2 + 2 = ...7?

Hey-O!

Special thanks to everyone to came by to visit me at the Authors Festival in Gallup, NM, this past Saturday! We had a lot of fun, and it was great to meet everyone.

Don't forget to go online to Goodreads and post that you're reading Cedwig, and to write up a review when you're done! I sincerely hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. :-D



But for today, we continue our series in facts and misconceptions about writers.

Writers are... Bad at Math

Okay, this is a common one. I probably hear it every day of my life. "Oh, you're a writer? You must be great with words and horrible with numbers." Oy. It gets a little old after a while, even though it is so often true.

But today I'm just going to explain why so many of us are bad at math. We all know it's a thing not everyone grasps, something some of us prefer to not spend much time doing. Numbers aren't my favorite things in the world — I'll be the very first to admit it. And with that in mind, here's why.

1. They're too logical

I like logic. That's not always a commonality for writers. Especially fiction writers. See, we're used to bending the rules and working in illogical fashions. We enjoy playing things out and seeing how far we can stretch things and what we can do to pull at the rules of logic.

Numbers aren't like that. They have rules to them, things that can't be bent or shaped to our liking. Everything we use them for is already set in stone, and that's weird for us. We like to be able to change things.

2. They're too strict

Okay, maybe this is the same point twice, but still.

Numbers have a certain strictness to them that words do not. With writing, we get to play around with word order and shape things into beautiful or grotesque figures that invoke imagery in the mind. But with numbers, we can't do it. It doesn't make sense to us, to take a bunch of digits and make them into something three-dimensional. Of course, we know it's possible to do, but we don't see how.

Essentially, it's that they don't work the same way, and it's hard to grasp both lines.

But I do happen to know one very talented writer who is also a mathematician.

Yeah, only one.

[love]

{Rani D.}