on Unsplash

But how do we access the subconscious mind? How do we demand that something work when we can’t consciously ask it to work? How do we catch a cloud and pin it down?

Well, there are lots of ways.

1. Meditate. This is a tried and true practice for calming the conscious mind and accessing the subconscious more easily.

Photo by Deniz Altindas on Unsplash

2. Exercise. Getting your muscles pumping makes your conscious mind stop focusing on the problem at hand and can allow your subconscious mind to take over. I’ve gotten many ideas at the gym — including a tricky little plot point for my debut novel, MIDSUMMER’S MAYHEM, that had me laughing out loud and taking desperate notes on my phone while trying not to fall off the elliptical.

Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash

3. Be in nature. If you can exercise in nature, even better! And if you can do it with a friend who is a good listener, even even better. Here’s my favorite friend exploring nature with me:

His name is Boomer. And yes, he’s impossibly cute.

4. Shower. I cannot tell you why, but the feeling of warm water running over your head can prod your subconscious into action like nothing else! I get ideas in the shower all the time; you can even get a special notepad to jot down ideas during your ablutions.

Photo by Chandler Cruttenden on Unsplash

5. Work on a different task that requires your attention. People often ask me how I can be a doctor and a writer. The truth is, I often feel that I’m a better writer because I’m a doctor. My day job requires intense focus, and when I take a break from it, my subconscious mind has often figured out something for my writing that my conscious mind couldn’t access.

I also like to shift between projects, especially if one project is long (like a novel) and the other is short (a picture book or essay…or, perhaps, a blog post). After I’ve finished working on one thing, I move to the other and find that the ideas are flowing again.

Photo by Joe Green on Unsplash

6. Sleep. Seriously! It gives your brain time to rest and rejuvenate. Even a nap can help. For rhyme, I find that a good night’s sleep often leads to discovering just the right turn of phrase first thing in the morning. While my conscious mind went night-night, my subconscious worked on finding the perfect combination of words.

During this Storystorm month, I hope you find your own ways to tap into your subconscious and get your ideas flowing like never before. As a parting gift, you are free to meditate and exercise in an outdoor shower while contemplating this lovely photo before taking a nice long nap:

Rajani LaRocca practices medicine and writes middle grade novels and picture books in the Boston area. In her free time, she enjoys reading, traveling, and baking too many sweet treats.

Her debut novel, MIDSUMMER’S MAYHEM (Yellow Jacket/Little Bee Books) was a 2019 Indies Introduce title and a 2019 Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade Novel. Her debut picture book, SEVEN GOLDEN RINGS: A TALE OF MUSIC AND MATH (Lee & Low, July 2020) is set in ancient India and introduces the concept of binary numbers. Learn more about her and her other forthcoming books at RajaniLaRocca.com and on Twitter and Instagram @rajanilarocca.

Rajani giving away a picture book critique and a copy of her debut picture book, SEVEN GOLDEN RINGS: A TALE OF MUSIC AND MATH (July 2020) to two different winners.