I liked this so much from today's Writer's Almanac that I thought to post it. Isabel Allende is one of my favourite writers, though I can only read her in translation.


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."

She's the author of nearly 20 books published since 1982, among them Paula (1995), Daughter of Fortune (1999), Portrait in Sepia (2000), and the recent memoir, The Sum of Our Days (2008). Her work has been translated into 30 languages, and her books have sold more than 51 million copies. She continues to write fiction in Spanish though she's lived in the United States for decades. Margaret Sayers Peden has done the English translations of several of Isabel Allende's books.

direct link: Wherein the Bunny Comes Back to Life -a cell phone video :)))

My dog suddenly began chasing a rabbit in Christie Pits Park in Toronto, back and forth across the hills. Never seen a rabbit in all the years we've gone there. It was buck wheat coloured and squealing in fear. A high speed chase. My dog appeared to catch it. The rabbit went dead. I ran over and put a leash on Keesha, my Springer Spaniel, a retriever. Then, being a metropolitan woman of the 21st century I turned on my cell phone video... :)))

Music- Not Forget Me by djbouly, Creative Commons licensed.

From Wind Over Grass, a painting

Wind Over Grass, 28"x22", 71x56cm, 2010, underpainting, on canvas.

Underpainting- an acrylic base, a chalk drawing that instead of erasing I painted over in 'Bone Black.' Difficult to photograph! Click for larger size that's easier to see (you'll go to Picasa, to the album for this painting-to-be).

direct link: Empreinte by Eva Dez

                                                    

From The Lady and the Chimera

The Lady and the Chimera, 12" x 9", 30.5x23cm, oil on canvas, 2010.


fish live in a ribbon of river in the sky

nor do I sprinkle specks of strands of saffron stars

bouquets of red poppies bloom in paper ice

the soul, a chimera, who gave moments
never to erase
lived words, acts

seeing flying angels makes me laugh...
or you can delete what's in your heart

we are gifts waiting
to give
___

I am really wanting to move onto something else, so am going to consider this little painting done. I have painted it with a very small palette knife, really a dental instrument, and a sable brush with about 5 hairs. The paint is very thick. It has taken far longer than I could have imagined.

The chimera is half human and half lion, yes, but originally meant to be a cuddly stuffed animal chimera. His expression is a little more lusty though, isn't it. And that hat!

I think of this as a jazz composition, a riff in paint.

In the enwrapping of the solitudes of the piano trumpet and cello, deep in the ending of the year, I found an ocean of light swirling beneath my feet. Washing away what had passed. Did I mourn as the music mourned? Then the waves lightened and we saw the new day arising like a red cauldron bringing the new year.

Without being at home, with many things to do, but at a desk without access to the Internet, and no books or magazines, there was nothing to do but write. So I wrote a short poem about yesterday's moment in the field.

Ocean of Snow

Wind blows a field
of white waves,
lighter than salt.
Flecks melt into my eyes
as I lean against a tree,
mammoth rivulets of bark,
and watch black branches
scrawling waving calligraphies
on the squalls.

-
Now I think it 'cut up' prose, really. And yet when I format it in paragraph form it doesn't quite work. It's neither, then. Which is why I call what I do prosepoetry.

It's not that I have nothing else to say. It's been a difficult and a beautiful Christmas.

I post miniscule progress... the band of orange behind the Lady and the Chimera ... needs work... and surely I shall not leave the Lady quite so unmanifest, raw... who knows...

From The Lady and the Chimera

And a detail...

From The Lady and the Chimera

                                                    

From The Lady and the Chimera

The Lady and the Chimera, 12"x9", 30.5x23cm, oil on canvas, 2009. Click on image for larger.

Little painting progressing to nearly finished.

The scanner takes such a good image. There were enough dry patches for me to hold. Once the sky is painted I'll have to wait 6-8 months until it's dry to get a scanned image. Of course, I'll take one with my camera and show you long before then!

It's Christmas Eve. My tree is up, decorated and lit. The apartment isn't clean yet, but there is time. A little celebration tonight, and family tomorrow. I cook all day - new since 2007 - and I love it in ways I never thought I would. It's all beautiful.

♡xo♡xo

Merry Xmas and Happy new year!
Joyeux Noël et bonne année!
ia orana e te noera i te matahiti api! (tahitien)
Mung Chúa Giáng Sinh, Cung Chúc Tân Xuân! (Vietnamien)
arahaba tratry ny Krismasy, ny taona! (Malgache)
merii kurisumasu, akemashite omedetö! (Japonais)
zwayé Noèl et bone-érèz ané! (Creole Réunion)
Joyeux noël et banané! (Creole Maurice)
feliz Natal e feliz año nuevo! (Espagnol)
buon Natale e felice anno nuovo! (Italien)
selamat Natal e selamat tahun baru! (Indonesien/Malais)
shèng dàn kuài lè, xin nian kuai le! (Chinois)
bon Natale et pace e salute! (Corse)
Krismas ki subhkamna, nav varsh ki subhkamna! (Indhi)
feliz Navidad, feliz ano novo! (Portugais)




                                                    

From Lady and the Chimera

How's The Lady and the Chimera coming along? Applying paint very thickly, unusual for me. Because the canvas is so small (12"x9"), I'm using a tiny sable brush. Applying the paint without thinning it takes time, which I'm rather enjoying. Because the oil paint is thick it's going to take time to dry, I'd estimate 6-8 months.

The images are imaginary - meaning not based on a drawing of a photograph or model.

If you click on the picture, you'll go to the album for this painting at Picasa, and if you'd like to see the original chalk sketch click on the tag, 'The Lady and the Chimera,' and you'll get to the album itself, such as it is, with its two images of the little painting-in-progress.


Photo too dark and fuzzy, but that's ma desk, set presently for painting. The whole rest of my room is practically bed; my workspace, like the painting, very small.

I maintain that it's not free 'time' that you need to create, or 'space,' or an easy life, none of these things in abundance are the magical ingredient, no, not at all. It's allowing whatever it is, the energy, to flow. You could paint in a corner in the dark and if you were open to the energy, a painting would emerge.