Interview with:Charlotte Wood [charlotteozwrit]
WRITING
 | What did you first read? How did you begin to write? Who were the first to read what you wrote? Enid Blyton filled my childhood reading - was a particular fan of the lesser-known Secret Seven. Also Australian kids' tales - Blinky Bill the koala, The Magic Pudding.
I began to write seriously after my mother died, one of those times when life separates into 'important things' and 'unimportant things'. I had dallied long enough with my vague writerly yearnings; it was time to be serious or forget it.
My classmates at university and then writing classes were the first to read my words. It's a safe place for exposure, if you have a good teacher. |
| What is your favorite genre? Can you provide a link to a site where we can read some of your work or learn something about it? I guess what's known as 'literary fiction' is where most of my favourite reading lies. Recent love affairs have been with the work of Amy Bloom and Elizabeth Strout, Alice Munro is always inspiring, Richard Ford is one of my heroes and Patrick White was a genius.
My website www.charlottewood.com.au has some extracts of my writing and links to what other people have said. |
| What is your creative process like? What happens before sitting down to write? A great deal of procrastination is what happens before I write. Cooking, messing around online, finding trivial jobs to do. Anything but write!
My process is chaotic. I often write the end before the middle, and write a lot of stuff that later has to be thrown out because it's of no relevance. The first draft is all over the place until I discover what the story is about, and whose story it is. In this way I find the novel's backbone, and then have to remove everything that doesn't fit with what I discover. I am one of those writers who does it to find out what they think about something in particular. |
| What type of reading inspires you to write? The voice of a particular writer and particular book which, at the time, somehow triggers something in me. In the present book, the voice in Rachel Cusk in The Bradshaw Variations sparked the flow of a second draft. Something about its interiority was useful, when my characterisation was too external. For the next draft it might be someone else altogether.
I read somewhere that David Malouf said once, 'For every book there is a touchstone sentence'. Books I read while writing often act as that 'touchstone' for me.
Often my writing gets an injection of energy from my reading something utterly unlike my own voice. At the moment Lionel Shriver's polemical, kick-arse prose is giving my character a bit of a jolt he needs. |
| What do you think are the basic ingredients of a story? Hmm. Tricky. Howabout these:
- wanting
- being trapped
- mounting pressure
- some fundamental anxiety that creates tension
- a problem your character doesn't know she has, but which is evident to the reader
- love (from the writer toward characters, especially if they are disagreeable; the characters' of each other) |
| What voice do you find most to your liking: first person or third person? My first book was written in first person in complete oblivion of the pitfalls, but seemed to work. All three subsequent novels (including the one I've almost finished) are in third.
But the next one seems to be knocking at the door of my consciousness in first person again. I'm a bit worried about that because I think first person is so technically limiting. We shall see what happens ... |
| What well known writers do you admire most? Richard Ford, Patrick White, Alice Munro, Nina Bawden, Amy Bloom, Elizabeth Strout, Helen Garner, Michael Cunningham, Alan Hollinghurst ... these are just the ones who spring to mind. So many more ... |
| What is required for a character to be believable? How do you create yours? The character must fully inhabit the world you've created. Everything in that world should somehow echo and reflect the character, if that makes any sense. I think also, in realist fiction, they need to have enough flaws and ordinary human vulnerabilities to make them live.
But the creation of character is a slow, instinctive and highly idiosyncratic process for every writer, I suspect. Sometimes the thing that makes them suddenly pop alive, after months or even years of dragging their corpse through the pages, will be as simple as something they see in the street, or a piece of clothing.
I used to not give my characters a name for a while, as I slowly built them into the kind of person they are. But now I'm finding a name is fairly essential early on to help kickstart that process.
In short, my answer is - I have no idea. |
| Are you equally good at telling stories orally? Not bad. I can tell an entertaining dinner party tale as well as the next chap, I think ... |
| Deep down inside, who do you write for? Myself. And secondly, to entertain my friends. The writing life is so difficult and hazardous in terms of rewards - you can never tell if a book will be published, or sell a few copies or become a bestseller - that the rewards absolutely need to come from the process itself. I write to find out what I think about the world. |
| Is writing a form of personal therapy? Are internal conflicts a creative force? Not for me - at least, not in the sense of exorcising demons, or recovering from hurts.
But internal problems of 'how to live', or moral logic, definitely are a creative force for me.
I write to figure out how to live well; quandaries I might have - in the book I've almost finished, for example, I'm trying to figure out how and why we in the wealthy West simultaneously sentimentalise and brutalise animals. And how should we behave towards animals?
Then there's the satisfying craft stuff, of trying to weave such questions into a narrative involving real people, without your thematic questions making it read like a school essay or a polemic. It's best when I have a question I'm really confused by, because all sides of the answers can play out. I don't have Something To Say - I have questions to ask. |
| Does reader feed-back help you? Reader feedback before the book is finished is crucial; I have four or five readers I will always turn to before I send a work to the publisher. My editors are life-savers too.
And a thoughtful review of a finished book - by a perceptive reader - can sometimes help you improve your skill as a writer, but in my experience that's rare. |
| Do you participate in competitions? Have you received any awards? I've been shortlisted for a few awards. I am increasingly troubled by the plethora of literary awards out in the world, because it becomes a lazy way for media to describe a book. The fact of a shortlisting or a prize actually says nothing interesting about a work, but it becomes the only way, for example, that writers are introduced at readings or festivals. Even worse is the use of a writer's income - a huge advance, for example - to describe them.
This competitive, racehorse mentality about literature is just depressing, I find. |
| Do you share rough drafts of your writings with someone whose opinion you trust? Yes - I have several writing friends who always see my first draft. And I have a trusted publisher and editor - I try to listen carefully to what they each have to say. I feel we're all serving the book, not my ego, to make it the best it can be before it reaches a real reader. |
| What discipline do you impose on yourself regarding schedules, goals, etc.? During the first draft, the goal of my writing day is 1000 words. Once I get them down - no matter the quality - I'm free. Sometimes this is like getting blood from a stone, and I'll only get to 600 or something, but usually it works. The words might be terrible, but it's important for me to feel I'm building mass.
Subsequent drafts might involve the 1000 word goal or solving a particular problem, or rewriting a particular scene, per day. And for drafts I'll also give myself a deadline - a date by which the draft has to be finished. This is not only good for me, in providing the momentum I need, but is also useful for fending off distractions. You can tell people you're working to a deadline so can't take on other tasks until that deadline is met. |
| What do you surround yourself with in your work area in order to help your concentrate? Lots of photographs. Especially if the book is set in a particular place - photos of that place. ALso books I'm reading that help me get into the zone - or the voice, as discussed earlier. The 'touchstone' books ... |
| What sites do you frequent on-line to share experiences or information? I don't find 'writing' sites particularly useful, possibly because I have lots of people in my life to talk with about writing and bounce ideas off.
But I do find heaps of online interviews with writers to learn more about my craft.
I love interviews with writers, especially those on KCRW's Bookworm program - http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw - and Australia's ABC Radio National's Book Show - http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/ . Many other sites too. I love Twitter for quick banter and glimpses of other people's writing lives, as well as asking for quick help with research details, like what kind of fancy watch my rich nasty ex-husband character might wear. |
| What do you recommend I do with all those things I wrote years ago but have never been able to bring myself to show anyone? Either polish them up and send off to publishers, and start something new in the meantime, or chuck 'em out. It's liberating either way. Spending your life wondering if they will ever reach a reader is a recipe for unhappiness, I think. I think work in progress needs movement, otherwise it can die on the vine. |
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Charlotte Wood
Sydney, Australia
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