Your Brain on Writing: The Science Behind the Creative Process: Why understanding how your brain works can make you a better writer

Have you ever wondered why your best ideas seem to strike while you are walking or driving, but vanish the moment you sit down to write? Or why staring at a blank document feels physically exhausting, even though you're "just thinking"?

The answers lie in neuroscience—and understanding how your brain actually creates can transform the way you approach writing.

The inspiration that comes to you while walking the dog. Corgis are such happy companions! 

Three Networks, One Creative Brain

Forget the myth of sudden inspiration striking like lightning. Creativity is a measurable cognitive process involving three distinct brain networks working together:

The Default Mode Network (DMN) activates during mind-wandering and idea generation. It's your brainstorming brain—the one making connections while you're walking the dog or letting your thoughts drift.

The Executive Control Network (ECN) evaluates and refines ideas. This is your editor brain, the deliberate, critical-thinking part that shapes raw ideas into polished arguments.

The Salience Network acts as the switchboard operator, directing attention between the other two networks based on what the task requires.

Here's the crucial insight: these networks can actually inhibit each other. Trying to generate ideas and critically evaluate them at the same time creates cognitive interference. This is why  neuroscience suggests the appropriate principle is write divergently, edit convergently.

Two Systems of Thinking

Psychologists describe two distinct thinking systems that writers need to master:

System 1 is fast, intuitive, and associative. It's essential for brainstorming, freewriting, and making unexpected connections between ideas. When you're drafting a literature review and suddenly see a link between two seemingly unrelated sources, that's System 1 at work.

System 2 is slow, deliberate, and analytical. You need it for constructing logical arguments, organizing your outline, and revising for clarity.

Effective writers learn to consciously toggle between these modes—and recognize that each stage of writing demands a different balance.

Matching Your Brain to the Writing Stage

Prewriting: Embrace the Wandering Mind

During the invention stage, your goal is to maximize divergent thinking and DMN activation. This means creating conditions for productive mind-wandering: freewriting without judgment, taking walks, even those famous shower moments.

Neuroscientist Mark Beeman calls this "cognitive looseness"—the mental state that allows distant associations to surface. For research papers, this might mean exploratory reading without immediately organizing notes. For analytical essays, try concept mapping or clustering before you outline.

The key: let your brain make unexpected connections before you try to organize them.

Drafting: Finding Your Flow

The drafting stage requires transitioning toward focused attention while preserving creative momentum. This is where Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's research on flow states becomes practical.

Flow happens when challenge and skill are balanced—not so easy you're bored, not so hard you're paralyzed. Set manageable goals (draft one section, not the whole paper) and remove distractions. Neuroscience suggests writing in timed intervals of 45-90 minutes before breaks, because sustained attention genuinely depletes cognitive resources.

One important caveat: don't over-outline. Leave room for discovery during drafting—some of your best insights will emerge in the act of writing itself.

Revision: The Critical Distance Problem

Effective revision demands strong ECN activation—deliberate, critical evaluation. But here's what neuroscience reveals: we need temporal distance for effective self-editing because the same brain networks that generated our ideas also defend them.

This is why building waiting periods between drafting and revision isn't procrastination—it's strategy. When you return to your work after a break, you can engage your critical faculties without the protective instincts that make us blind to our own weaknesses.

Writing Creatively with Research

Studies by composition researcher Nancy Sommers reveal a crucial difference between novice and expert academic writers: novices treat research as information-gathering, while experts use sources as thinking partners—engaging in written dialogue with ideas.

Neurologically, this matters enormously. Merely summarizing research activates primarily memory and language areas. But critically engaging with sources activates reasoning and creativity networks simultaneously.

To write more creatively with research:

Frame each source as answering a question, then identify what new questions it raises

Organize literature reviews by themes or tensions rather than source-by-source summaries

Practice "creative constraint"—let your thesis provide focus while finding unexpected evidence within that framework

Before reading a new source, write what you already know about the topic to prime your brain for connections.  The reason for this is that you are activating memory and prior learning, thus creating a scaffold, as well as learning that is situated in a context that allows your brain to find rich connections. 

Practical Strategies by Essay Type

For analytical essays: Alternate between close reading (focused attention) and reflective pauses (DMN activation). After analyzing evidence, step away briefly to let insights develop before drafting your interpretation.

For research papers: Separate reading sessions from organizational sessions—they use different cognitive modes. Try structural work in the morning when your ECN is typically strongest, and save exploratory reading for later in the day.

For creative or personal essays: Embrace productive mind-wandering during prewriting, but use structured revision to ensure coherence. Inspiration is real (DMN activation), but craft requires discipline (ECN).

For all writing: Recognize that cognitive fatigue is neurological, not a character flaw. Your brain depletes glucose and other resources during sustained creative work. Strategic breaks, exercise, and sleep aren't avoidance—they're essential for cognitive restoration and creative insight.

The Bottom Line

Understanding the neuroscience of creativity doesn't diminish the magic of writing—it demystifies the process so you can work with your brain instead of against it.

You can't force inspiration, but you can create optimal conditions for it. You can't skip the hard work of revision, but you can recognize when your brain genuinely needs rest versus when you're avoiding difficulty.

The goal is metacognitive awareness: understanding your own cognitive rhythms well enough to match your mental state to the task at hand.

Your brain already knows how to be creative. Now you know how to let it.

Want to dive deeper into the research? Key researchers in this field include Arne Dietrich (cognitive neuroscience of creativity), Rex Jung (creative cognition), Teresa Amabile (social psychology of creativity), Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (flow states), and Mark Beeman (insight and the "aha moment").

Instant Online Education Using WhatsApp or WeChat

What do you do if your school is shut down for a week or even longer due to outbreaks of flu, bad weather, or a new virus?  Many schools have not budgeted to put their courses online, and even if they had the funds, many of the online commercial options do not meet the curriculum standards.  On top of that, there is simply no time.

 Further complicating the situation is the fact that many families in some school districts may not have a family computer or online service. Those who do may need the computer for other purposes during the day, particularly if a family member is working remotely from home. In addition, the students may not feel comfortable with a new learning management system, and they may not know how to proceed.

Are there any quick answers? Yes. It builds on the lesson plans and course materials you already have, but makes it possible to hold class and maintain student engagement, instead of simply having a week of homework and independent study.

Here is a bold approach that allows a school to seamlessly move to online education with very little extra cost by using smartphones.  In general, the extra cost would involve having a more robust data plan. It may be necessary to negotiate with the phone service providers to allow more data transfer each month.  If there are many children in a household, it may be necessary to have a family plan with more than one phone.

We would use WhatsApp or WeChat.  I’m selecting those two because they are extremely flexible and it is possible to create groups, use video chat, send group and private messages, share and send files for text, images, and videos.  However, the same could be done with Skype, Zoom, GoToMeeting, with just a few adjustments in considering the individual apps and their differences.

Step 1:  Modify daily lesson plans to be structured into lectures, check your knowledge quizzes (fun interactive polling), independent work, and receiving student work.

Step 2:  Review WhatsApp and familiarize yourself with video chat, group chat, photo transfer, and text messaging.

Step 3:  Build your Course Design Plan, which will be your lesson template. It will contain the following:

    Learning Objectives:  Clearly state to your students what they will learn. Use Bloom’s Taxonomy to describe the outcome.  It is best to limit your learning objectives to one or two. Keep in mind that their learning activity and assessments will tie to the learning objectives.

    Lectures:  You will talk to the students via video chat.  Plan for the video lecture to be between 10 and 15 minutes.

    Check Your Knowledge and What Do You Think?:  At least twice during the lecture, pause for a moment and ask your students to answer a question. They will send in their responses via text message. It can be an opinion (as in What Do You Think?), which could make the topic and lecture more engaging. Stress that class participation is a part of their grade.

    Independent Activity:  This will be a moment when you’ll ask your students to turn to their books and read a passage.

    Activity Review:  Doodle Polls are extremely easy to make and they are free. Most people use them for selecting schedules, but you can create multiple choice questions as well.  You can send the URL of your poll to your students via WhatsApp messaging, and when they complete them, you will see their responses in a single document. These are ideal for keeping students engaged, checking their knowledge, and giving them a class participation grade. For graded quizzes, ProProfs is a sophisticated package and also free, although the free version is limited. It takes some time to create the multiple choice questions, so you may not wish to do more than one per week.

   Assessment:  
   Multiple choice quizzes:  You can use ProProfs or one of the other free quizmaker programs to create graded multiple choice quizzes that your students can do via their phones.  You will be able to see their grades. Ideally, your quizzes will provide feedback that points them to the correct answer and also ties directly to a specific text in the lessons.

   Written Assignments: This is an opportunity for you to ask your students to complete one or two short answer questions and to turn it in via WhatsApp. 

• Student procedure:  Ask your students to write the answers on a piece of paper and then take a picture and send it to you. Alternatively, they can create a document using an app on their phone, save it, then send it via their phone.  
• 
  How you provide feedback: You will grade the work and provide feedback by recording a message in WhatsApp and sending it to each student. Your response should not be more than 2 minutes in length.  If you need to write an answer or add diagrams, you can do so on a piece of paper, and then take a photo and send it.

How you record grades:  You can record grades in the way that you normally do so. 

If you teach the same course to several different sections of students, you may wish to record your group video chat in order to save it for anyone who may have missed it due to illness.

For maximum engagement, however, it is important that all the students participate together in the group chat.

Online Classroom Management. 
As you move forward, you may have a few online classroom management challenges.  Here are the main guidelines:

•     Ask everyone to mute their phones during the lecture.
•     Do not send messages during the lecture.
•     Ask for 100% participation in the Check Your Knowledge and What Do You Think?  Sections. Make sure that you emphasize that participation is a part of their grade.
•     Shut down any possible cyberbullying or cybershaming right away.
•     Make sure that your recorded responses are succinct and positive.
•     When your students complete their graded multiple choice quizzes, put some thought into encouraging your students to work in groups.  If you do so, you will increase engagement, collaboration, and facilitate deeper learning.

   

Audience Analysis: Important for All Messages from Social Media to Technical White Paper

Before you write, during the writing and revision process, the key to an effective document, presentation, or message is understanding your audience.

Who is your audience?  Who, specifically, are they?
As you prepare to write, you need to have a good idea of your audience.  This will probably involve more than one stage of contemplation.  Of course, you know who your primary audience is likely to be, particularly if it is an instructor or an editor.  But who are the secondary audiences likely to be?  Why?

Demographics of the audience
As you define your audience, you need to have an idea of their basic characteristics.  Where do they live?  What gender are they? How old are they?  What is their income level?  What is their education level?  What are the demographics that specifically apply to your topic?  That will influence the questions you ask yourself as you try to obtain an accurate idea of the dominant characteristics of your audience.  For example, if your paper is on gun control, it is useful to know if your audience is likely to be comprised of gun owners, or members of the NRA.

How will they receive your message?  What is the medium?  Printed or written discourse?  Internet?  Graphics?  Film?  Television?
The medium of the message has a definite impact on audience impact.  For example, if they read your article in a newspaper, they will respond to it in a different manner than if they read it on typed pages.  If your message is on the Internet, you need to keep in mind such factors as design, color, accessibility, loading speed, etc.  If your message includes graphics, how are they printed on the page?  In color? Black and white?  If the medium is film or television, what are the production values?  What are other factors, such as music, set design, mise-en-scene, direction, camera angles, etc.?  All these are non-narrative elements that have an impact on your audience because each element carries with it meaning.  The mind makes meaning from each of the elements, and, like it or not, it will impact the spoken or written part of the discursive package.

What are the core values of your audience?  How can you affirm those while making your point?
What are the core values of your audience?  Of course, you will probably never know all of them, but if you understand a bit about the religious, ethnic, group, and/or demographic background of your audience, you may have a fairly good idea about how the audience members respond to certain issues.  What do they believe is the appropriate role of government and the state?  Is the human being inherently good, bad, or neutral?  Is the human psyche malleable or rigidly programmed?  The key is to identify the core values that pertain to your primary thesis and the topics in your paper.  If you affirm your audience's core beliefs, you can help convince your audience of your credibility and they will be more likely to pay attention.


When do the attitudes and values of your audience shift?  This is a key opportunity, but why?  What are your audience's situational attitudes?
This is an often overlooked and underestimated element in audience analysis.  And yet, it is precisely this area that holds the most promise because these are the points where you may actually be able to wield influence.  When the attitudes and values of your audience begin to shift due to a changing situation, or a different speaker, then you know you have an opportunity to create a more effective argument, and one which actually has a chance of working.  This is not to be overlooked.

Why will your audience read your document?  What's in it for them?
In constructing your paper, you need to keep in mind that your audience is not likely to read past the first line unless they perceive that there is some benefit or utility in continuing to read.  With that in mind, you need to structure your paper so that you "positively program or condition" your audience by making the paper readable, relevant, reliable, and rewarding.

What are audience expectations?  Narrative expectations?  Generic expectations?
Because of the nature of narrative and form, your audience will begin to develop the expectation that your paper will follow along these lines.  You must analyze your paper very carefully and decide what basic narrative form it is following. If it is a story, is it a Cinderella story?  Romeo and Juliet?  A revenge story?  If it is a report, is it a sales pitch?  An expose?  A recommendation?  A informational review?  Does it take a position and argue a point?  Generic expectations have to do with the genre or type of paper that it is. If it is a paper that takes a position, you would hardly expect it to read like an instruction manual.  Thus, you need to keep in mind how your audience will typecast your paper and just accordingly.

What are your audience's preconceptions about your topic?  The "major players" in your topic?
Is your audience likely to have preconceptions about your audience?  If they do, you need to address them.  If you do not acknowledge the preconceptions, your audience will think that you are not very well informed.  In addition, it is important to determine who the "major players" are and that they manifest themselves as subtopics, statistics, case studies, images, or individual characters.

Who do you consider yourself to be?  Who are you, and, more importantly, where are you in relation to your audience?  What are the power hierarchies?  Who and where is the "Other" in relation to you and your audience, and how does it change the way they approach you, each other, the text?
As you read your paper, think about how you would respond to your audience if you were meeting them face-to-face, then explaining the topic to them.  How do you envision them assessing you?  Your response to this is a key indicator of how you perceive yourself, and whether or not you believe yourself to be speaking to a group of peers, or to a group of individuals or an individual with more or significantly less power than you.  It's absolutely indicative of the post-colonial (and post-feminist, if one discusses the phenomenology of oppression) mindset, and it indicates how you know your own reality, and how you prioritize your perceptions.  If you can manage to think in an "Other"-centric way, you will have achieved what Kenneth Burke referred to as "consubstantiality," or the ability to "get under the skin" of your audience.

Quality Checklist for Training and Professional Development Courses for Associations

The members of associations and professional societies share common goals and interests; the most important of these tends to be professional advancement, enhanced knowledge, and networking.

At the center of achieving professional development is often formal training taught by experts, with credits officially awarded at the end, and records maintained by the organization.

Because the organizations represent the profession, they are under an ethical as well as a practical obligation to maintain high quality. However, it’s not always easy to develop a course template or set of criteria.

For convenience, here is a quick checklist of content and quality attributes to be sure to include in your courses.  Keep in mind that this is simply a quick checklist. If you would like a more detailed description, and an explanation of how to build the course itself for online, on-site, or hybrid delivery, there are a number of in-depth guides which I refer to at the end of this post.

Checklist of Content and Quality Attributes
Here are the essential elements that you need to include in your courses.  You may wish to formalize the list, format, fonts, etc in what is commonly referred to as a Course Design Document (CDD), which also includes instructional design guidelines. 
At the same time, you may wish to create a template.

•    Title of the course and the reason for its relevance
•    Learning objectives:  What will the measurable outcomes be?  What should the learner be able to do or demonstrate at the end of the course? What are the criteria for success?
•    Overview / brief description of the course
•    Bullet point of topics covered
•    Course materials:  Map them to the learning objectives

        * Main content
        * Engagers
        * Check your knowledge / interactive activities

•    Collaborative and individual activities:  Map them to the learning objectives
•    Assessment strategy:

•     Activities in course – do they count?  How much? Why?
•     Class participation and collaborations – How do they count?
•     Final projects or exams

• Rubric
• Minimum passing score
• Practice for multiple choice

Checklist of Instructor Qualifications 
In order to satisfy quality standards, it is important that your instructor and main subject matter expert(s) and that they have pertinent experience.
•    Relevant Experience
•    Educational qualifications
•    Experience in instruction

Checklist for Utilizing Learning Analytics and Effective Evaluations to Ensure High Quality Training:
As you review your course and the way you anticipate that the students will interact and engage with it, take a moment to develop a profile of your learners, their attributes, and learning goals. What are their needs?  Understanding the audience will help shape the following:

• Learning Outcomes
• Course outcomes
• Course Design Document to tie LOs to content and assessment
• Types of analytics that are available
• Mastery learning
• Time on task
• Collaborations
• Discussion
• Formative evaluations
• Engaging analytics (Did You Know?)
• Summative evaluations
• Assessments tying to learning outcomes

As you plan the courses, be sure to make sure that they are up to date, relevant, and they address current and emerging needs and trends.

References (please contact Susan for a free pdf of each).

Nash, Susan S. (2009) E-Learner Survival Guide. Norman, OK: Texture Press.

PDF (free)
http://zenzebra.net/elearner-survival-guide.pdf

Nash, Susan S. (2013) E-Learning Success: From Courses to Careers. Norman, OK: Texture Press.
https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Success-Courses-Careers/dp/0985008105

Free: Technical / Professional Writing in a Device-Driven World

While technical and professional writing goals have remained the same, the world in which such writing is being produced has not. Smartphones, tablets, social media, GIS-enabled extreme interactivity have changed the way we communicate dramatically in just the last 18 months. What is the impact on you? How must you change your approach to maintain effectiveness?

View an archived webinar, Technical Writing Triage, offered free for a limited time, and learn how to create effective documents on all devices. 

If you are interested in more in-depth instruction, you can earn AAPG continuing education units and an AAPG certificate if you sign up for the guided 8-unit online course on technical writing. 

 

Free Download: Writing for Human Relations

Writing for Human Relations, a writing guide with assignments, flowcharts, exercises, and readings, is now available as a free e-book, and can be downloaded or shared with your friends and colleagues. Here is the free download. 

One of the keys to effective human relations is the ability to see different points of view and to develop empathy and understanding of others' perspectives.

Free Download! Writing for Human Relations

Writing for Human Relations takes the position that writing helps you learn about yourself, your values, and also the views and values of others.

In addition to the idea that writing is necessary for self-awareness, Writing for Human Relations champions the idea that the process of writing forces you to think, and as you do so, you have more skill in identifying social issues and proposing changes that can lead to positive social change and community development.

Chances are, you, like hundreds of other learners, will love the flowcharts in the text, and you will find them to be helpful with the task at hand, as well as with other writing occasions. You may even find yourself internalizing the approaches, which gives you a very powerful tool for all your writing, whether for school, work, or social networks.

With a full array of inventive templates, charts, diagrams, outlines, and step-by-step suggestions which have been developed and refined in both virtual and face-to-face classrooms, Writing for Human Relations triggers the flow of ideas.

With engaging templates and flowcharts, it is easy to get started and add details and evidence, to create compelling texts. Above all, Writing for Human Relations brings solid rhetorical ideas and theories of discourse into action, and facilitates the production of engaging, effective writing that improves relationships between individuals, groups, and the larger world.

You may also purchase a printed copy. 

For E-Learning Queen readers:  Try out some of the writing guide flowcharts starting on page 50. E-Learning Queen will put together a gallery of writing that was inspired by or generated by using the flow charts!