Author Talk: The Luminous Solution with Charlotte Wood.MP4

Hello!

And welcome everybody.

My name is Danielle Ainsley

and on behalf of Woollahra, Randwick
and Waverly Libraries

it's a pleasure to have you all joining us
this evening.

It's also a pleasure to welcome both

Charlotte Wood and Michela Kalowski
as well.

Now, before we get started, I do want to
acknowledge

the traditional owners of the land on
which I currently stand

the Gadigal and Birrabirragal people

of the Eora nation

and pay my respects to elders past,
present and emerging.

It's also a pleasure to welcome both

Michaela Kalowski and Charlotte tonight.

So Michaela is an interviewer, moderator
and presenter.

She's interviewed writers and thinkers

from the worlds of arts, science and
politics.

And recent highlights include Margaret
Atwood,

Trent Dalton, Stan Grant,
and Richard Fidler.

She has conducted radio interviews for ABC

and in June last year curated The Big
Weekend of Books,

ABC Radio National's first ever on air

Writers' Festival.

Now Michaela regularly facilitates

panels and conducts interviews at writers'
festivals

universities and community organizations
as well.

Now, Charlotte is an award winning author

of 6 novels and 2 non-fiction books

and I'm sure there's more there that
I haven't even...

haven't even counted.

She has won the Stella Prize, the Prime
Minister's Literary Award,

the Indie Book of the Year

and most recently

the Literary Fiction Book of the Year

in the Australian Book Industry Awards.

Her most recent book is this one,

which I have right next to me,
there we go.

"The Luminous Solution: Creativity,
Resilience and the Inner Life".

And we have the pleasure of hearing more
about that tonight.

Now, hand it over to Michaela.

Thank you Danielle.

It's very very lovely to be here with
everyone this evening.

I do always wish we could be together
in person

but it's lovely wherever you are around
the country.

It's great to be with you and wonderful

to be in conversation with Charlotte Wood.

I wanted to start by saying that this book

is a really beautiful kind of hybrid of
things.

It's a book that explores really what it

means to be a writer or to create

and woven through the book are also life
lessons,

insights that Charlotte came to while
studying craft

or talking to other writers and thinking
about creativity.

And tonight I wanted to ask her about

all of these 3 things.

Some of the discussion will be about those
life lessons,

she learnt from writing, others will be

questions about her writing life

and the creative lives of others.

And I'll also speak with her about

how ideas that relate to creativity can

help the rest of us navigate our lives.

Charlotte, welcome.

Thank you so much Michaela.

And thank you everyone for coming on this

Friday night, which seems to me a big

sacrifice for you, but it's a great joy
for me.

And I'll just say that I'm joining you
from

Bullanaming, the area of Sydney that's

known as Marrickville now.

And I pay my respects to their
elders of course.

Wonderful.

I wanted to start, like I said to you
before

I promise it's not a lazy question,

but it's always better from the..
from the mouth of the author herself,

if you could talk..

If you could tell us just a little bit for

people who haven't read
"The Luminous Solution"

because it's only just been, you know,
brought in to the world.

What.. what you explore in the book?

And who it is for?

Thank you. It is a book about sort of

the nature and texture of creativity
I suppose.

Of course, from my own perspective,
primarily.

But also from what I've observed of other

people's creative impulse over the..

I keep saying 20 years, but I think it's
actually 30 years

I've been writing books.

And I've always really been fascinated
by the creative process

and the creative impulse and why people
have it and how it works.

And with this book I wanted to sort of
bring together

all the scattered thoughts that I'd had

over many many years.

Sometimes I'd written about it,

other times I'd just had jottings in my
notebook.

I wanted to bring these thoughts together

to see if they formed any sort of

coherent idea

but also to see what a discussion of

creativity in general might have to offer

a wider readership than just writers or
artists.

Because I do feel very, maybe romantically

strongly about the

the pleasures and the satisfactions and
the deep human joy of...

that comes from making something

that wasn't there before you made it.

And that might be making a cake,

it might be making a garden,

it might be knitting, it might be singing
in a choir.

I just think there's something really
fundamental in us

that... that... that gets something very
profound

out of that creative expression.

And the process even more than
the outcome.

So I wanted to look at that in lots of
different ways

from.. from my years of writing and then

looking at increasingly

sort of interested in the cross
pollination

that comes from the other art forms,

other.. other fields of expertise
altogether.

I wanted to ask it, when you're at the..

very at the beginning of the book

you do start with the first lockdown last
year.

The first chapter begins and you talk
about

how your garden is in disrepair and maybe

the garden reflects your inner state.

But you talk about your inner state,

you talk about your inner life as a writer
which I wanted to ask you about.

But you talk about the inner life
generally.

You're sort of pondering that.

And I.. The question you.. you propose is

what might feed a prosperous inner life.

And I wondered if you could describe

the elements of rich inner life in your
experience?

I mean... it sort of when I started
writing about the inner life

and then I thought: What is it anyway?

What does mean to have an inner life?

Or a rich inner life? Or sort of
interesting inner life?

And I thought over time that maybe

the inner life could be described as

a sense of your mind as a place to go to

and a place where you can develop

your own original thoughts and feelings

about things without having everything

fed to you from the outside world.

And.. and I said it in that piece
Fertile Ground that..

which is the first chapter of the book

that there are things that threaten

a sort of rich inner life and things that
nourish it.

And that for writers and artists

the inner life is really inseparable from
our work.

Sort of where we live, you know in our

professional, while we're making our work.

So, you know I was looking at what...

and what's written as you say at the

sort of, I think it was about 3 weeks
into the first lockdown

where I was just in a state of panic.

I don't know about everybody else,

but you know I see myself as a fairly calm

and rational person,

but I was not calm or rational then.

And I was in that sense of just...

Just sort of not being able to focus
properly,

not being able to even really makes sense

of what was happening.

Because none of us knew it was such a

world shattering event that we were
facing.

You know, turned out that for me,

my life was completely fine, but back then

I didn't know that was going to be
the case.

So I realized that I, I'd sort of

in response that I'd been rushing around

just sort of filling myself up with things

that I thought were sort of meaningful.

Like, you know yoga and books and films
and...

I didn't quite get to sourdough bread
making

but I did a lot of cooking.

Banana bread maybe?

I'm now into, massively into making
biscuits,

which is a terrible thing really because
then I had to eat them all.

But, it was that sense of, well I might be

doing all these things that we see as
meaningful,

but I still just cramming them in.

I may as well be just eating junk food

in the way that I'm sort of taking
these things into myself.

So I just sat up here where I thought

I just need to stop. Just still.

Go quiet. Settle down.

Figure out what I actually need,

what I want and how to just go back to
a sense of, sort of

some kind of

the peacefulness that actually was

available to me if I chose to have it.

So then I was looking at, well what
threatens

my creativity which to me is inseparable
from me in an inner life

an what nourishes it.

And I guess the nourishment is always

and I have to keep re-learning this,

which is extremely annoying but it just
seems to be the way it is.

Very comforting for us as readers,

I'm like "She's been writing for 30 years

and she keeps having to re-learn this
lesson, I'm fine".

Yeah, I have no idea, what I'm doing 90%
of the time,

but... it, the nourishing stuff
is firstly

making your decision to choose to feed
that inner life.

And then secondly saying, well what is
nourishment and what is not.

So what is not nourishment is endless

indiscriminate time on the internet,
on my phone.

And I fall into that trap, you know as
easily as anybody,

which is sort of probably a bit shaming
to admit

for a writer who is supposed to be very

I mean, I think there was a sense last
year that

we writers should be able to just

slot back into our normal working routine

because this is where we live, you know,

I work at home all the time.

I didn't have children to home school.

I didn't actually have any...

There was nothing rational about the

disruption that happened to me.

Whereas other people, their lives were
really turned upside down.

And yet, still I, I found it so difficult
to focus.

So I went back to the very basic things,

which is orderly physical world.

You know, house that's sort of under

some sort of control mess-wise.

Food in the fridge.

Exercise.

Going to bed early. Getting up early.

Eating decently etc.

And really, those physical things are
really important

to nourish and.. what I would call a rich

inner... inner world, inner life.

And the.. the things that threaten it are

just sort of feeding rubbish into my mind,
I guess.

And that means, all you know that sort of

just doom scrolling, too much current
affairs and news,

too much television,

even sort of reading in that cramming
sort of way,

thinking "Oh, I've got a.. my "to be read
pile" is... you know,

gotta be as cool and interesting as other
people's on Instagram.

So, just really settling right down and
thinking

"What do I want in my mind?"

"And what do I want out of my mind?"

And in a way, I think it's almost as
simple as that.

Deciding that you have choices about

what goes into your inner life and what
you keep out.

It's a beautiful description, a really
powerful description.

When it.. throughout the book and it's

an idea you introduced that early on,

is this tussle we feel between the inner
life

and the modern life but also consumerist
life, a capitalist life

that wants us to keep on eating yoga
classes like we are just at a buffet

and we just can't stop.

Who want us just to churn through, through
content.

Yes, because then we have to go and buy

yoga mats and yoga clothes... and...

Yoga hairbands, yoga masks..

Yoga hairbands. And then think, "Oh,
actually yoga is not quite enough.

I should do some pilates and yoga."

And, you know. And I think I said in that
essay

that I think panic is.. is what capitalism

loves best.

It's just that, if we panic, then we just

clutch at anything, you know, that we
think will help.

And, you know, I have to keep saying,

I am, I am terrible with all of this, it's
not...

So having written this book, you might

think that I, you know, have a very

anti-consumerist life.

But I fall into all that crap as easily

as a next person, when I'm not being

thoughtful about it really. It's as simple
as that.

I wanted to stay with some of these
kind of

almost kind of bigger ideas of...
of insights you're thinking about

that.. that struck me as kind of
life lessons.

One that really intrigued me,
is in the book.

The idea of the... creative person
has a vision

that they see in their mind.

Then they sit down to write it or they sit
to paint it

and it.. it evaporates.

It's a beautiful description to use from
Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse".

And the painter who has that experience.

And I wondered about how you find ways

to translate your vision to the page.

And you write about that in a lot of
detail in the book.

But I wondered how... how might the rest
of us

get more familiar with that relationship

between an idea and how we bring it
to life.

Yeah. I love the idea that people might

start opening up a little to.. to the
uncertainty

that is central to the creative process.

Because I think a lot of the time people
start doing...

you know... they want to.. they want to
write their memoir

or they want to learn to play music

or you know.. write a screen play

or.. even knit or something.

And when it gets hard, which is all the
time

and especially at the beginning,

I think a lot of people think "Oh, what
I'm producing here is... is terrible,

therefore, I don't belong in this space.

You know. "I... Therefore, I can't do
this".

And what is absolutely, you know, at the
heart

of any creative endeavor is... is that
failure

that is. It's, you know... I know there
are writer friends

watching this and they will be, you know,
sadly nodding their heads.

That, that uncertainty, doubt, not
knowing,

failing most of the time.

Living in a... in a... in a very
uncomfortable uncertainty

is actually, that's where artists live.

That's, that's what creativity is.

And you kind of have to go into uncertain
space

in order to find something new and
something

that hasn't been done before in quite the
same way.

And of course there are skills that you
can learn.

So if you learn to knit...

I... I once was a very very bad knitter

and gave it away to stop offending the
world

with my terrible creations.

But, you know, that's only... Because I
didn't... I didn't want it enough.

I think that's the other thing when

if you want to do something well, you have
to want it enough

to really commit to it, to learn
how to do it.

And so I feel like the idea of the
apprenticeship

it's a really good way to think about a
creative life.

I feel like... So I've written 8 books,
9 books now,

I feel like I'm just starting to get
a handle on

how to do some things.

But I feel like I'm in this apprenticeship
forever.

I never feel that I know what I'm doing.

I never feel that...

You know, I never write something down
the first draft

and go "Ah, perfect!"

Never, never, never.

Sometimes, I think "Oh, I like that image

or there is something there that... that

calls at me and interests me, it doesn't
make any sense,

but now after all these years I recognize
that as a good impulse.

I know to follow that.

And there's a chapter in the book,

which the subtitle is "Nine Creative Ways
to Think"

and... and it's one of those 9 methods of
thinking

is something called "heat seeking".

And that "heat seeking" I feel like is
at the real heart of...

certainly of my writing impulse.

And partly becoming a more experienced

writer is just learning to... to obey that

impulse to follow that heat.

Even when it doesn't make any sense

sometimes for years.

There might be some element of a book
that you think

"I know this doesn't fit, but I still...

I just have this gut feeling that I want
it in there".

And now I know to trust that because

that's at a certain point it will become
clear what... why it's there.

And at a certain point the book will show
me how to write it.

But you have to really trust that.

And it takes a while to learn that sort
of trust I think.

It's wonderful.

Another thread that runs through the book

is about the difference between art and
artists.

And I kept trying to think what the...

what the creativity is for somebody who
isn't creative.

You know, for me I'm not a writer, I'm not
a sculptor, I'm not a painter.

And I wondered if it was like
the difference between

saying, you know "Am I my work"?

But I wondered if you could talk a bit
about that.

You write about the artist's process that
belongs to you.

You know, you're responsible for the
process,

but you say that the art is separate
to you.

And I won't spoil it for people because

of those fabulous quotes you've found

from painters and writers throughout the
book

about how... how distanced they feel from
the thing they create.

Can you talk a bit about that? I thought
that was really fascinating.

Well sometimes it's... it's a good thing.

Sometimes just quite a scary thing.

But I think for me I came to a point of...

of realizing that I had to be able to

separate from my art.

I mean, it's a weird thing because it's so
central to you.

You know, it is... it is part of you in
a huge way.

But in order to... to make it what it
needs to be

you also have to get some separation

where you can be quite disenchanted with
it. And quite...

you know, be ready to throw it all
away.

So you can't be too deeply connected

even though we have to be too deeply
connected at the same time.

And there's always, I mean a lot of the

book is sort of discussing these tensions,

these paradoxes where two things are true
at once.

One is that, of course every book I've

written is absolutely me and of course

every book I've written is completely
separate from me.

But there are certain points where you
need to

remove yourself from the book.

And one person I loved talking about this

separation with was Jude Rae the painter.

She's a magnificent Sydney painter,

some people might know, and she talked
about how

it's really good while she... she...
she really

likes to have someone come into her studio

and see her painting while she is making
it.

Now, this could be any person.

It could be the postman.

It could be a neighbor.

It doesn't have to be a person who knows
anything about art.

Doesn't have to be a person who has an
opinion on it.

But something about their looking at it

that she called, she said it... it causes

a useful alienation

for... for her the painter.

So that she suddenly sees it through

a stranger's eyes.

And... and I said to her in this interview

"So it actually hasn't anything

to do with the person looking at it".

And she sort of laughed and said

"No, not really".

Like almost "I don't really care what
they think".

But their being there, somehow causes her

to detach in a very useful way

so she can see it afresh.

And I think that happens for writers in
lots of ways.

Sometimes not till the editorial process,

right at the end.

For me there's usually a point sort of

three quarters of the way through
completion

where I'll hand over my work to, sort of

a trusted reader or to... to... to give me

a different perspective on it.

So, it's sort of a weird and hazy thing
to try and describe.

But I think that separation,

I remember reading some years ago

and I never found out who it was who said
this,

but they said

"You have to be disenchanted...

You have to be calm disenchanted with your

work in order to enchant somebody else."

So the maker needs some sort of...

Distance.

Remove. Yeah.

Throughout the book as well in this first

section you talk about some destructive

mythologies around artists.

Around the artists' natural state.

And one of them is this idea that,
you know,

for art to be good, maybe an artist needs
to suffer.

And you do write really frankly about,

you know, the grumpy solution,

the grumpy phase, the grumpy struggle

that you go through where you're like

"This is not working. And I just want to
run away from it. Or I want to bury it"

or it's... whatever it is.

And wondered if you could, I suppose

dispel that ... or unpack it for us that
myth

about the... the state an artist has be in

or the state you have to be in, in order
to create, you know.

For something of... to be of worth does it

have to cause me suffering to create it?

I think when I was younger, I maybe

was a bit enchanted with that idea.

And I'm still, I'm still sort of really
in two minds about it.

Just before I go into that I want to

acknowledge that the grumpy struggle

and the luminous solution both words come

from an American writer called
Janet Burroway

who described her, her own writing
for instance.

I will see if I can find it to quote
properly.

She said it's always the struggle to get
myself. Here she says

"Once I'm working the process is much

the same in every genre. The effort to

get myself to the computer, a period of
grumpy struggle,

despair, the luminous solution that

appears in bed or bath, joyful work,

repeat, repeat, repeat".

And I just love that because it's like

"Yes! This describes exactly what it feels
like for me".

But the... the idea... I think

the face of tortured artist myth is...
is really...

can be very destructive.

And because it involves, in the way that

I've always thought of this,

sort of, the isolated artist,

keeping themselves separate from the
world.

And only from, you know, I think it's the

Hemingway said, you know

"Writing is easy. You just stand at the
typewriter and bleed".

Now lots of authors actually will
recognize that

very Hemingway, and the Patrick White

quote about, you know

"The writing is dragged out by tongs,

a bloody mess in the small hours".

So good.

And it's a big part of myth that... that

totally recognizes that.

And yet I also want to really resist that

because I don't believe that you have to

be in constant suffering

to... to produce anything of worth.

I just don't believe it.

And I also think it's really damaging to

a lot of people who could have a really

fulfilling and joyful creative life.

And when I say joyful I don't mean that

it's, you know, Pollyanna sitting there

you know, laughing and skipping around

the room as I write, not at all.

But there is a deep sort of quiet, almost

serious joy if that makes any sense.

That comes from investigating something

really deeply and quietly

and going as deeply into it as you can.

But the... I think the whole tortured

isolated artist thing is a very
patriarchal idea

because it depends on... that it comes
from

male artists who have always had women

doing all their boring crap in their
lives.

You know, doing the dishes, doing the
laundry,

bringing up their children, cooking the
food

to allow them to have this incredibly
precious isolation.

And, you know, women's art making has

always been much more porous.

Because women have always, I mean I don't
have children myself,

but many of my writer friends do,

and there is a wonderful photograph of
Ruth Park

writing at a tiny little table with

toddlers crawling between her legs

while she's typing her work.

So women, had always... if not having
children

then you know, just...

Caring.

...doing stuff around the...
yeah, caring

in lots of ways for families and friends

and partners and whatever.

So I want to kind of celebrate in a way

that there are... there are communal
aspects

to art making that don't mean I work on

my art with somebody else.

But I often work alongside somebody else.

And that is really precious to me and
really inspiring

and sort of energizing and challenging
as well.

It's not just someone there holding my
hand.

You know, I think the tortured artist,

yeah, I had this sort of vision of a great

man artist like this big blank outline

when I think of this stuff.

And that sort of person would say

"Well, you have to be able to work on
your own,

You have to be in isolation".

And that is also true, but you don't

have to be in misery the whole time.

Now I'm gonna do another little flip

and say I do think art costs.

It costs you.

And I feel like if it doesn't cost you
something

it may be you're not going deep enough,

you're not pushing yourself enough.

So, yeah, I know I am saying like 55

completely contradictory things here,

but we can say multitudes.

That and we do and I love it. And that's
the book as well.

I mean, you're picking up on some of the

things you just said you describe in
the book

that... that state called "porousness".

That women are more porous to the world.

That women artists are more porous to the
world

because of their gender.

And that we don't often think about why
that is.

But you also described earlier in this
conversation

that when the pandemic first happened

last year, you know, you... there was

no rational reason for you to feel
disrupted,

but your world was disrupted.

You are porous to the world, you can't be

separate from the world. You can't be
sitting in a garrett

on your own in isolation.

And I think also, you know you also talk

about the cost, the part has to the
creative person.

But there's also a cost it has on a people

around that creative person.

And there's a lot of that, you sound like

you've already dispelled it.

All those myths around artists who are
allowed to behave badly

because they are geniuses.

I feel like finally we're beginning to

really move away from that.

We're seeing the real impact on...
on people and on communities of

as you say if life is the process

of how damaging that can be when

the art is beautiful and the artist is
abhorrent.

And we don't have to love the person to
love the art.

So I'm also saying a whole lot of
flip flopped things.

The nature of...

I agree with that. Absolutely.

Yeah.

I wanted to cover a bit about... to talk

with you a bit about reading.

There's a beautiful chapter in the book
called

"Reading Isn't Shopping".

And I... and then I want to get to some
writerly stuff.

But I wanted to know why you wanted to...

to write that chapter in particular.

And I... and just to let people know that

the conversation in that... in that piece

is about what's going on when a word...
work of art

makes us feel bad or disrupts us

and what we can learn from that.

Can you talk a bit about that?

Yeah. I started writing about that
particular

topic because... partly because of

out of writing "The Natural Way of
Things",

which was a novel couple... a few years
ago of my...

that was very dark and very kind of
harrowing really to write

and I know for some people to read.

And it... it taught me a lot about writing

and about why I was doing what I was doing
and so on.

And I also had quite a lot of...

I did a lot of talking in public about it

and I had a lot of interactions with
people about it.

Some of which were very uncomfortable.

So that... that the initial spark for that

particular chapter came when I was

being a sort of volunteer gallery
attendant

in this little art gallery over a weekend

with a whole bunch of pictures that I
didn't like.

I thought they were kind of... kind of
ugly.

And some of them seemed a bit violent.

And they were... you know, they were
not the sort

of pictures that I would have on my wall
at home.

And... but because I sat there for two...
three whole days

I had to kind of really start thinking
about

"Well, what's going on with these?

Why do I feel like I feel about
these pictures?"

And that led me to thinking about books

that are difficult or unpleasant

and why it's important that we still read
them.

You know, that we don't necessary...

and also with you know film and

theater and everything else within art
in general.

That I think it's really important that we

don't stop looking at something or reading
something

or listening to something just because we

don't like it.

And that's where the phrase "Reading Isn't
Shopping" came from.

Because I felt that... I don't know how

recent it is, whether it's just always
been there

but there is a sort of sense sometimes
that

well if a book doesn't please me
it... it's of no use to me.

And...

If I can't see myself in a book, if I
can't

relate to the people in the book

That's right.

there's a lot about... a lot of emphasis

on art needing to mirror my exact

experience in the world which

is a peculiar new thing I think.

Yes it is idea of relatability which is
something I sort of

have a bit of a discussion about.

And I... I remembered my own high school
years

I had brilliant English teachers

uncle Gilligivitriou and uncle
Paul Cullen.

And they... and I remember Gilligivitriou
in particular, you know,

I... at the... whatever 16 year old saying

"I liked, I liked that book! I can relate
to that".

And... and my English teacher saying

"That's of absolutely no relevance
whatsoever

that you can relate to it. I don't care

if you can relate to it.

What is the book doing? What effect is it
having?

What is the author trying to say?

You know... What is the language doing?

What is the rhythm doing? What is the
setting?"

You know... and it was... so I was so

trained out of it very very early, really

while I was still a child.

And I'm so glad that I was because then

it allows you to actually see what's

in a book rather than just going

Oh, the only measure is "I liked it",
"I didn't like it".

You know, sort of thumbs up, thumbs down.

And then, I started to think in that...
in that chapter

about how we... we're...

capitalism just wants to give us
what we want, right.

So it wants to please us because then

we buy more stuff.

So we've started transferring this kind of

shopping mentality into art.

And I think it's really dangerous.

So that... the idea that a book should

represent me rather than show me
something...

And you know all... all writers and I'm

certainly one with them,

that we have people complaining about

the behavior of our fictional characters

because it's not nice or it's...

it's sort of immoral in some way.

Or... and there was, I think I detailed

in that one woman who wrote on the social
media thing

that she hated my book "The Weekend"

because it... the women in it were nothing

like her and her friends.

And... I was... I'm always just kind of

a bit gobsmacked by that.

You know, I have friends in the world,

but don't go to books to find friends.

And I think sometimes it's really
important to...

to just force yourself to keep going with

the book you don't like.

Even if you still don't like it at the
end.

Jerry Saltz is a... is a art critic for

New York Magazine

and he has a great little booklet

called "How to Be an Artist".

And I really love this book.

And he says, finding out what you don't

like is as important as finding what you
do like

because what you don't like will show you
things

about yourself and about what you want to
make as an artist.

And he... he suggests that if you're

looking at something that you hate,

think "Well if I was the kind of person

who likes this what would I like about it.

And I really like that approach to say,

it just sort of... it just deepens the
whole thing.

And I was reading a book the other day

a translation of a Japanese book

and I don't know if the translation is
really bad

or be it artist... like... this is really

not doing it for me.

Wasn't working for me.

But I remembered Jerry. Well if it was

working for me what would I see.

So it was kind of, you know...

It's... it's interesting, it just makes...

it's not about sort of morality

although I think there is an ethical
dimension to it.

But it's about just enriching things,

making them more complex and interesting.

One... and one of the other things you
talk about in that same chapter

is this idea of "empathy porn".

That there's an overemphasis here

and while it comes from a good place

of the idea that fiction isn't up here,

I hear people saying empathy machines.

So there is no... no better way to get

people to think that... that someone

different to them is a human than to read
about that person.

But you describe, I... I think it might
be Sarah Sentilles

I can't remember who... who.. which other

author talked about it.

The idea of... of embracing radical
"otherness",

like embracing radical difference.

I thought that was a really wonderful way

to push through that idea of empathy
is obviously very important.

And there's something else that you

really capture brilliantly on the page

which is that something different happens

to my imagination when I read your
characters in "The Weekend"

to when I see them on my screen.

If I'm watching a Netflix show and I see

people who are abhorrent and... and

have affairs with each other and sleep

with someone else's husband,

I'm more likely to kind of roll with it.

But when I'm translating it into my own
imagination

there is something else that happens

and you... you capture that process.

You capture that process in your... as a
writer

and therefore you make us think about that

process as readers, which is really
a great gift in this book

all the way through it actually.

Thank you.

I think that thing about empathy is really

it is really interesting because I...

I say in that chapter, Look

I'm, you know, being quite snooty about
relatability,

but you know, quite a lot of us talk about

empathy as... as the real... the thing

that makes books so... you... novels so
important.

And... and then I was like, well how far
is the difference

between relatability and empathy.

You know, it's still about how able am I

to inhabit this other life.

And of course we... we want that.

Reading is an act of putting yourself into

the... the person of the... people in
the book.

But Sarah Sentilles wrote that great thing

in her book "Draw Your Weapons".

And she does talk... I think she calls it
radical otherness

and she says empathy depends on...

I'm paraphrasing here, I hope I'm
getting it right enough,

Empathy depends on perceived likeness.

You know, I'll treat this person justly

because on some level they are like me.

And then she says, well what if they're
not like you?

What if you cannot find that point of
connection?

What then?

And she says we need to learn to

protect and respect, I think that which we

don't understand and we will never
understand.

You know, that we should... we should

give people human rights even if they're
abhorrent to us

because they're humans not because I

see myself in you.

Not because they're like me.

So that's the kind of, yeah.

There's... we're talking about why we
read, sorry,

but there's also why you write and there's

the beautiful connection obviously

between those two things.

And I wondered if you could read

a little bit from your book.

There's a fantastic section, sorry, to
give people background

it's a moment in the book where Charlotte

is talking about how, sorry,

she has lost her way with the book.

And she's not sure why she's writing

and she doesn't want to keep writing.

And you make a list for yourself of why

you might keep going.

And I wonder if you could just read that
for us?

Thank you Michaela, sorry you've got

scratchy throat, I know that feeling.

Yes, this... it was while I was writing

"The Natural Way of Things".

"So on one very bad writing day a few

years back, I thought again about giving
up.

I wrote to a couple of my writer friends

and this is the email that I wrote to
them.

"Not going so well this week after all.

Somehow swamped again with the futility
of this work.

Trying to find the point of writing a dark
bleak book

about girls imprisoned and trapped
and reviled.

Yesterday, I couldn't see how I was not

just adding yet more ugliness to the
world.

But I had just bucked myself up a little
bit

by writing a list of reasons to keep
going.

Here is what I came up with:

1. To make something beautiful.

Beauty does not have to mean prettiness,

but can emerge from the scope of ones
imagination,

the precision of ones words, the
steadiness

and honesty of ones gaze.

2. To make something truthful. Beauty is
Truth. Truth Beauty.

3. To make use of what you have and who
you are.

Even a limited talent brings an obligation

to explore it, develop it, exercise it,

be grateful for it.

Next. To make at all. To create is to defy
emptiness.

It is generous. It affirms.

To make is to add to the world
not subtract from it.

It enlarges, does not diminish.

At last, because as Iris Murdoch said

paying attention is a moral act. To write

truthfully is to honor the luck

and the intricate detail of being alone.

I returned to that list for comfort often

through the writing of my novel.

But it had stayed with me in the years
since

because I think it speaks to the reasons
we need art at all.

It often feels that we've entered a new
dark age.

An age in which science is rejected

in favor of superstition and greed,

in which our planet is desperate need
of rescuing,

in which bigotry and religion are
inseparable.

In the midst of this gloom, to create

is an act of enlargement, of affirmation.

It lights a candle in the darkness

offering solace, illumination, maybe

even the possibility of transformation

not just for the maker but for the reader

or viewer, which is to say all of us.

Art urges us to imagine and inhabit lives

other than our own.

To be more thoughtful.

To feel more deeply.

To challenge what we think we already
know.

Art declares that we contain multitudes,

that more than one thing can be true at
once.

And it gives us a breathing space

in which we can listen more than talk,

where we can attentively question our
own beliefs.

It gives us a place in this chaotic world

in which to find the sort of meaning

that only arises out of stillness, deep
within our quiet selves.

So beautiful, it's one of my favorite

sections of the book. Thank you Charlotte.

Thank you.

I wanted to ask you a few other questions

about sort of writing and writerly
process.

Early on you talk about, you referred
to it

earlier in our conversation about this
idea

of the writing mind.

And you say that the writing mind is

something beneath beyond or behind

normal conscious thought.

And this conversation tonight is about

how we can use creativity to think
differently

about our work, the way we are in the
community,

they way we make decisions about things.

Can you talk a bit more about that idea,

the idea of this... well I'm fascinated

with this idea of you being conscious of

these two minds.

That the idea of your writing mind as
being

beneath or beyond.

Yeah. It's kind of a strange way to move
in lots of ways.

I mean it's sort of, it's wonderful and
it's...

it can be weird.

Like I know some writers who feel like

they are never actually truly present

with other people.

Because it's always a part of them that is

in their book or whatever.

I don't particularly feel like that.

I feel like when I'm writing, I'm doing
that

and when I'm going about my life...

But when I'm with people, I generally feel

fairly, you know, present. It's just that
moment.

But of course there are times you know

another writer a friend of mine said

"Well, you know the good thing about

being a writer is that a boring dinner
party is never wasted".

And, you know, there's always a place
you can go when

when you're not... you know, when
you don't

want to be connected to what is in front
of you.

But it's... it's kind of important to...

to learn to access that other place

as sort of thoroughly and deeply
as you can.

And I lose sight of it all the time.

And you know the pandemic has...
has really

pushed me out of my... of my quiet

imaginative mind.

And that's when I need to do things like
you know

drawing the boundaries of time space

and keep out and don't do, you know,

a lot of socializing and that sort of
stuff.

There is a list of Susan Sontag's sort of

diary notes to herself in the book

where she gives herself these sort of

lectures in her journals about

"So I will go to bed at this time.

And I will get up at this time.

And I'll only have lunch once a week and

say no to this and blah blah".

But I found it very amusing because she

also has little qualifiers next to
all these

things saying, you know

"I will only have lunch once a week" and

then in brackets "can break this rule
once a fortnight".

And then "I will only do this".

"Can break this rule two times a week".

So it's this kind of... and it shows you

sort of attempt always to move between...
between worlds

to stay in the kind of quiet, private,

sort of wilderness of your creative mind.

And yet for me, I had to go into the world

to bring stuff back to that creative mind

and to my novel.

You know, my novel in my head needs

the outside world to feed it.

So it is a real tension that movement

between the two.

Another thing that goes throughout
the whole book,

and I want to ask you some questions about
"The Natural Way of Things",

is you also write about the role that
other artists

have in inspiring you and visual artists
come up a lot.

And I was surprised by that, I was.

I wondered if you could explain what it is

they offer to you as a writer.

Yes, it's sort of fairly recent thing for
me

to be, I mean I've always loved looking

at visual art, but

lately, really in recent years,
I've started

seeing particular artists as real

sort of guides for me, for myself.

Whether they know it or not.

Sometimes it's just about their bravery

and their willingness to

just walk their own path.

And while I was writing "The Natural Way
of Things"

I became quite, a bit obsessed with

the artist Louise Bourgeois.

The sculpture and the installation artist.

She... for people who the name isn't
familiar,

you might, you will have seen those

enormous spiders,

like, as big as a house, kind of,

metal spiders outside of the Guggenheim

on the building somewhere.

Or she makes cages made with creepy things

hanging inside them.

And she inspired me because I've felt,

I was so... I went through a period
of being

very afraid, while I was writing

"The Natural Way of Things" and feeling
so kind of...

that I was such a weirdo and it was so
creepy

and what was it saying about me that I was

having this stuff in my head that I was

putting on the page.

And I also kept thinking "Why am I doing
this? Why am I doing this?

And what does it mean?"

And it was so tedious to keep going,

stopping and questioning myself all the
time.

And that's when I came across the work of

Louis Bourgeois, which was really creepy,

always really menacing, slightly violent
and also beautiful.

And... so I decided at a certain point

that whenever I get, you know sort of...

when I feel wimpy about it,

I'm just gonna, I'm gonna be Louise
Bourgeois.

I'm going to... and I think I said

I'm just gonna hang some uteruses

in a cage and forget about it.

Which is some of her artwork.

And it gave me strength, it gave me
a sense of...

because I... in my mind, you know, I have
no idea

what Louise Bourgeois' actual
practice was,

but I felt that looking at her work

she wouldn't dick around going

"Oooh, why am I doing this? Oooh, that's a
bit mean.

I don't want people to think I'm,
you know.

She is just making these really full on
creepy...

She made some giant marble penises and

sort of carried them around.

Always very threatening and weird.

And I just thought "You rock Louise.

So I'm just gonna pretend that I'm you

for the purpose of writing this book.

So that's one... one of the ways.

And then other ways, I have a chapter
in there called

I think it's called "The Outside Voice
In Praise of the Unruly Artist".

And I particularly was looking at women
artists

who I felt were really...

Louise Bourgeois is that kind of artist
too,

but a bunch of like contemporary

Australian artists who just seem to me
fearless

and unashamed of their instinct. Their art
instinct.

And it's very galvanizing and very
inspiring

you know, to think, to look at those
people

and think "I'm... I'm gonna do that.

I'm gonna take charge of my work in that
same way

and not care what other people think
of it".

You know, of course you do care but

in the moment of making it, it's so
important

to forget about what other people are
gonna think of it

because it will just stop you doing
anything.

And I think that's something that does
stop lots of people

from even trying something creative.

But they think "Oh, this is...

this is no good...

so I can't. It can't be allowed.

And you know, another one of Jerry Saltz's

bits of advice is "Of course it's no good.

Just go do it." You know, "Go make your

bad art your big baby", that's what he
says.

I love it.

And it's so great to just go "Yeah, of
course it's crap.

So what? Just go". It's very freeing.

... in both situations it's like a

feedback loop, isn't it? You think

"Oh, no I won't, it won't be good enough
so I just won't do it.

But also what I love at the moment,

I made notes, I put little post-it notes
in the book,

when you describe those women, at one
point

you said maybe they're like feral women,

is that the unruly artists many of whom
are women

who you admire and you list all the
attributes.

and one of them is that they talk about

themselves and their work in a really
straightforward way.

They're not apologizing, they're not

contextualizing, they're not thinking
about

how it's going to be received.

They are not interested in a long game.

And as you say, not interested in
pleasing other people,

and I'm not, I don't mean it in an unkind
way.

And those hallmarks feed because of their

ability to be those people.

To actually really as you say like exist
in themselves.

It informs the work. So there's

negative feedback loops and positive
feedback loops.

And I found that very inspiring and I'm
not a writer,

I'm not a sculptor, I'm not a painter

but I was like "Yeah, that sounds like
a really great way to live."

Yeah, I love that they just seem so...

and some of these women I've met or I know

and I was struck by the complete self
acceptance.

And some of this work is really weird.

You know, some of the stuff that some of

these artists make.

But they would speak about it as

an entirely natural and kind of obvious
thing.

But of course, you know Carla Dickens

an amazing artist,

of course you would cast some underpants
in aluminium

and then hang emu feathers and fish hooks
of them

and rusty traps.

But what else would you do?

So it's the idea of just going my impulse

is entirely natural and it is...

And why would you even question it.

And you need me first.

And I think when you can get to that point

of absolutely trusting your own instinct..

And you know to me, the weirder the better
in a way.

Because you can always dial back something

like that, but if you're playing it safe
all the time,

you just end up with this sort of generic

you know, people pleasy work that doesn't
please anybody.

It doesn't stick around.

And when I think, when I'd had
conversations

with people after "The Natural Way of
Things"

what stuck with people about that,

and I know sometimes we get it wrong as
readers.

We talk about story and we talk about plot

and we fixate on them.

But so many people talked about that
kind of

when it's, it's like a dream or a
nightmare

that space, that luminal space that your
created on every page.

And then we're talking about, you know,

without saying it, readers were talking

about sentences. They were talking about
language.

They were talking about tone.

They were talking about all the things

that you probably agonized about.

But that's what they were responding to,

to that subconscious space in which

women or people who are a minority

in some way or shape or another thing,

this... this could happen to me.

This has happened to me.

This will happen to me if I speak up,

if I'm dis-empowered more that I already
know that I am.

And so you tap into a whole lot of

conscious and subconscious things with
writing

that as you say that you just went

"I'm gonna be feral about it. I'm just

gonna write this. It's gonna be weird and

I'm gonna commit to it. And it has that.

Has that impact.

And it took me, it was, you know...

That's why I'm proud of that book because

it taught me how to do that.

You know, I couldn't... it... because it
wasn't working

any other way.

It wouldn't work any other way.

So out of just sheer exhaustion in the end

I was like "OK, I'm just gonna go with
what this thing is".

And then it just, phhhh, came sort of
pouring out.

And it was weird and creepy and surreal
and dreamlike and...

and... and in the end I loved that.

That's what I liked about it myself.

That's what I found, what I hoped lifted
it out of just a bleak

sort of misery tale.

That... that sort of surreal, dreamlike,
symbolic, archetypal

that stuff that made people, a lot of
people told me

they felt they read it with their body,

rather than their mind.

And... and it felt like I wrote it with my
body.

And it had a power because of that,

that I've never felt before as a writer

and I didn't want to lose that.

So I went sort of looking "What is that?

What happened in that book that I can

sort of take with me now into the future?"

So it's like, it's a gift for you and
a gift for us.

I'm conscious of the time.

We have got a couple of questions here

and I want to put them to you.

One person has said "You've stopped me

in my tracks with your thought of staying

with the book that I don't actually enjoy.

What is it in reading that gives us such

strong reactions: like, dislike, relate,
resent"?

Well, I don't know. I think sometimes it's
recognition.

And in the chapter that I talk about

the paintings that I didn't like,

I was forced to kind of go "Well what is
it, why don't I like them"?

And partly it was, they were unfamiliar

and I didn't... I felt kind of...

I felt slightly ashamed that I could not
see

what it was that other people saw in these
pictures.

Because I knew in artists that I very much
admire

very well know and just had chosen those

pictures by different people.

And so I felt sort of like "Oh there must
be something wrong with me

that I don't see what all these people

think is so great about these pictures".

So it was a feeling of an almost,
a kind of

a fine fine strand of anger that I...

I didn't want to be made to feel like
an idiot.

So therefore I would just reject the
pictures

instead of thinking "Well, doesn't really
matter

that I don't understand, but I shouldn't
just reject it

because I don't understand it".

I also think... I mean I do think...

I also don't finish every book I start.

If I'm really really bored I don't.

That's a sign that I'm... you know...

you know, there are a lot of bad books
out there.

I don't think we should read bad books.

But I guess, I wanted to make a
distinction between

a book that isn't very good rather than

one that makes you feel bad.

Because if it actually does make you feel
bad

then it's doing something.

You know Christos Tsiolkas's books,
you know,

I have always read Christos and almost

always felt really uncomfortable and
really

like "I don't want to be with these
people.

I don't want to be in dead Europe, in this

you know, really dark and scary place.

I don't want to be with these, you know,
arseholes

in this land".

And yet, there's something very compelling
about it

and also it showed me about the world

in ways that I didn't, you know...

Just because it wasn't nice, didn't mean

that I shouldn't go there.

It also seems like an unrealistic request
of

of fiction, which is, you know,

written by real people in the world

that it should all be pleasant

Like, life isn't pleasant and all kinds of
things aren't pleasant.

And it's boring! I mean pleasantness is,
you know...

Yeah.

That's what the Truman Show was about,
right?

Like you need, you need

the grit in the oyster.

You need the discomfort,
it's part of living

And, yeah... but as I say if it's just
dull then...

You're allowed to put it aside, yeah.

There's another question here

"How important is the responder to
creativity?

Can you create without a responder"?

I'm assuming that would mean like a
reader or a viewer or something.

I'm thinking mainly of the artists you
mentioned

who need someone to see the work

as it's being done.

Well, Jude and I, that artist and I talked
about

this thing of "Would you keep making work
if no one saw it"?

And she said "I feel like the reason you

have shows as an artist is because you
need to...

you need someone to see it".

And I feel as a writer that if I wrote
books

and I knew that they were never gonna be
published

in some form, even if I, you know,

publishing yourself is publishing,

but if I thought no one is ever going to
read this,

personally I don't know that I would keep
going.

I don't think other people should stop

writing if no one is gonna read their
work.

Because there's so much that comes...

you know the main reason I do it is to

find out what I think, you know,
about the world.

To find out what are my preoccupations and

Edna O'Brien said "People become artists

because they have an intensity of feeling

that normal life cannot accommodate".

And I absolutely feel that that's true
for me.

And yet, if noone was ever going to read
it

I feel like I wouldn't know if it worked
if no one read it.

So for me, it's certainly the other half

of the creation is the reader.

And I imagine that painters...

although I know a couple of painters who

paint and never exhibit, you know,
by choice.

So I guess it just depends on the person,
the creator.

But I personally, I need someone to
see it.

Very much so. I understand.

We're pretty much at the end of our time,

but I wanted to ask you one last question,

which relates exactly to what you were
just talking about

which is that as we've talked about
tonight

you know there are chapters and ideas
in the book

that speak directly to artists
and writers.

But how do you think readers who are,

what do you think readers who are not
writers

can learn from the book? What do you hope
they'll take away from it?

What I would love, is for...

my fantasy reader for this book is

someone like a policymaker in some really
important area

or... or an industry leader or something,

where... to start to understand that

cross pollinating from other things very
unlike yours

can really enrich your own area of
expertise.

So, and I had this little pang a few weeks
ago

thinking about "Imagine if at the
beginning of the pandemic

we got the best visual artists, actors,

sports people, industry leaders,

scientist, researchers, health people,

writers.

The best of every field together and said

"What are we gonna do about this?"

"How can we work together to solve, attack
this problem?"

I feel like we would have had so many
amazing new

projects and policies and connections.

And you know a big hallmark of creativity,

of creative thinking is the joining of
unlike things.

And I think most of the time in our

contemporary society we... we don't...

we actually actively resist creativity
when we see it.

We don't like it.

And one of the ways we do that is by
saying

"Creativity is for artists".

So we put it over there and they can hang
it on their walls

and it's just the thing on the side that's

kind of pretty but doesn't mean anything
about the way we actually live.

And I want to bring that right into the
way we actually live.

Because it's... it's crucial.

Like radical creativity is the only thing

that is going to save us now. I really
feel that.

And that cross pollinating...

cross pollinating ideas...

a real embrace... embrace and tolerance
of failure

because we... we just utterly reject...

the... the possibility of failure, which
means

we so often don't develop really good
things

because, you know, we decide they're
not gonna work

before they've even had a chance to grow.

You know, I have a long manifesto of
things

that I think should happen more.

And not rejecting things because

they don't work at first.

And that can go for a cake, you know,

it can go for a... learning scales on
a piano.

It could go for developing a really cool
business idea.

I just would love for us to open up more

to the unknowing and they mystery and the
uncertainty

that is the place where creativity comes
from.

You've done that really beautifully in the
book.

It shakes us up. It reminds us why we love
art.

Why we need art.

And how it can kind of re-shape the way
we see the world

and therefore re-shape us.

Help us imagine things differently.

Charlotte, thank you very much.

Congratulations on the book and I'm
handing back over

to Danielle Ainsley.

Thank you Michaela for your very beautiful
questions.

And can I say your beautiful voice.

Oh my God, I could listen to you just all
day.

Thank you.

I second that.

Thank you very much despite my little
dry coughing random.

It just added to the allure.

Well thank you so much to both of you.

I really appreciate you both taking the
time out

to... yeah let us in on this great
conversation.

I had a really lovely time and I'm sure
others did as well.

Now, in a moment you'll see a survey

pop up on your screen.

It's very short only four questions.

We'd love feedback if you could spare

the moment to do that for us.

Now you can purchase copies of the
"Luminous Solution"

at our local bookshops

and at the moment a few are running

a "Click and Collect" service.

So Oscar and Friends in Double Bay
is running

a click and collect service if you're
wanting to do that.

Otherwise, the Woollahra Bookshop on
Spicer St,

Harry Harthog's and Gertrude and Alice in
Bondi,

and Read On Books at Westfield Eastgardens
as well.

Otherwise you can purchase copies of the
"Luminous Solution"

on Booktopia if you're not local and we've
got links

in the chat as well.

And we've also got copies of all of
Charlotte's

books in our collections and they are
available right now

as an e-resource if you wanted

or as a physical book via click
and collect as well.

Thanks so much everyone.

We hope you have a lovely rest of your
evening.

Thank you very much.

Take care everyone.