The Hippocampus – is buried deep beneath the cerebrum and is a memory processing centre. Long term memories are sent to the relevant part of cerebral cortex and these are usually preserved in dementia. This is the part of the brain that allows associations to occur. When you smell lavender, you think of your nan’s house. You hear a song and remember the first time you met your partner.
The Amygdala are tiny almond shaped organs, and are the centre for processing our emotional responses to things. Fear, pleasure, pain, anxiety. These are established after only few repetitions which is why fear is such an effective political tool. Once established it is there and hard to shift. If you grew up in a violent household, the sound of the front door opening may still make you alert and hypervigilant as sensory prompts like sound and smell establish connections that become hard-wired and difficult to shift.
The best writing stimulates the reader’s limbic systemic. A scary book activates those fight flight emotions causing the reader to turn the page to see what happens next. A great love story stimulates all those warm fuzzy feelings and the promise of a sex scene leads to arousal.
We spend a lot of time in our neocortex worrying about our writing. Is it good enough, does it make sense, is the grammar and spelling perfect? To write powerful fiction, you need to slip down into the limbic system and put yourself into the shoes of the protagonist, to become the protagonist and feel what they feel. The stress, the fear, the pain and joy need to be visceral and this doesn’t happen while you cling to your thinking brain. The neocortex is for your second draft when you begin to edit and rewrite.
This is the origin of the well-known writer’s advice to show not tell. You want the reader immersed in your story, to feel the emotions, to turn the page to see what happens next and that will only happen if you write using your limbic system to get that shitty first draft onto the page.
I invite you to give your neocortex a rest. You will need it later for your second draft or to complete that pesky tax return. For now, let go and give your brain permission to wander into your imagination. Your thoughts will take you down all sorts of interesting paths. Give them free reign and let this inform your writing. Allow your emotions to sit in the hot seat for a while. It is in this unexplored labyrinth where your ideas are waiting to be found.
Book Review
Breath by Carly-Jay Metcalfe
Breathing is the most fundamental thing that links us to life. We can survive without food for around thirty days providing we are well nourished to begin with. Without water, we only survive for around three days but without breathing, we last around three minutes.
In her moving memoir, Breath, Carly takes us on a visceral journey through her lived experience of cystic fibrosis, a common genetic disorder characterised by faulty gene (CFTR -cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator) that affects the movement of salt and water in and out of cells. It is associated with recurrent infections and the production of thick, sticky mucus in the lungs and digestive system.
Despite straddling life and death throughout her childhood and early adult life, Carly’s irreverence and sense of humour make even the most difficult pages a joy to read. She is frank about her survivor’s guilt after experiencing the death of so many of her CF friends and talks openly about the impacts of being the recipient of a new set of lungs. Despite the horrors of invasive medical procedures, she embraces life and grits her teeth through adversities.
Carly crushes taboos about living with chronic illness and despite flirting with death through infection, rejection, invasive medical procedures and the diagnosis of a rare cancer, her life is fuller than most. She reminds us that, ‘I was born to live, and I was born to die,’ and invites us to repeat this fundamental truth out loud. It is the acceptance of this reality that is central to her ability to confront the possibility of death with such honesty and humour.
As a reader, we struggle to breathe with her as her diseased lungs falter in the hours before her double lung transplant and are then taken on a roller coaster of emotion through her love life, friendships and weight losses and gains as her sense of self is repeatedly challenged. Carly doesn’t shy away from the humiliation of clearing up her own shit, losing herself in a fog of narcotic oblivion and scrambling to understand the complex, messy human condition we call life. She is loud and proud and not frightened to discuss embarrassing topics.
It is impossible to read this book and remain unchanged. It will challenge you to embrace your own life with all its flaws, challenges and joys. To swear and laugh and dare yourself to live in the right now. To inhale deeply and appreciate every breath of air that fills your lungs, whatever difficulties you might face.
A Piece of my Writing
This piece won the Queensland Writers Centre Right Left Write competition in September 2023.
Every month, Brisbane Scribes set themselves a challenge to write a short story or piece of flash fiction to a prompt. If we have a guest speaker, we ask them to provide the prompt and invite them to read our pieces and choose a favourite. The prompt for this story was, Where am I? and was suggested by Ruby Fox, author of Dead Famous. Ruby Fox (real name Rachel S. Morgan) is an award-winning, sassy Australian fiction writer, screenwriter, and storyteller whose dream was to become a rockstar. Instead, she became an entertainment journalist, and her film and TV credits include Mako Mermaids (Netflix/Disney), Wanted (Matchbox Pictures) and The Bachelor. Rachel spent an evening with the scribes telling us about her writing journey and entertained us with her behind the scenes stories.
When the prompt, Suspense, for the monthly Right, Left, Write landed in my inbox, this story fitted perfectly so I sent it off. It was such a lovely surprise to win and a reminder that we never know where the pieces we write will end up. Just keep writing about topics you are passionate about, keep submitting and rewriting and unexpected opportunities will present themselves.
I do hope you enjoy reading this short piece.
Hide and Seek
‘Where am I?’
Jean hears the whisper, so soft it might have been her imagination. ‘Coming to find you, ’she calls back.
It’s Amy’s favourite game. She plays it over and over again.
Jean tries not to make a sound, but her feet jumble, and she nearly falls.
‘Ouch.’ Jean winces, screws her face up tight, strains to hear something.
There’s a rattle, the snap of a branch and Jean holds her breath, waits, then, steps into silence.
There is something wrong, but she can’t place her finger on it. Her thoughts are fuzzy, and she needs to concentrate.
‘Where am I?’
Amy’s voice is so quiet, it might just be an echo. She is getting too good at this game, and it is making Jean nervous.
The sound of a giggle. Of bare feet on grass. A glimpse of red, her sandal left behind.
Jean huffs a bit and stops.
Silence now and it makes her heart patter. She pauses and waits for it to ease, for her breathing to slow.
The sky swallows the sun and Jean shivers.
Something is wrong, and her intestines slip over each other like someone has put a hand inside and twisted her inside out.
The moon slivered. Everything dark now.
‘Amy?’
The quiet has a sound of its own, mutes her words.
The hint of corduroy, purple, the one Jean made for Amy because it was her favourite colour.
Evenings that smell of pear’s soap and shampoo. Freckles, curls and soft, clean skin.
Jean edges one foot forward, launches back into the darkness, nearly stumbles, manages to right herself.
Daisy chains, tangled limbs.
Humpty Dumpty in pieces. And still none of it put back together again.
‘Where am I?’ whispers Jean into the indifferent night. The moon smiles, thin and sinister behind a cloud.
Lamingtons and butterfly cakes. And definitely no peas. Or green things. Or yucky things.
Fragments like broken glass with important pieces missing.
A single moment of inattention.
‘Where are you?’ Jean calls, her voice broken and old and useless.
She stumbles down towards the gate, remembers pigtails, ice cream, sticky fingers.
The rusty hinge squeaks open, and she nearly falls.
No skipping feet disappearing around the corner. No laughing dimples.
Where am I? wonders Jean, tucking cold hands beneath her armpits.
The minutes become hours, become days, become a tangle of years.
~
‘Mum.’
Jean retreats. If she keeps very still, he won’t see her.
‘Mum, what are you doing outside again?’
A firm hand under her elbow.
‘You can’t stay at home if you keep wandering outside.’
He eases her into a chair, flicks on the light, the kettle.
‘Mum, it’s been over fifty years now.’
Jean squints into the fluorescent light, grasps at scattered thoughts and marvels at the crinkled hand that reaches for her mug.
‘She’s gone.’ His hand on hers.
Jean trembles. ‘Where am I?’
His big arms warm around her. ‘You’re home, Mum.’
