The Luminous Solution: Creativity, Resilience and the Inner Life

by Charlotte Wood

An inspiring work about creativity and resilience from the multi-award-winning author of The Weekend.

'A rich inner life is not just the preserve of the arts. The joys, fears and profound self-discoveries of creativity - through making or building anything that wasn't there before, any imaginative exploration or attempt to invent - I believe to be the birthright of every person on this earth. If you live your life with curiosity and intention - or would like to - this book is for you.' Charlotte Wood, from the Preface to The Luminous Solution

In this essential, illuminating book, award-winning writer Charlotte Wood shares the insights she has gained over a career paying close attention to her own mind, to the world around her and to the way she and others work.

Drawing on research and decades of observant conversation and immersive reading, Charlotte shares what artists can teach the rest of us about inspiration and hard work, how to pursue truth in art and life, and to find courage during the difficult times: facing down what we fear and keeping going when things seem hopeless.

Genres: Nonfiction, Writing, Audiobook, Self Help, Art, Essays, Memoir

256 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2021

About the author

Charlotte Wood is the author of six novels and two books of non-fiction. Her new novel is The Weekend.

Her previous novel, The Natural Way of Things, won the 2016 Stella Prize, the 2016 Indie Book of the Year and Novel of the Year, was joint winner of the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction.

Her non-fiction works include The Writer’s Room, a collection of interviews with authors about the creative process, and Love & Hunger, a book about cooking. Her features and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Literary Hub, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Saturday Paper among other publications. In 2019 she was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant services to literature, and was named one of the Australian Financial Review's 100 Women of Influence.

Her latest project is a new podcast, The Writer's Room with Charlotte Wood, in which she interviews authors, critics and other artists about the creative process.

Reviews

[Ben Hobson · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I loved most about this book was the permission it gives - press into mess and discomfort and love and silliness. I loved it.

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Several people have singled out Reading Isn’t Shopping as their favourite essay in this glorious, generous and insightful collection probing the creative impulse but I have to talk about The Paint Itself. Here, Wood laments the emphasis on plot and story in our literary culture and my heart sang out. For me plot functions in the same way as a plate does for a chef – it’s often needed and without it everything might be messy but I’m far more interested in experiencing what the chef is serving atop the plate. Plates can be beautiful, but they have a clear and obvious function. Talk to me about sentences. Cadence. Assonance. Rhythm. Musicality. Voice. What a novel is ‘about’ is often of lesser interest. With my favourite writers I never read the blurb or reviews of their new work, I don’t need to. I’m not there for plot and I don’t particularly care what critics have to say. Story is secondary to the craft of storytelling always. I want to experience and savour fiction at a granular level. I also want to experience fiction within the context of that writers body of work and the other books this one may call to mind. I’m something of a completionist so I try to read everything published by the writers I truly love. Even their missteps and mistakes delight and interest me. I want to devour it all.

Wood has long been interested in the way writers and other artists talk about their work. I often reach for her book The Writer’s Room. In The Luminous Solution she quotes and refers to nearly all my favourite writers. I don’t hear from visual artists in my regular life nearly enough and I loved the way Wood uses their words to illustrate ideas about all art forms: ‘…give the sensation without the boredom of its conveyance.’ I am going to treasure this book forever – it will live on my bedside table next to a few select books I need to always have close. It’s illuminating and mind expanding and just glorious.

[Ngarie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books that I will go back to again and again over time. To connect with different ideas within it as I grow and learn in my own life.
This book is both a really personal account of, and a detailed approach to, the creative process.

[Gretchen Bernet-Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Under the heading "Sharing unfinished work: risks and joys" Charlotte Wood quotes Virginia Woolf's book To The Lighthouse with amateur artist Lily Briscoe appalled that someone would want to look at her unfinished painting. "One must. She braced herself to stand the awful trial of someone looking at her picture." Wood goes on to say "Even when one knows the work is complete and we've given it every part of ourselves, trepidation about its exposure can be intense... I'd say most of us recognise this feeling to some degree."

Wood goes on to elaborate "The tension between the need to work in private and exhibit in public is something that has long preoccupied me." She explains the collision of the private and public selves: the introversion and psychic nakedness required to do the imaginative work, clashing with the blended self-protection and surrender needed for the artwork's release into the world... how might we best proceed she asks? For me, clarity followed her counsel, those lightbulb moments.

Writers are not forgotten "Writing is one of the very few art forms we think of as a completely solitary practice." The insights and explanations in this books are miraculous. Wood's analysis of a playwright hearing a cold read-through of her draft script is enlightening - and since I have sat in on this type of roundtable session myself, I felt it! Any creative person should read this book to get an understanding of their own unique process, its charms and emotional pitfalls. Charlotte Wood's book delves deep; psychological, practical, mystical and above all into our limitless human endeavour.

[Jessica Maree · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://jessjustreads.com

Acclaimed Australian author Charlotte Wood returns with this non-fiction title The Luminous Solution, which provides a reflection on her writing career to date and what she’s learnt about herself and her work since she first started putting pen to paper approximately twenty years ago.

The Luminous Solution prompts creative thinking and creative reflection. There are intermittent references to COVID-19 and how the pandemic has impacted Charlotte’s writing. This isn’t an overly long book, and it doesn’t need to be. Each chapter provides a snapshot into Charlotte’s process, and what she believes could resonate with others.

“This bolt of understanding that contemporary attitudes echoed historical ones, that this loop of hatred seemed ever-repeating, lit a fuse of fury deep inside my writer’s brain. But a novel requires years of immersion in your material. This was ugly stuff, bleak and paralysing.”

The Luminous Solution shifts between introspection – lessons, learnings and slight musings that Charlotte shares – and a deeper dive into her creative process, particularly relating to The Natural Way of Things. The Luminous Solution attracts a fairly recognisable audience – works that delve into creative process and inspiration will always find a valued audience, whether you’ve read the authors previous works or not.

There are a string of insights in The Luminous Solution that I imagine could aid writers, and I think perhaps it might comfort writers who feel they’ve struggled with their work. It’s somewhat reassuring to read that Charlotte’s 2015 novel The Natural Way of Things was not an easy or seamless book to write. I read that novel when it first came out and whilst it tackles very heavy topics, the writing is beautiful and the novel worthy of its many accolades. It’s somewhat comforting to find out more about its creation.

“Creativity as violent birth, as approaching death – this is absurd melodrama. Of course it is. And yet…at times my writing process has been so full of darkness that descriptions like these are the only ones that come close to the truth.”

As with all her novels, Charlotte’s writing in The Luminous Solution is clean and stripped back. Words aren’t used unnecessarily, and we move between stories and tales quite quickly. A lot of the book is designed to leave you wondering – they will plant some kind of thought or idea in your mind and let it ponder the possibilities, which is quite perfect for the creative reader.

“I spent many months thinking about these discoveries, sorting and parsing them, enriched by the whole experience. But at the end of it all, after the research was completed and the doctorate finished and award, came that pesky and familiar and important question: So what? What does all this mean for the person sitting down before the blank page?”

Reminiscent and reflective, The Luminous Solution is recommended for readers interested in the craft of writing. Readership skews 30+

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is always a pleasure to read anything written by Charlotte Wood. She writes non-fiction with the same beauty as she does fiction. In this collection of essays on creativity she is warm and generous without being soft; she is thoughtful and thought-provoking, she shares a lot of herself.

While perfectly suited to writers and artists, with a couple of essays very specifically for creators, most of the essays are also applicable to whatever work you do. I'm a coach and consultant and I saw clear links between the essays and my work.

The agony of producing truly new work ('if it's easy, it's not creative') p6 and 7.

The courage to tell someone the truth about their work (or as a coach, to challenge your client). And the courage to listen (to feedback) and feel empowered to do with it as you see fit. P95 (this work lines up beautifully with Annie Duke's goal of 'truth-seeking' in decision making and the need to create a contract with others to do this well).

That our fundamental life experiences are crystals that shine a light elsewhere, a source of creativity but not something that should be directly used or described. Your life may inspire your work in unusual ways. Charlotte draws a lovely link between her early church-going life and her work despite now identifying as atheist. p.176

And many other gems throughout. There is even musing on our finitude. A topic I encountered also with Oliver Burkeman's 4000 Weeks.

Some essays were directly applicable to me right now. Others are there to come back to at a later stage.

A recommended read for any creator of content.

[Mentai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wood is so articulate about the darkness underneath writing and creating. She is reflective about certain limitations and challenges in her own perceptions which lend insights into reading and other forms of creativity.

[Margaret Galbraith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not a writer by any means but I have dabbled in writing my life story mainly for my now grown up children … if they ever find the need to know a bit more about me! This book gives a wonderful insight into the author’s life and her trials and how she eventually writes her stories. I’ve never thought about them using artist’s works to inspire them. I do believe writers are influenced by their childhood experiences and also if they’ve been a reader themselves. Charlotte has mentioned many authors and book titles throughout this work … some I’ve read and some I’d like to read so my list keeps getting longer. I have quite a few of the older books she mentions which has now reinforced my need to read them or re-read some again. All in all a great read for both writers and non-writers to get a glimpse of what authors go through to give us such great works which we tend to take for granted.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book about being a writer and her experiences and the lessons she has learned in completing her novels. The author shares her learnings by discussing her novels, in particular, ‘The Natural Way of Things’, and ‘The Weekend’. She comments on other books and authors. She finds gaining feedback on her ‘works in progress’ an important part of the writing process.

A worthwhile reading experience. Charlotte Wood fans should find this book a satisfying and rewarding reading experience. This book was first published in 2021.

[Bec · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no better way to introduce this novel than to let you read the synopsis. In this essential, illuminating book, award-winning writer Charlotte Wood shares the insights she has gained over a career paying close attention to her own mind, to the world around her and to the way she and others work.

Drawing on research and decades of observant conversation and immersive reading, Charlotte shares what artists can teach the rest of us about inspiration and hard work, how to pursue truth in art and life, and to find courage during the difficult times: facing down what we fear and keeping going when things seem hopeless.

I’ve read a few of Wood’s novels and this might be my new favorite. In saying that I don’t think it will be for everyone. Wood has compiled a group of essays in an interesting and thought provoking way. The Some of my favorite chapters are take an object, there’s a hilarious one liner in there I can’t repeat. Useful, pleasurable, strange and an element of lightness.

[Karleah Olson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great read on the craft of writing. I particularly liked how this one connected the different 'selves' of a writer, including perhaps the equally important practice of reading when one aims to be a writer.
I really enjoyed that this work drew in and discussed the work of so many others without any particular certainty. It felt less like Wood telling us what she knows to be true, and more like a conversation about what she has discovered and how she feels about or relates it to her own practice and way of thinking. A lot of work on writing seems so sure and like the author KNOWS exactly what they're doing, which can actually be quite disheartening to a writer who feels new and less set in their own ways. It was refreshing to read this perspective of constant learning, questioning and consideration of different methods from an established writer.

[Hannah Rappell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wood's unparalleled precision of language is applied to discussion of her craft in The Luminous Solution. Excellent! I thoroughly enjoyed this, especially having read her more recent novels, the processes behind which she discusses.

Of particular interest to me were her discussions of empathy and otherness, the processes she employs to shape her work, and the ways in which she cultivates the inner life in which her art can flourish.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful book for a creative person to keep and dip in and out of. But I'm not that person and that's not how i read. For someone who loves art and books, i really have surprisingly little interest in the creative process.
Much of this book i found just ok, interesting ideas but very much feeling like an academic thesis rather than a book. But I've given this book 4 stars overall, because i thought some sections were absolute brilliance, particularly towards the end. Her insights on aging were beautiful and inspiring.

[Cass Moriarty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charlotte Wood’s classic guide to ‘Creativity, Resilience and the Inner Life’, THE LUMINOUS SOLUTION (Allen and Unwin 2021) is a book that every creator and artist should read, whether they are painting, writing, sculpting or composing. It is not a book about writing craft so much as it is a holistic approach to creativity, how to overcome hurdles and how to be kind to ourselves in a world where the making of art, or even the art itself, is often misunderstood.
This book was published a few years ago but it will never go out of style or be irrelevant. Wood is such a thoughtful and considered writer and thinker; she is curious and smart, funny and compassionate, hungry to learn and eager to improve, encouraging and generous with her praise for others. Chapters include Fertile Ground (Nourishing the Inner Life), The Getting of Wisdom (Finding Your Own Teachers), The Grumpy Struggle, Despair and the Luminous Solution (Nine Kinds of Creative Thinking), Unconscious Bias (The Dreaming Mind), Take an Object (How Art can Transfigure Hatred), Strange Bedfellows (The Lady, the Unicorn and The Natural Way of Things), Letting in the Light (Sharing Unfinished Work: Risks and Joys), Cat and Baby (On Intuition vs Pragmatism), An Element of Lightness (Laughter as a Creative Force), The Paint Itself (The World Inside a Sentence), Reading Isn’t Shopping (Why Creativity Needs Disturbance), The Outside Voice (In Praise of Unruly Artists), Afraid of the Dark (Anger as Creative Fuel), On Gods and Ghosts (Catholicism, Contradiction and Creativity), Between a Wolf and a Dog (Georgia Blain’s Final Work), Useful, Pleasurable, Strange (Growing Old as an Art Form) and The Rapture (Nature and the Artist).
I guarantee something in that list will appeal!
Rather than a traditional book review, I thought I’d note some of the passages I underlined or marked during my reading. These are from random chapters and don’t necessarily relate to each other but they are lines or words that caught my eye enough for me to want to come back to them.
‘…many writers say every new book sends them back to bewilderment but it took me a long time to realise that, despite its inherent anxieties, this horrible state of unknowing was not a sign that things were going badly, but rather indicated that I was on the right track. Philip Roth described this as ‘looking for trouble’. Real problems arose, he said, ‘not because the writing is difficult, but because it isn’t difficult enough. Fluency can be a sign that nothing is happening…while being in the dark from sentence to sentence is what convinces me to go on.’
‘Competence is the enemy of art’ (Michelle de Kretser).
‘I seek out instruction because the danger is not that my well-oiled way of working might be disrupted; it’s that it might never be disrupted again.’
‘Must I always know nothing?’
‘Problem-finding’ (as opposed to problem-solving)
‘The power or energy coming from…the work… ‘goodness, movement, life, urgency, spark, ignition’.
‘Going deeper…forcing unlikely things together … which often leads to a new, quite natural connection …plausible connections I’ve not noticed before.’
‘Necessary, profound discoveries about a work can come, then, from returning to the material and reworking it, revising and writing again, until a missing connection or a new development suddenly appears.’
‘Disrupting or overturning … a more conscious method, of opposition, in which an artist deliberately disrupts or ‘messes up’ existing work so as to create movement or change, or to provoke a revelation of meaning.’
‘When in doubt, do violence to the page.’
Being ‘actively passive…a writer waits.’
‘To make something beautiful…to make something truthful…to make use of what you have and who you are…to make, at all…it enlarges, does not diminish.’
Iris Murdoch: ‘…paying attention is a moral act. To write truthfully is to honour the luck and the intricate detail of being alive.’
‘Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it.’
‘…the feeling of discomfort and compulsion together…(is) a potent mix that often ends up generating raw material for fiction.’
‘If someone is encouraging about a certain aspect of a work in progress, newer writers in particular, yet to develop strong artistic instincts, are at risk of wandering away from their own obscure and difficult (but true) path to go sniffing after the scent of that early reader’s praise.’
‘It can create blankness in the self, an inability to discern the worth of one’s own work even at a sentence level without outside help.’
‘…the artist’s most important muscles: fortitude, astute self-critique and perseverance…’
‘It takes guts to ask for a deep reading of and critical response to unfinished work, especially if one then decides to reject that response entirely.’
‘Praise…is about energy and ideas…(drawing) an artist out of fugitive self-defence and into a sense of abundance and willingness to risk…any praise provides only the smallest counterweight to their own savage fear and self-criticism.’
‘It’s not just the giver who gets to be generous; the gracious acceptance of the gift is an act of generosity in return.’
‘Once you’ve sent it into the world it doesn’t belong to you anymore, and its audience has as much right to its interpretation as you do to your intention.’
‘We need humility to accept that our work reveals things about us that we may not like, but if they are true, we must let them stand.’
‘I am not like others, and all I have to offer are my own perceptions.’
‘…a manuscript can be changed by painstaking work at the level of the sentence, the word.’
‘Usually what I do not want to hear is: There is a great deal more work to do…but every artist has to learn the difference between reasonable adjustment and fatal capitulation.’
‘It’s all delusion, until it’s not.’
‘Writing against the grain of one’s existing beliefs or instincts or knowledge often causes a sudden surge in energy that can reframe and inform and charge whole works with surprising new authority.’
‘…five essential elements: clarity, authority, energy, musicality and flair.’
‘The difficult task (Sarah) Sentilles sets us about ethics is ‘to learn to live with, and protect, what we can’t understand’.’
‘…some flowering of a greater range of possibility for thought, for experience, that could only come from the struggle itself.’
‘…it’s the difficulty itself that shines.’
‘Feral: untamed and wild, escaped from domestication, damaging to the status quo, destructive, invasive, unruly, disobedient. For a female artist, what’s not to love?’
‘Social rejection, it turns out, promotes imaginative thought…it means releasing yourself from the desire to make people like you.’
‘Writers do go on a lot about shame.’
‘This is what art does, this is where it lives: in the uncomfortable, often lonely space between one certainty and another.’
If, like me, these phrases capture your imagination and fuel your creativity and you would like more of this incredible inspiration and encouragement, buy or borrow this book, and seek out your own stand-out sentences that hold special power for you. Whether you are an emerging writer or an established author, The Luminous Solution is a beacon of light in the oft dark nights of an artist’s soul. A book I will return to again and again.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lovely book about the creative process and having a creative mind. It is basically a collection of past essays that have been updated and at times completely rewritten. The first chapter is called Fertile Ground comes from that time when the pandemic first took hold in Australia. She says she jumped into reading, cooking, meditating, yoga classes - gorging herself on activities. When she stopped she realized it was replacement activity rising from sheer panic, and that the stillness that settled was not restful, but rather a deep well for creativity to rise up. She realized that this is what "capitalism loves best...consumption demand constant movement and constant noise." The title and the 2nd chapter of the book comes from a quote from another author: Janet Burroway summary of how one works: '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..." Later in this chapter she has a list she has in her writing room of inspiring quotes when she feels deep despair of the new dark age the world seems to be tumbling into, she dives back in, as creating in an act of enlargement, of affirmation on illuminating. Later she talks about the need for humor and laughter sprinkled into even the most darkest of material of one's creation. Also for the need to believe in the delusion you are creating. "All art in the making is delusion, until you're standing in front of Blue Poles or watching Hamlet or Mad Max...it's all delusion, until it's not." She gives the advise to be totally creative, one must be totally 'untamed' - feral. Break the rules, and be unruly. That it is a truism that all artists are outcasts in some way. That while many organizations and societies claim to want creativity, they actually do the opposite.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

In her preface, Charlotte Wood writes 'Other people's creative lives have always fascinated me.' I am the same. I love learning about the process of making something new - whether it be writing, painting, music or any other form of art or craft. Writers Week is coming up again in Adelaide soon and one of the reasons I listen to authors is to hear about their processes which are often very different.

I have dipped into this book of articles about the creative life over a number of weeks. Some have interested me more than others. Some pieces are aimed more at fellow writers than readers. Wood writes about the need for anger and also the need for laughter. Her final chapter is about how nature nurtures the creative spirit in all of us.

The most memorable was a chapter called Reading Isn't Shopping. Wood talks about why 'liking' something does not mean it is good. Readers do not need to feel comfortable reading a book - she is all in favour of disturbance, making us think and feel differently. We need to be challenged. I often choose a book purely for escape and to relax after a particularly demanding book but this is not the sort of writing Wood is talking about.

There is a problem with the Goodreads rating system. A book may be excellent in spite of me not 'liking' it. I wonder if I should use star ratings at all after reading what Wood thinks about them! Years ago I taught high school students creative writing and I didn't like using a grading system then. It was like comparing apples and oranges. But some pieces always stood out, had that little extra punch, persuasion or lyricism. It is all about the power of the word.

[Charley · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Contrary to the popular maxim that ‘a writer writes’, it is clear that quite often, for different creative reasons, a writer waits.”

Has to be the best thing I’ve ever read lol mostly due to the utter agony I feel any time anyone asks “aren’t you finished writing that book yet?”

I love how Charlotte Wood has broken this down and allowed those of us who toil in our minds — over every word, every sentence and plot point — some breathing space. It was certainly a comfort to realise I’m not the only one who agonises over seemingly insignificant details all in the name of art or craft or whatnot.

For anyone who’s ever doubted themselves creatively or just in general (my hand is also raised), read this book. It’s not just inspiring, it really feels like Charlotte is reaching down, her hand outstretched, asking you to trust yourself enough to leap.

[Lisa]

I expect that writers, or anyone interested in the writing process, will enjoy this book. But it's not for me.
I read the first chapter, skim-read the next three or four, flicked through the rest of it and then decided to return it to the library because it's on 7-day loan and I expect there are others waiting on it.
I'm not interested in the writing process, or how hard it is, or any of that...
I don't rate books that I don't finish.

[Maria Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

i found this to be a very interesting read, and as Charlotte used art to help her with her writing, l have many times used writers to help with my painting, l listened to many of her suggestions an dl will certainly use some of them regarding my paintings in the future

[Carmen Watts · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love Charlotte Wood but I did NOT love this. If I hadn’t bought it I wouldn’t have got through the first chapter. I’ll stick to her wonderful novels.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part memoir, part philosophy, this book is a mix of pleasurable reading and somewhat dull pages. It would be a more suitable read to those who’ve read Wood’s novels.

[Kate]

My second book in a row with a beautiful cloud cover. But that says nothing about the actual content of The Luminous Solution by Charlotte Wood!

The Luminous Solution is a collection of essays on the process of writing, creativity, and the 'inner life' of artists. Many of the essays had been published previously, and many had been rewritten or edited - none of this bothered me much because those that had appeared before were mostly in publications I don't have access to - it was all fresh Wood for me.

It's a dip-in-and-out kind of book. Wood draws heavily on the practices of other authors and artists to illustrate her points, which makes for a rich reading experience (the sort where I found myself frequently noting other books to hunt down). She describes the book as a synthesis of everything she's learned about her own 'creative impulse'.

Wood's descriptions of how her own writing process varies, depending on what she's working on, were interesting. Specifically, her experience of writing The Natural Way of Things compared quite differently to The Weekend. Obviously they are vastly different novels, but I was surprised that her basic approach was altered. Of TNWOT, she says it was -

...the novel that perhaps taught me the most about my own creativity - about trusting one's instincts, about risk, about the potency of symbol and dream and archetype, about the exhilaration of departing from safe and familiar territory, of overturning expectations and understanding that there's always more to discover lying beneath what you think you know.

After understanding what went on 'behind the scenes' when writing TNWOT, I am tempted to read it again, with an eye on the symbols, the themes, the writerly tricks.

As always with collections, some essays resonate more strongly than others. I loved the chapter about author Georgia Blain (in fact, the book is dedicated to her), and the essays on anger as a creative tool, and on ageing.

I marked dozens and dozens of passages in this book. Wood writes about the pandemic, muses, dreams, her writers group, classes she has taken, unfinished work and nature.  But I do have to refer to a particular section on reading that struck an (uncomfortable?) nerve. Wood explores our current culture of rating everything -

...every interaction is followed by a request for a star rating, a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. We've been slowly but thoroughly trained to see the world in terms of its capacity to please us...

So yeah, I always give ratings (there to serve me more so than readers of this blog). But additionally, I do a little of what Wood also proposes  -

...the anxious question, 'Did you like it?' - often arrives moments after the 'consumption' takes place. What if I were asked to think about what I've experienced and respond in a month, a year, a decade? It's unthinkable.

In my end-of-year review, I turn my focus away from ratings and think about which books are still resonating (for whatever reason). I reckon thinking about an experience a week/month/year later is a grouse idea!

On that note, there's no rating for The Luminous Solution ;-)

[Gaby Meares · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a series of essays, many previously published in magazines and newspapers, but brought together in this one volume. As each essay is complete in of itself, you can dip into this book as you please.

I found so much in this book: sometimes I felt a huge sense of the author reading my mind; other times she challenged some long held beliefs. But always I felt that I was in safe hands, as Woods is never judgemental or preachy. She is immensely honest and generous.

Here are some of my favourite quotes:

Fertile Ground (nourishing the inner life): ‘When first learning to meditate, we’re sent into a state of alarm. For most of us, stillness gives rise to dread. Yet in those times my imaginative world has been most alive. I’ve learned something that felt important: stillness is not a void; it’s a well.’

‘I suspect this paradoxical fear of and need for emptiness is why artists have always been such enthusiastic walkers….silent walking allows the mind to empty without the paralysing fear of stillness.’

‘So many in our world live in the midst of unspeakable pain, and as individuals we have no way of easing most of it. But it feels important to say that, despite this, we’re allowed to protect and nurture that which helps each us to live fully. Soon we’ll die, but right now we’re alive - let’s not waste that outrageous luck. We have a right to joy. ‘

An Element of Lightness (laughter as a creative force): ‘So what do I mean when I say laughter, as opposed to comedy, or even humour? The distinction is perhaps a fine one, but also to my mind important. What I’m talking about is something beyond, of possibility that comes when laughter enters a work of art, whether it’s manifest on the page or merely part of the writer’s process. For laughter is a sharp instrument, it turns out, capable of performing may crucial, even profound functions. ‘

The Paint Itself (the world inside the sentence): ‘The work of a writer, day to day, is in playing with sentences. Weighing and balancing them, interrogating them for precision. And the focus on subject matter and theme - those topics that become shorthand descriptors, like trauma or misogyny or aging - seems to miss the point of what art is really for. ‘

Reading Isn’t Shopping (why creativity needs disturbance): This particular essay really challenged me! Wood looks at the current expectation that works are only of value if they are ‘relatable’. And she argues that this is a result of ‘consumer culture’, where ‘every interaction is followed by a request for a star rating, a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. We’ve been slowly but thoroughly trained to see the world in terms of its capacity to please us…’ She goes on to interrogate the ‘deification of empathy’. She quotes Sarah Sentinels who writes that society must embrace ‘unknowable otherness’. Otherwise, if we rely on empathy; a sense of sameness to act ethically, what happens if we cannot find that sense of likeness? It’s easy to act ethically when we feel ‘they’ are just like ‘us’; the challenge is to still act ethically when ‘they’ are different to ‘us’.

On Gods and Ghosts (Catholicism, contradiction and creativity): having been raised in the Catholic tradition, a lot of what Wood says about her experience resonates with me! ‘If Catholicism formed my writing as definitively as it formed me, if it is one of my potent inner objects, my crystals, what might be the refractive glints coming off it?’
‘But maybe the most powerful gift my religious upbringing gave me was my ambivalence towards it, and the resulting ability to dwell in a place of tension and discomfort that will never be eased. ‘

[Anne Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

Acclaimed Australian author Charlotte Wood has put together this collection of insights into and reflections on this business of being a writer. Or more particularly, being an Australian writer at this particular moment in time. The first chapter - "Fertile Ground" - really resonated with me. In it she talks about a sense of gloom that descended on her while looking out at her untended garden. Like many of us, she identifies this as being about much more than dead plants. It was the third weekend of the first coronavirus lockdown in Sydney. While the world has been reeling on a grand scale with this epic disaster and continues to do so, the symptoms on a personal level go far deeper than the ills of the body. It's to do with fear, anxiety and uncertainty obviously but also, as Wood notes, it's something even more profound - a true malaise of the soul. This is what makes the book so relevant for our times, that it's written in the spirit of the artist struggling in many more ways than ever before. It's not just the terror of facing the blank page, but facing the blank future.

There are many wise words in here that spoke to me personally, as I'm sure they will to all writers.

[Lizp · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this collection. Charlotte Wood is such a magnificent writer. I have read The Natural Way of Things (outstanding) several times. I read The Weekend (wonderful) three times. Wood’s use of language is masterful.

Wood incisively observes how people commenting on books almost never mention language. She provides the reader with an invaluable insight into how she thinks and as to how she approaches the art of writing, at which she excels. She talks about the marketing of books, observing that some books transcend the marketing process. That only the experience of reading the particular book itself can lead to the discovery of its wonderful qualities.

I enjoyed reading all the pieces. I especially loved both The Paint Itself and Reading Isn’t Shopping.

This is a beautifully written book. I read a few of the pieces more than once. It is such a moving and absorbing read. I know that the pieces I have read will stay with me for a long time.

I highly recommend this outstanding book to others.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a quick but interesting read. Essentially a collection of essays on the writing process. Charlotte Wood has an academic thesis under her belt and is eminently qualified to write about the writing process. Most of the chapters in this book have already appeared in some form in a number of Australian publications, The Age, The SMH, The Guardian, Aus Book Review, etc.
I was really interested to read that she has found inspiration in the Lady and the Unicorn Tapestries, but didn't mention the novel by Tracy Chevalier, The Lady and the Unicorn, one of my favourite historical fictions.
Basically, I came away with being reminded of all the great books I still need to read and a few others that hadn't been on my TBR.
It's a book I think I could read again and get more from in the future.

[Alana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charlotte Wood delves into the questions and conundrums which confront writers, and the creative life, but this book is bigger than that too. Parts of it are a meditation on how we think and interpret life and living. She doesn’t preach, but sets out ideas and then twists them back and forth.

The chapters on intuition, aging, the value of disturbing our ingrained thinking and the value of sharing ideas and learning from others were all so interesting in a broader life context. I enjoyed considering whether ‘relatable’ is a good thing, and to seek out ‘radical otherness” in art, ideas, words to ‘force me to think’ (here she challenges our complacency with what we think to be true).

There’s plenty here for writers to absorb too, and of course Wood explores it all with precision, no sentimentality but always with thoughtful interrogation. An excellent read.

[Antonia · Rating 5 out of 5]

thoroughly enjoyed this book, which is about creativity, but more importantly, perhaps, about having a rich inner life. And both of those things are available to everyone. The book is about approaching one’s art — but also living one’s life — with curiosity and intention. It also provides a fascinating look inside Wood’s own creative process. This is definitely not a creativity how-to book, but rather a rich exploration of creative ideas and of the ocean of meaning that lies beneath the literal surface of life.

I heard about the book through the wonderful Diving In Podcast.

[Adam Byatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

For the creative artist who is beyond the novice phase of their work, steeped into the grind of writing and creating, this book is a balm and guide. It opens up new strategies and solutions for novelists, and pushes you to think of how you see the world, how you have reacted to, and engaged with, the experiences and opportunities. Partly a writing guide, partly an invitation to rapture and response, and a new way of seeing and thinking. It helps the creative to have someone solidify in their own language what they have been thinking about but not codified.

[Tracey · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the Luminous Solution, Charlotte Wood lays bare the creative process and all the rules, regulations, restrictions that need to be stripped away to allow creativity to flow. There is reflection, insight and bravery as Wood encourages you to give yourself the necessary permissions to be messy and chaotic.
I listened to the audio version, narrated by Charlotte Wood and it is well done. Wood is articulate and easy to follow. When Wood is talking about ‘The Natural Way of Things’ the anger that propelled her into writing the book is fascinating.
This is a great book, a great resource and Wood makes some valid points that leave you really pondering. I will be purchasing a copy as I want to be able to dive back into and really take in the words.