Isabel Allende

from the silence ideas slide in
tittering on consciousness
riding down ink to paper

The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor on NPR today had the wonderful piece below on Isabel Allende, the author of next month's Book Club book Zorro:

Today, writer Isabel Allende (books by this author) is starting a new book, just as she has been doing every single January 8th for the past 29 years. On January 8, 1981, when Chilean-born Allende was living in Venezuela and working as a school administrator and freelance journalist, she got a phone call that her beloved grandfather, at 99 years old, was dying. She started writing him a letter, and that letter turned into her very first novel, The House of the Spirits. She said, "It was such a lucky book from the very beginning, that I kept that lucky date to start."

Today is a sacred day for her, and she treats it in a ceremonial, ritualistic way. She gets up early this morning and goes alone to her office, where she lights candles "for the spirits and the muses." She surrounds herself with fresh flowers and incense, and she meditates.

She sits down at the computer, turns it on, and begins to write. She says: "I try to write the first sentence in a state of trance, as if somebody else was writing it through me. That first sentence usually determines the whole book. It's a door that opens into an unknown territory that I have to explore with my characters. And slowly as I write, the story seems to unfold itself, in spite of me."

She said, "When I start I am in a total limbo. I don't have any idea where the story is going or what is going to happen or why I am writing it." She doesn't use an outline, and she doesn't talk to anybody about what she's writing. She doesn't look back at what she's written until she's completed a whole first draft — which she then prints out, reads for the first time, and goes about the task of revising, where she really focuses on heightening and perfecting tension in the story and the tone and rhythm of the language.

She said that she take notes all the time and carries a notebook in her purse so that she can jot down interesting things she sees or hears. She clips articles out of newspapers, and when people tell her a story, she writes down that story. And then, when she is in the beginning stages of working on a book, she looks through all these things that she's collected and finds inspiration in them.

She writes in a room alone for 10 or 12 hours a day, usually Monday through Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. During this time, she says, "I don't talk to anybody; I don't answer the telephone. I'm just a medium or an instrument of something that is happening beyond me."

May we learn to go with the flow

Grateful

With the switch over to digital TV, I now listen to radio more than I used to since I have randomly pixelated TV reception.

I was delighted to wake up to a show on National Public Radio with someone talking about Tofino, British Columbia. I missed who the speaker was but was thrilled to listen to him describe Tofino as the most laid back place in British Columbia. It brought for wonderful memories and a great sense of enjoyment.

I next listened to The Witer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor. I heard a poem I thoroughly enjoyed by David Budbill from his book Judevine, "Ben". The whole poem is on NPR's site and the link to purchase the book is there, also. I just want to share a portion and encourage to use the links for more. This is from middle of the poem:

Ben is a cynic in the Greek and philosophic sense,
one who gives his life to simplicity
seeking only the necessities
so he can spend his days
in the presence of his dreams.

I loved this as well as other parts and the poem as a whole. I feel blessed to have heard it, and it spoke to me.

With such a good beginning, decided to cook a favorite easy breakfast for myself: poached eggs with Trader Joe's Crumbled Gorgonzola Cheese, garlic, butter over Dave's Killer Bread Good Seed Spelt. I decided it sounds like I must work for a health food company. I don't now, but I did spend 5 years as a manager of health food, vitamin, and metaphysical bookstore. And, the new thought I had today if I get more entertaining, have a more glamorous site with higher traffic and decided to have ads on my page maybe they'll be for health foods. That would be cool, if I did it.

I went to look for a picture of Tofino wolves that used to hang on my wall so I could put it up again. The photographer is Jacqueline Windh. She has a two books out now, and a blog for Tofino.

As I remember many good things, I know it is time to carry some things off for recycling to the thrift shop, I either have a clearer or be ready to move.