I have two books I’ve been meaning to read for quite some time. Actually, I have many books that call to me for attention, and the list seems to grow more rapidly than I can handle. Regardless, these two books have been sitting there, patiently looking my way, softly whispering now and again, “Remember us?”

Yes, I remember them. They’re not about psychology and they’re not about religion. They are about writing, and if you are a writer, you are drawn to such books like an ant to sugar.

The first of these two books is “The Opposite of Fate, Memories of a Writing Life”, by Amy Tan. Amy Tan wrote “The Joy Luck Club” and “The Kitchen God’s Wife”. In “The Opposite of Fate” she presents snippets of her writing and short narratives of events that have been important along the journey which has been her life. Often she writes about how people turn fate on its heels and make something of it through choice, faith, hope, and even through good luck charms or the charm of personal support. I want to read it, because she’s a writer and I want to see what living as a writer has been like for her.

The second book is “The World Is My Home, a Memoir”, by James A. Michener. Michener started his writing career at age 40 but for the next 40 some odd years he produced a massive amount of writing and won various awards in recognition of his work, including the Pulitzer Prize. Again, I want to see what writing was for him, how it fit into his experience of living. He wrote in the beginning of this autobiography that he constructed it the way he did because he wanted “the reader to see in careful detail the kind of ordinary human being who becomes a writer and then to see the complex and contradictory motivations that enable him to remain one.”

Indeed, Ernest Hemingway once said that it was not a matter of what one wrote but of what one did not write. It takes a lot to edit oneself, to organise the writing so that it comes out of the messy swirl inside one’s head to actually impart a clear idea, share an experience, or give a perspective. It takes discipline and a ruthless faith to eliminate sections that seem catchy or clever and throw them entirely away if they don’t fit.

According to a recent article in The Monitor on Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association, writing exercises both the verbal and spatial capacities in one’s working memory — the mind’s ability to juggle different ideas at the same time. Some people organise the complex demands of writing by creating an initial outline, but others embrace the whole, messy situation at once and revise along the way. In what might seem counter-intuitive, in a study comparing “outliners” with “all-at-oncers” the second group scored consistently about five points higher in graded essays. Researchers believe the second strategy is more advantageous because it forces the writer to interact with his or her writing as the overall piece takes shape, editing as they write and often radically changing the direction of the piece in response to a constantly shifting composition.

Having said that, it also depends on the personality of the writer. If a person is so high strung and self-conscious that they audit whatever they do rather intensively, then these people actually do better with an outline. This illustrates the fact that we’re all wired a little differently. I think a person needs to try out various strategies and see what works best for them.

And if a person is just not a writer at all, then all this doesn’t matter much does it? There are other ways in which to exercise the mind or strengthen one’s working memory or executive skills. And if a person is a writer, then the love of writing, and the fascination with how other writers do it, has nothing to do with psychology. A writer could care less. What a writer wants to do is read and produce good writing. A well-crafted sentence, within a solid paragraph, and the flow of exquisite words is symmetry and beauty, and that’s all that matters.

Dr. Philip Brownell, M.Div., Psy.D. is a psychologist at Benedict Associates. He can be contacted at 295-2070 or by e-mail at crossroadsg-gej.org