Would you talk about the process of reinventing yourself? You worked as a journalist, a TV host, and a school administrator before becoming a writer at 39. In time, practicing and working, I acquired that skill. I could tell you a story orally but not write it.

I have a storytelling gene that not everybody has. That instinct for what to say and what to hold back and how to create suspense and develop three-dimensional characters and use language-I think you’re born with it. I’ve taught creative writing at a couple of colleges, and I can teach students how to write a story, but I cannot teach them storytelling. You’ve described yourself as a natural storyteller. So that gives me self-confidence, and I can relax and enjoy the process. At first I had the idea that each book was like a gift from heaven, and it would not happen again-but now, after 35 years of writing, I know that if I give myself a subject and enough time, I can write about almost anything.

I’ve learned to trust my skill, but it took a long time. But most of the time I just show up and keep doing it, and sooner or later it happens. Sometimes I feel maybe I’m not supposed to write that story. What do you do when that path takes too long to emerge? After a few weeks the characters start to appear and tell me their stories. But it’s training: I need to get in form. So it’s jerky, and I know that all those pages will end up in the trash. The first few weeks are terrible, because I have not yet found a narrative voice, the tone, the groove. That’s the opening line for a story, but I don’t know what it’s about. Other times I just sit in front of the computer and let a first sentence come out of the belly. For example, when I wrote a story about a slave revolt in Haiti 200 years ago, I had studied the event, but I had no characters, no story, no ending. I may have a time and a place that I have researched.

They know that on January 8, I’m not available anymore. Having a start date is good for me and everybody around me. I need time and silence, or I will never be able to write. My life is busy, so I need to save some months of the year to be in a retreat. Why?Īllende: At the beginning it was superstition, because the first book had been so lucky. HBR: You start writing every book on the same date you began writing The House of the Spirits. Her catalog now spans more than 20 titles, including The Japanese Lover, released last year. Although it became an international best seller, she would write one more successful book before feeling secure enough to quit her day job.

Isabel Allende conceived her first novel, The House of the Spirits, as a letter to her dying grandfather.

Paula by isabel allende sparknotes