Woody Allen on writing: “Even when you’re not thinking about it, your unconscious is cooking. Even when I’m playing my clarinet or seeing a movie or something, even though I’m not consciously thinking of it, the unconscious is percolating.”

Aimee Bender is the author of four books including The Girl in the Flammable Skirt (1998), and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (2010) which recently won the SCIBA award for best fiction.

Her fiction has been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in Los Angeles, where she teaches creative writing at USC. [From bio on her site, also source of photo, www.flammableskirt.com]

In an interview, she commented about the central value of the subconscious or unconscious for creative work: “I realized that my parents, in a way, had a similar job: my dad, through psychiatry, is dealing with the unconscious and forging his way through other people’s unawareness and bringing them into the air to look at, and my mom is delving into her own unconscious to make up dances.

“She’s a dance teacher and choreographer. And I’m sort of the combo platter, in that psychiatry is so essentially verbal and well, duh, of course so is writing, and also I am like her in that it’s all about creating from this inexplicable mysterious place.”

The triune brain model of the nervous system (to simplify it) says we have a reptilian complex as the most “primitive” part of our brain, plus the limbic system and the neocortex.

In his article The Evolution of Anxiety, Rich Presta explains that the amygdala is part of the “reptilian brain” – “because it’s been around since we were virtually reptiles ourselves, and one of the main jobs of the amygdala is assessing danger and keeping us safe.”

In her article Does the Internet Make You Happy? Thoughts from SxSW, psychologist and teacher Pamela Rutledge, Ph.D. says, “At the lizard level, we don’t distinguish readily between real and virtual in our visceral response.”

She notes that even ‘virtual’ experiences are interpreted as meaningful by the lizard brain.

Jennifer Lee is a coach, artist, author of the book The Right-Brain Business Plan, and the founder of Artizen Coaching. She consulted for a variety of corporations before forming her own venture.

In a profile on her site, she notes “As a kid, I was always painting or drawing. By the time I was a high school sophomore, though, I began comparing my artwork with others and gave into limiting beliefs like ‘I’m not talented enough.’ There went my creative spark!

“So, like all other good young adults, I focused on doing well in school so I could get into a good college and have a good career.”

She has a Masters in Communication Management and consulted for 10 years at companies including Gap, Accenture, HP and Sony.

But, she admits, “Although I enjoyed the challenge of helping leaders and organizations manage change, I knew something was missing. I wanted to make a real difference in people’s lives and to have creative freedom.”

“Once I stopped asking for approval, my art started to get stronger.” – Lela Lee

Lela Lee created “angry little Asian girl” Kim for a video production class at UC Berkeley. After graduating with a degree in rhetoric, she made a short cartoon of Kim and a group of friends. Now she publishes a comic strip and many other creative projects.

Lela Lee will be speaking at The Wealthy Thought Leader Conference the end of May. That link is to my Inner Entrepreneur post about it (including a video).

The conference website has a profile on her:

“Lela is creator of the comic strip ‘Angry Little Asian Girl’ and although they’re not related, Andrea [conference director Andrea Lee] credits Lela’s work with the relief that, as a teenager, maybe she wasn’t alone in her anger after all.