Summer

"The whole idea of writing something and bringing it straight out… the balls of that. She just did it: committed to it, got everyone around her to commit to it —publishers, everyone in the industry. That’s just extraordinary. She has done something which no one else has done, which is catalogue a year. I don’t think I could do that. It’s why it really interests me, you know? It isn’t how I could work, ever, so I’m drawn to it. I watch it almost like a high wire act. Ali Smith has talked about how some of those themes weren’t visible to her either. She had to let go and allow things to emerge. If you’re a real list-maker, diary keeper, control freak like me, the letting go part of creativity is the hardest but most important bit. It’s where the interesting things come out. I think that’s one of the other reasons why I’ve loved what Ali Smith has done through her career, watching someone be so comfortable with not being in control. You’re drawn to the writers who have something to teach you. With her Seasonal Quartet, she’s transformed in real time what we all went through, particularly our hopes and our fears. That’s what art is, isn’t it? A mediation between the conscious and subconscious. It does that for the individual, and for society as well. Artists are the bridge between the currents that run underneath, the fears and hopes that nobody is fully aware of. It’s their ultimate expression. It’s a bit like being the seismograph needle—things are going on deep under the surface and the artist’s role is to make them visible. And my God, that’s exactly what Ali Smith has done. People say writing is like therapy. And, you know, they can produce the same effect, which is to allow you to become uncomfortable with uncertainty, and with the parts of yourself you don’t know about. They allow you to tell a story about yourself that makes sense. But they shouldn’t be undertaken in the same spirit. If you’re writing a book in order to heal yourself, I don’t think it will have use for other people."