The Latina Book Club thanks Boroughs Publishing for pointing out this quote from the legendary writer.
Isabel
Allende on the Craft of Writing
“Show
up. Show up in front of the computer or the typewriter. And if I show up long
enough – it happens.”
“When
I started writing, I always had the feeling that the book was like a gift–that
it would just fall in my lap like an apple or something. So I almost had the
feeling that it wasn’t going to happen again. That I had written The House of
the Spirits, and that was it. Or I had written the second or third book, and
that was it. But what I have learned in time, in thirty-two years of writing, is
that it’s a lot of work, and if I just show up, and I work and work, there is a
moment, a magical moment, at some point, when it gives. And then you don’t need
the effort anymore. It’s like dancing. When you’re dancing and counting the
steps, you’re not dancing. When your body just goes—then you’re dancing, and
then there’s a rhythm, there’s a velocity, there’s a feeling, there’s a joy
that you cannot describe. And it happens in spite of me. I think that’s the
moment in writing when the book starts to happen. From that point on, it’s all
joy. At the beginning, it’s work.”
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