AustLit

'Sometimes a book has a mysterious power over readers. Conventionally the power is explained by theme, plot, character, narrative, style. This chapter, written by a novelist using an interdisciplinary approach, draws on the work of turn-of-the century neuroscientist John Briggs and more recently neuroscientist Professor Liane Gabora to look at a book’s power from a creator’s point of view. Apart from “just scribbling”, the reason for creating a book is not apparent to this novelist at first, but appears gradually during the writing as “an inkling” with multidimensional “fingerprints” of style and voice, and towards the end of the creation, feels to her as affirming, authentic and ultimately, healing. This healing may be contagious, and sensed by the reader. In the following chapter, the novelist describes the creating of her new unpublished but commissioned novel when the inkling refused to arrive; and how she had to – in Heidegger’s words – “wait upon” it, rather than “wait for” it.'

Source: Abstract.