I don't think the world will destroy itself in a nuclear cataclysm. On the contrary, we have the capacity to save ourselves and save the planet, and we will use it.
Isabel AllendeRead
January 8 has been a lucky day for me. I have started all my books on that day, and all of them have been well received by the readers. I write eight to ten hours a day until I have a first draft, then I can relax a little. I am very disciplined. I write in silence and solitude. I light a candle to call inspiration and the muses, and I surround myself with pictures of the people I love, dead and alive.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the importance of discipline and environment in the creative process.
Isabel Allende emphasizes her writing routine, which begins on a day she considers lucky. She describes her commitment to writing for long hours in a focused and serene environment, suggesting that discipline, inspiration, and personal connections play key roles in her creative success.
In practice
This quote could inspire aspiring writers during a workshop on writing discipline.
I don't think the world will destroy itself in a nuclear cataclysm. On the contrary, we have the capacity to save ourselves and save the planet, and we will use it.
My mother is a great artist, but she always treated her paintings like minor postcards. Had she pursued it, she would have been a great artist. Instead, she looked down on her art.
I never try to convey a message, I just want to tell a story. Why that story in particular? I have no idea, but I have learned to surrender to the muse. I become obsessed with a theme or with certain stories; they haunt me for years, and finally, I write them.
My life is about ups and downs, great joys and great losses.
I'm interested in people who have to overcome obstacles, people who are not sheltered by the umbrella of the establishment, marginals.
I'm a writer. In Latin America, they say I'm a Latin-American writer because I also write in Spanish and my books are translated, but I am an American citizen and my books are published here, so I'm also an American writer.
I knew nothing about the technique of story writing, and now, after eighteen years of writing, I still know nothing about the technique, although with the publication of my new novel, Tarzan and the Lost Empire, there are 31 books on my list.
Only a literary work that reveals an unknown fragment of human existence has a reason for being.
Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.
I believe in plot, in development of character, in the effect of the passage of time, in a good story - better than something you might find in the newspaper. And I believe a novel should be as complicated and involved as you're capable of making it.
If you can't create physical life, you find a life force. If that's in music, that's in music. I started to find this deep, primitive rhythm, and I started to move to it. And I held hands with sorrow, and I danced with her, and we giggled a bit.
I've been searching for a genre that would be most adequate to my vision of the world to convey how my ear hears and my eyes see life. I tried this and that, and finally, I chose a genre where human voices speak for themselves. But I don't just record a dry history of events and facts; I'm writing a history of human feelings.
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