This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. On January 8, 1981, I started writing a letter to my grandfather, who was dying in Chile. My original idea was to let him know that I remembered all the stories he’d told me.
They would not be forgotten when he was gone. The letter kept getting longer and I eventually realized it was not a letter, but something else. It would become my first book, The House of the Spirits. If I had given myself the task of writing a novel, probably I never would have gone beyond the first few sentences, but as it was just a letter, like so many letters I had written to my mother and other people, I wrote without any expectations.
By the second page it was obvious that it was not a normal letter, it had the tone of a soap opera. My grandfather would not live to receive it, but that did not discourage me, quite the opposite, it gave me wings. I could write anything I wanted without fear of offending him.
I could embroider his stories and change them. Never again have I had that incredible feeling of absolute freedom to write. At that time, I worked long shifts at the school, twelve hours a day. I had very little free time, but unbound enthusiasm.
I would come home each night and sit in my kitchen typing away. As I recalled events from the past, the story took shape and the characters appeared one by one, almost all of them inspired by my extravagant relatives and people I had known. I didn’t get scared by the magnitude of the endeavor.
Page after page the story was emerging. I continued writing for several hours every night and on the weekends. The saga of the Trueba–del Valle family unfolded organically, without any effort. Their micro story reflected the macro story of the country.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
