Salon@615-Elizabeth Gilbert with Ann Patchett

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] chunky can come up if he wants does he want to come on just let him go and if he wants to walk around he can yeah you guys ready for chunky here it comes okay well well everyone's actually just paying attention to chunky all right we don't even have to talk this is it no you don't you just need chunky I think you're sittin on yours there you go I guess it's gonna be like this it's gonna be Wow while the audience takes a moment to admire chunky I want to say a few things about this particular year in the history of the Nashville Public Library Foundation it's the Foundation's 20th year and it's a very very important anniversary for us which is why we very specifically wanted Liz to be here this year the Public Library Foundation has come a long way and I was on the board for ever and the salon at six one five series used to be that once or twice a year I would go to Margaret Ann Robinson's living room and meet with two dozen people and talk about books and that was the salon series it did exist before 2011 but it was very very small so we continue to grow and change and the library and the library foundation do so many remarkable things in this city but this is also really the moment that we're remembering our roots and how we grew and I want to pay attention to Sean Bakker who is in her first year and we're so so happy to have you and my dear dear friend Claudia shank who makes all the trains run on time and who I love so much and to remember Margaret Ann Robinson who is the reason that libraries thrive in this community Margaret and I'd this year we boy we love her and think of her every day because her fingerprints are all over the city in the best possible way and I also really want to call out Phil Bredesen who when the library was was making it start downtown was our mayor than our governor and God willing will be our next u.s. senator remember remember to support mr. Bredesen in all he does and now you miss and hi hi you and your sidekick now my front kick apparently I hope this is okay with everybody I was thinking about how on Game of Thrones whenever they have to do exposition they always have a naked woman walking around in front of the camera so that people won't fast forward and that was like I was just thinking yeah it's like it's a thing they do like whatever they have to go through a sort of historical part where a character has to explain backstory literally a naked woman literally I've never seen that eight literally a naked woman it's HBO we can do all kinds of exposition up here cuz we've got like the equivalent of that we've got like a people would be like if they're not interested in what we're talking about they can just look at the dog can just enjoy my eyes actually just caught the joyous - and I also want to say thank you so much to MBA for having us here what a beautiful facility thank you it just takes me a minute Wow so we can be as boring as we want to be as boring as ever that's really fantastic I you get situated so he'll find his place you and I are really good friends yes and do you want to come sit with me what do you want to do work the room he's gonna work the room you look up back and see his mom should we start at the beginning of us yeah you're gonna tell the story of how we met and fell in love and became friends oh my god well I so I don't remember the year do you remember the year it was a it was a lot it was either well the year run came out and an Eat Pray lover I think was just in paperback yeah it had not yet become eat no life it was the 5 minutes before your I think we walked out of that event and it happened when that door shut but but we were so here without that would have been 2007 7 ok um so we were speaking on a on a panel together and we met in the green room and there were some other authors there who I do not even remember being there because I was so smitten with seeing you know Amy bloom was there I think was Amy bloom there Amy bloom was there and Dorothea Benton Frank Dottie Frank and whoever wrote his part of Extraordinary yeah we're not supposed to mention that one she was great anyway so um Marusia was impressive anyway so I sat down next to you and I thought you were somebody's assistant because Ann has this first of all you looked 11 and no you looked like you were 22 and you were wearing the most innocent frock you had this um you had this like very faded sundress frog-like thing on that was the most modest sort of not even a Laura Ashley dress like but like like one but it was like the motor generation it looks you looked like you might be a Mormon bride you know and and you were you were so an you were sitting right and I in my mind I see you with a clipboard but I'm sure you didn't have a clipboard but you just and you looked very attentive like you were about to serve anybody who needed to be served and I opened that water bottle - thank you and then I sat down next to you you said some very lovely things to me about my books and then about five sentences and I realized and there was like how are you and I think Dave Eggers had this experience with you once - right we're at a party and I said I'm I'm Ann Patchett he said no you're she's really beautiful and interesting I actually had that experience once with Anne Rice I was in an audience seated next to this little quiet housewife II person and we were chatting and it was Anne Rice's it was Anne Rice yeah um and then you got on stage and you win you know like this Firebird showed up and you opened up your mouth and I was like this is one of the most interesting people I've met in a very long time you have many you're able to be many things at the same time the dress by the way was made for her and with you and your sister made it in your home Eck and high school home attic so the reason that it looked old and faded and humble is because it was and this is what she elected to wear to her event in New York City and I was like that is them that is like gangster to wear your high school home ik Sun dress to your event in New York City so great and that and you meeting you was like meeting this pillar of light who I met this is interesting who I met at that moment and it was for the American Library Association because all we love library things come around yeah who I met that night is you and that's what's that's what's so incredible about you you're able to be your full self at every moment if you are in a green room or if you are on stage if you have the experience at the end of this event of thinking I just feel like Liz Gilbert should be my best friend you are able to connect with people instantly and show your whole self also through your books and that's such an amazing amazing gift so we started writing letters to one another it became in it I owe this to Larry thank you yeah because I had trouble with that word and I always think I'm gonna say episiotomy and it was definitely not that kind of a relationship Eamonn episiotomy an occasional logical relationship Episcopalian relationship with letters letters cotillion girls there are letters I loved that I think we did it I think our letters crossed in the mail I think we exchanged written addresses at that event and I think that you got your letter from me on the same day I got my letter from you and instantly that became the way that we communicated for years for years and years until you started moving every 15 minutes right and it's every 12 minutes actually but yeah it really is the case that sometimes I I don't know where to write to you anymore right both because you travel the world but you literally change homes what is that about um I was about to ask you how you what is it about to not I do I was gonna say I move I used to think I moved for every new book that I wrote I've never written a book in the same place I think once I used to have this theory and it's but the theory and it's very it's very like it makes it sound very grandiose but like once the energy of a place has gone into a book there is no more energy left to receive from that place and I must go to a fresh place with new energy but that doesn't explain why I moved every five minutes before I was a Schrader's or why sometimes I move three times while writing a book I think I just like moving I like I I love moving and I love making that's like saying I really like root canals I'd I once fell asleep during a root canal I do not mind a root canal I I like moving why I always I don't know because i always have that's not an answer why do I like it I love to create a new space rheya can attest that I can move into a place and in 24 hours my friend Margaret came over there it looks like you've lived here for five years as usual and I've and I've lived there for a week I just go into this we call it the white tornado it's just like oh and creating a new space once it's created I like to live there for a while and then I get really bored so this has got to be the same part of your brain that moves through the world that goes to India and Italy and Indonesia right like chunky I make myself at home everywhere really like this is now where we live we live here in this chair right here adaptable yeah I like a change of scenery and I like I also like leaving places I don't get sentimental you said something we said something in the green room and we said we should talk about this oh-hoh that every book you so glad that's done I don't have to ever write that book again yes so yeah I said to Ken Oliver oh you're going to love last American man I love that book so passionately and you were like eh well I was just glad I don't ever have to do it again that was a like book you know what the thing is life is a lot of work you know it's a great gig and it's still the most interesting game in town but it's it's a lot of work and I look back on every year of my life and I think oh my god that was a lot of work and even when I had a really good amount like I look at pictures and I just think I'm so glad I don't have to do that again I'm so and when I was doing it I was really loved doing it so it wasn't like I look at pictures of places or things or activities that I didn't I think I hated that I just think that that took a lot of energy well I hear that and I think well of course you feel that way because you move every I mean so how much of that work is that you make it a lot of work which probably can we can extrapolate out to the writing of the books yeah because the books that you make a lot of work are the books that usually turn out to be really good because you've put this huge amount of your life and energy into it I suppose life doesn't have to be that much work I don't think it does um but but your life is - and I mean you were saying yesterday you say no 27,000 times a day and you're still doing more than you want to be doing raise your hand if that's you like you know it's um nobody wants to be doing as much as they're doing and I don't know we must want to because we do I think for me the alternative is boredom so so have you ever been bored I have been bored what I but for me to you know I I learned this wonderful thing the other day that certain psychology people believe that anxiety is a cover for boredom which if you think about it for a second you're like um the that I'm sorry it works the other way to boredom is a cover for anxiety lots of times I think when people say that they're bored what they are is anxious or if they feel that they're bored what they are is anxious and so I think that I tend to skip the boredom and go right to the anxiety so what when I think about times in my life when I was bored what I really was was anxious anxious and unhappy Restless and not wanting to be in the situation that I was in so expressed itself as Porter but it didn't last very long because then I would move then I would change something instantly to to alter that this is really incredibly interesting because to me boredom and anxiety are as far away from one another as San Diego New Brunswick Maine I boredom is I have so much time I have nothing to do I have so much time in which to do nothing that I am just don't have an idea in my head of how to move forward whereas anxiety is I have 98 things to do in the next 98 seconds and how am I possibly going to get it all done but I think of boredom is just another kind of anxiety I have nothing to do this is terrible this makes me anxious okay I have nothing to read I'm on an airplane my can't I've accidentally have nothing to read I you know like that is an anxiety producing situation for me I'll get a cocktail napkin and I'll start writing haikus on it or something to see something so yesterday I really feel like we're in therapy and this is a really good moment yesterday I I took you and Raya to you al which is what we do when Liz comes to town in fact it was covered not only was it covered by the New York Times but they've framed the article and hung it in you al I didn't go to you a layer after that article came out but I'm not shopping this year which is a whole other story and so Liz and Brea and chunky and I went to you al and i sat with chunky and I had absolutely nothing to do and I was so happy I was so I was anxious about how you had nothing to do I kept looking at you and getting these little waves of anxiety like she's got nothing to do she's not shopping she's watching people shop I was just terribly boring thing today I was staring into the middle distance but you meditate but you pray but you are all about finding quiet places in your life to have nothing to do meditating in prayer are not doing nothing I know they're not doing nothing but if you're sitting in UAL holding the dog's leash it's a good moment to meditate and pray that's true is that what you did yeah sure no I the the the long-running television series that is the inside of my mind is is a pretty interesting show to watch happen I can really scare myself with it sometimes you know I can get to I'm sure none of you have ever had this experience of thinking that your mind is a dangerous neighborhood to walk in alone at night but my mind can be a dangerous neighborhood to walk in alone at night it can it can be a scary movie it can be a fun movie it can be but but the movies always going so I'm more bored that doesn't bore me I just did its nine day silent retreat and I was in heaven it was thrilling ly exciting it's the really I didn't have a moment of boredom it was fascinating and there was so much to be learned I get bored visiting relatives in the suburbs you know I get bored there certain you know like obligatory family I don't even want to say you all get bored visiting relatives in the suburbs everybody gets bored I get bored I get bored when I feel stuck and in we're having a conversation about boredom we should probably move this up and not sure bring up everyone's like please stop talking him yeah let's talk about writing let's let's talk about how cute chunky looks now he's this is that one of his favorite poses chunky and the lion pose chunky in the lion pose which will soon turn to spatchcocked chicken propose whether I just go straight out in the back I want to talk about the difference between fiction and nonfiction and because I toggle back and forth and I think of myself definitely is more in camp fiction do you think of yourself more in camp nonfiction where are you where are you most comfortable and which one is easier for you J'son Ward was in the bookstore recently for sing unburied sing which is a magnificent novel by the way it's incredible she is incredible and I asked her that question from the audience which is harder for you she looked at me like I was insane and she said well fiction is so easy you just get to I had that exact same look that answers my question yes I would how is that possible she said oh yeah nonfiction is incredibly hard that's just not fair discuss okay I have exactly the opposite view nonfiction is the easiest thing in the world you'd literally just say what happened do you type it up no I feel the same way you just say what happened anybody who's struggling to write a nonfiction book right now just say what happened and then this happened and then this happened and after that this happened then this happened and then it was over the end it started when this happened and then when that happened that it you're in your the court stenographer you know you're just like this is the transcript of what happened and then you as Elmore Leonard famously said cut out the parts people won't read cut out the boring parts and and that's easy fiction is incredibly difficult to write I'd like I think that I think that I think of myself as a fiction writer but stuff keeps happening and and because I use writing for so many different purposes in my life so so as I think of my as an artist I think of myself as a fiction writer but as a human being I think of myself as a writer and what that means is that it's my portal to everything so when anything is happening in my life I need to be writing about it because it's how I figure out what's going on it's how I figure out how I feel about what's going on it's how I get through what's going on it's how I share what happened this urge that I have to be a pamphleteer to stand on the street corner and be like this happened check it out this is what's going on or did this ever happen you know wanting to be in the conversation so if I didn't if things didn't keep happening in my life that I needed to feel my way through or process or talk about or get off my chest then I would just sit very quietly writing novels but oftentimes my novel that I'm writing is interrupted by my life because of the way I am and the way that I live and then I have to go tend to telling that story or I feel I have to it I guess I have to I'm just following orders so do you want to talk about what's going on and tell us whether or not you're writing about it so so what is going on as many of you may know and those who you don't know just ask the woman sitting next to you because she'll know is that I left my marriage a year and a half ago you're in more than a half ago to be with my beautiful partner and my best friend rheya Elias who's here miraculously and she was given a terminal cancer diagnosis and upon that diagnosis it just they're moments when life makes a house call and that was one of those moments that phone call was one of those moments and it became impossible for me to any longer deny the reality that that she is the love of my life and it became impossible for me physiologically impossible for me to be anywhere but at her side there just it just couldn't be anywhere else but that I came I got on a plane and came to your couch and I haven't lived and and that's the story and everything Rob Bell do you guys know Rob Bell I called him that day I called him that week I didn't call him that day he's a minister he's wonderful he wrote Love Wins got in a huge amount of trouble for deciding that he didn't believe in hell and still preaching Jesus which people get really fussy and angry about but he he's extraordinary if just go look him up he's great and if I were to say that I had a minister Rob Bell is my minister um and I called them and I said I was so weird and Ray I hope you're okay with me she's like go ahead um I was in this strange straight state of joy that first week with the worst news I'd ever heard in my life you know ray has always been to me that one person in the world I felt I could not live with it cannot bear living without and the joy was very weird and very don't felt very perverse because I was like I can't I'm not excited I couldn't identify what it was until I realized oh I haven't enjoy because I know what I'm for you know this is what we spend our life trying to figure out what are you for and I was just when I say that I'm just obeying orders I was obeying the orders of the heart so clearly more clearly than I had ever felt I had in my life to just be for you and to just be I'm here on this couch now this is where I live what I am for is what you need and and there's an innate and amazing Liberty in that feeling because so much of not to go back to boredom and anxiety but like so much of the anxiety of a human life is what am i for and to suddenly know that is is can only be liberation no matter how horrible the circumstances are now I have not been in a constant state of joy it's been a very hard very challenging 19 months but that feeling was very real and and it was a feeling of connectivity to divinity to self to other to heart to love to knowing you know just unknowing this is done like and everything I had a whole schedule I had a whole life and it was canceled from that minute with effortlessness like just there was no trauma it was like none of this matters not one of these things matters none of these people matter this home doesn't matter I mean my homes never really matter but like this some nothing matters except this so there that clarity was you know it's rare in your life that you get to feel that clear and one of the things that didn't matter anymore was that novel that you mentioned that I was right suddenly I was thinking oh I have to update my website I'm so I can't I cannot bring myself to care about that novel that I cared about up until that phone call more than anything and maybe it'll come to me and already exactly those of you who've read big magic and it you know I talked to it like I talked to it and I explained to it the situation and I asked it to stay as I please don't go to Barbara Kingsolver um you know or to add you know I I stay in communication I've literally I'm not saying that facetiously I talked to I talked to it to whatever the living essence is of a creative idea I'm very pagan this way I talked to it and I asked it to understand and I asked it to stay and maybe it will maybe it won't and um like chunky maybe it will maybe it won't but and I instantly started writing everything and I've been writing everything and I assume I mean a part of me thinks well you never know if you'll do i of course I'll write a book about Raya um I would have written a book about Raya anyway Raya needs a book written about her I think so yeah and if you don't do it I will we could both do it she is a woman with two books were two books were so very easily and you know I would hate to live in a world without Ray I would hate to live in a world without a book about Raya so I I remember a while back you told me a story about meeting a documentary filmmaker who was interested in making a film about Raya and you said to me the great thing about this is now he's recording the experience and I can live it for the first time I don't have to be the one recording it not true well I would have a break while he was in the room you know um and that was what like a half an hour a month no oh no no no he's been very much in the row really yeah this is this wonderful British filmmaker who just came out with a book a book everything's a book everything it's library day he came out with a documentary called walk with me if you get a chance to see it it's a documentary about tech not Han and he was the only filmmaker ever to allowed be allowed to plum village took not han as the the wonderful Vietnamese monk and Nobel Prize winner or nominee and he documented for three years what it is like to live a monastic life and a very very very quiet beautiful beautiful movie that just came out right now and he was working we met him at an event we were in the green room at some tech conference in California right after we got together and he was asking who we were to each other and we sort of told a thumbnail of our story and he said wow I'm working on a document I've been working for years on a documentary about end of life would I be able to interview you and Reyes said absolutely and then he did a Skype interview with RIA and he told me later he said instantly he knew that everything he had filmed up into that point was going on the cutting room floor and that there would be no what buddy there's no point to put Raya in a movie that anyone else is in all the hospice workers he did interviews like this is a movie if you will have it I would like to make a movie about you and so he's been so it was lovely at it it was it was I felt it those of you who in the have lost a loved one or have a loved one who's sick you get agreed for that person and I call it Rey agreed and I'm not the only one who has it everyone who loves right we've all had Rey agreed this year of just this it's very unbootable hoarding feeling of wanting every moment and so there was for me that fed into my Rey agreed to see someone documenting documenting documenting documenting all of these moments and there's things that film can do that writing cannot and so yeah so but you are writing but I am writing and what is it like to live your life so out loud so in public so as a participant of social media because that's another place where you and I are on the opposite sides of the country now that I think that there's anything wrong with it I just can't even imagine it yeah I can't imagine it for you and how does that how does it how does it impact your life that that you can say okay I know that if you're here you guys probably know exactly what's going on yeah I'm not a very private person have okay never been I've never been I wasn't a private kindergartener you know I've never been that person and and I am also I've I mean an introvert trapped in an extrovert anything yeah I mean I very bare I've never I've very rarely had a moment alone that I wasn't happy I've had moments with other people when I'm not happy but I very rarely been alone that I'm not happy or as you would say no people no problems I really like ping by myself I'm just not but I also really like conversation I really like community I I really like friendship and I um I'd like to being a diner waitress I liked being a bartender I liked those jobs enormous ly people hate service industry jobs I liked those jobs I I was made for that I am a novelist who could also be a airline steward if I needed you know there's certain jobs that would really suit me I'm interested in this thing and so it hasn't been as jarring for me as I think it would be for a very differently created person to have the intention that I've been given I think that for somebody with a different makeup than me it would have been horrible and parts of it were horrible when a pilot when it was like peak eat Pray Love parts of it were horrible even for me but mostly no you know mostly all it's done is make the dinner table bigger you know and invited more people to that table that said I've those of you who do follow me on Facebook no I haven't been there very much this year and that's not a matter of protecting my privacy as it is a matter of not having time you know not having time not having energy and not being able to process things are happening in real time so fast that it's too soon to be it's not digested you know um so well it looks like I lived my life in the wide open what it really means in terms of certainly what's going on with me Andrea is that I made it a very public announcement about it but I haven't really said anything about it since I mean I've said more about it here on this stage than I've said in the last 19 months welcome um you know so it's not I'm not live tweeting this circumstance in them and of course I wouldn't know if you would know if I was anyone's right but to answer you know one thing I just want to say for anybody who wonders whether you should or should not be on social media this seems to be an anxiety people have like is this a good thing is this a bad thing usually people not I know people going there is what I say to you this is a very simple answer do you would like it if you like it do it if you don't like it don't do it it's great right here you have two examples I like it she does she wouldn't like it I do it she doesn't do it we're both perfectly as sane adults who I this is never having done it it's really funny because all my friends say oh don't you want you wouldn't like that one other thing we got you oh it's super not like that one of the things that I love about the bookstore is I feel like I have this whole group of people who are always saying we know you you wouldn't like this just don't go because we have a limited amount of time I want to ask you some of the audience questions which I may or may not be able to read because I didn't bring my glasses you got yours do you want to read them or do you know this is good thank you and you look like Harry Potter okay I've got to hold him up a little bit Liz what is one of the best pieces of advice you have for inspiring writers which I like because usually that sentence would be aspiring writers but inspiring write inspiring writers okay so I'll give you not only the best piece of advice that I've ever been given first by race but the aspiring or inspiring the best piece of right advice I've ever given period so this should apply to everybody when I was in my 20s and in New York and working a bunch of jobs and trying to be a writer and getting really discouraged and getting nothing but rejection letters for seven years there was a woman who lived in my neighborhood who was who was she had my life that I wanted you may know that woman there's someone who has the life that you think you should have her 1 or 2 think you could never have and she was a very successful artist a visual artist and she was older Susan a she she was fifty million years old and um and she made money and sold work and traveled and only did art and was cool and funky and I was like god she's just everything and I considered her my mentor she did not share that belief but she but what that meant to me was that I would corner her whenever I got a chance to be with her and I would try to suck life out of her into me like whatever she had rub it on me and one day she politely asked me how my work was going and I said it was going very poorly cuz I didn't have any time because I had all these jobs and I had a boyfriend who's Karen feeding took up a lot of energy and I had a lot of stuff going on and I just didn't have I just didn't have time like the thing we all say I didn't have time to do the thing that I loved and she said to me the most important question I have ever been given in my entire life and she said what are you willing to give up to I have what you claim you want shouldn't say claim she said pretend what are you willing to give up to have what you keep pretending you on I will ask that question again what are you willing to give up to have what you keep pretending you want this is a question you can ask yourself every year of your life no matter where you are in your life because I was deeply offended by the word pretending and I said that I was offended and she said it looks to me like you're pretending you want this because you're not making any time for it and I said I don't have any time I have three jobs I've got that and she said what's your favorite TV show I was like Seinfeld and she's like not anymore you're gonna go home and get rid of your Tillett what's your favorite magazine you have any magazine subscriptions oh you read The New Yorker you have time for that you have time for Vanity Fair what's your favorite bar that you go to with your friends oh you have time for that I mean my friend who's your favorite that was boyfriend you got time for that um so it was a real challenge and and she said I remember you saying you were you and your friends were renting a beach house this summer you've time got time to go to the beach huh must have a lot of time um anyways that ouch but I also get real what are you using your time for and what is it that you keep saying you want your life to look like and where is it going instead it's hardcore but it's really good it gets you there read big magic it is a book so full of wisdom about making time and making art and there's that wonderful letter between Melville and Hawthorne and Melville and Hawthorne where Melville says I don't have any time to write it's a dreamlike time I keep thinking about whales but who has the time I'm a middle school teacher and I would love to know what you would have liked to have heard how you would have liked to have been encouraged at that impressionable age fifth through eighth grade um I'm not sure I did that justice so I am neither a parent nor a teacher by just by a choice I've decided not to be either one of those things takes a lot of time to be both of those things I will say this though whenever I'm asked for advice about how to teach kids how to be creative which I think it is sort of what that question is you can't you can only show them you can only show them what it looks like if you're not living that way and you're trying to teach it it's not going to work it's it just it just isn't they need to see how passionate you are about your life about what turns you on about what's wildly exciting to you if you're a parent and you have a completely creativity free life but you spend your life driving your kids to violin lessons in our classes because you want them to be creative I guarantee you this will not work as well for them as when they see you shut the door go behind it put a sign on the door saying do not disturb mom she's work she's creating and they watch you do that for your entire life and they learn that that's not only really cool but it's okay and that's how you do it that's how I became a creative person who's cooking mother was and she wasn't a writer she wasn't she wasn't a fine artist she was that she was a maker she was a she was a person who is constantly altering her world and making things and she cared about those creative projects on most days a lot more than she cared about I'm just saying that with all love she totally she loved us and she raised us but she had interests and she had passions and during the time that she was doing her interests and her passions we were left alone to find ours and so she and she was not concerning herself with making that happen for us she was like go do go find go this so as a teacher I think the best teacher I ever had was my fourth grade teacher miss sandy carpenter who I'm still in constant contact with she's 75 she was the most excited person I had ever met and she taught us everything she was into she was really into plants so we got really into plants she was really into astronomy we got really into astronomy we were out in a field in the middle of the night with her at the age of nine looking at constellations because that's what she would have been doing anyway so be the thing be the thing and because no one kids can't help kids will never ever ever do what you tell them to do or what you want them to do but they cannot help imitating you especially if you have a lot of time with them so that would be my advice apparently that's true for reading - it's not that whether or not you read to your children it's whether or not you tell your children to go away because you're reading and and that's what encourages write makes an enormous amount of how much do you think do you think about your audience while you're writing because the audience for stirneman seems to be a very different audience than the audience for big magic I think about it a lot and I try not to think of it as an audience but as a single person so for me the most important I thought we're trying to write to an audience I I wrote the first draft of committed to an audience and then I had a mini nervous breakdown and I won't come up here but and then I threw it away he's good I threw it away and I didn't write for a year because I was so freaked out by how big an audience I suddenly had I've never really had an audience and now I had millions of an audience I was trying to write a book that would please that audience that's an impossible thing so instead what I do before each book is I choose one person who I directly write to so anybody who is writing a book I would ask you who are you telling it to and and if your answer is a demographic I'm probably not gonna love reading your book I am writing my book for women between the ages of 40 and 55 who are experiencing perimenopausal depression like I who is that that's not a person I'm writing this book for my cousin Cindy who I think would really get something out of this book now you've got a voice that's direct and honest and for a particular person I'm so paraphrasing because of your trifocals but how do you maintain creativity while in the midst of tragedy that's when you need it most yeah serious um Martha Beck who's like my godmother and certainly the godmother of this relationship with Raya she it says to us all the time constant creative response constant creative response create create create create create create create every single second every single second and it doesn't mean macrame necessarily it means to me what constant creative response means is that you don't drop the ball on the contract that you agreed to by coming to this earth in this incarnation to do this experiment of life in this form at this moment in history engaged with these events with these people that is the that is the utmost creativity to live in agreement with the fact that you are you are a unique experience in the history of the universe whether you see that from a religious perspective or a scientific perspective both are even fully true this has you have never happened before like this has never happened this particular person born with these particular qualities and these particular obstacles at this particular moment dropped in to this particular family in this particular culture if when thrown into these particular events has never occurred and will never occur again and constant creative response to me means to never stop engaging with that work with that amazing reality with that extraordinary circumstance how very weird it is to be and when I meet people and I and and I want to know them I always feel like I'm staring into their skull cavity being like what is this been like for you like isn't this the weirdest damn thing like here we are you ended up in there and I'm in here whoa and and so the constant creative response that's happening during tragedy is the ground keeps being pulled out anything that you thought you could settle into you can't and just when you reach a place a woman there it goes again create create create your response and I had a moment this summer where I was walking around I was so beaten down by what was going on and I was walking around the East Village and I was in prayer and for the first time in my life I prayed a prayer I've never prayed before and instead of saying what I've been saying this whole time which was make this easier I said make this harder you want to do this you want to dance let's dance you want to break me you're breaking me let's just smithereen me with this then if this whole thing is meant to change me and shape me then let's do this all don't hold back put the foot on and grind let's go I'm here I came here this is a school for living this is a school for courage this is a school for learning mercy this is a school for for breaking and Brazilians for rupture and repair let's go and and that's creative response and it doesn't mean that you have to go home in and do a watercolor it means that you have to go home and recommit to being here what is the most interesting once I could have to this circumstance how can we do this in the most interesting possible way what is a different way that I can see this and what is this asking of me that's constant creativity I think that's where we end this conversation [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Nashville Public Library

Views: 37,418

Rating: 4.8059072 out of 5

Keywords: elizabeth gilbert, ann patchett, salon@615

Id: z7Nkz9enG3o

Length: 48min 12sec (2892 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 28 2017