Paulo Coelho, the Brazilian author of bestsellers such as The Alchemist, The Valkyries and Veronica Decides to Die, comes from a powerful tradition of magic. Excerpts from an e-mail interview with Goodreads.
Q. The Alchemist was first published in 1988. Now 20 years later, how do you feel your writing style or priorities as a writer have changed over the many years of your career? Would you describe writing as your own Personal Legend?
Paulo Coelho: Last year I wrote a column about the way I felt about the release of my book, The Witch of Portobello. I was in Lisbon, just hours before the book was released in Portugal and in Latin America. I was walking along the streets of this marvelous city thinking about the moment when the first reader would touch the book in the shelves of the bookstore. I was excited and realized that I was still able, after publishing many books, to feel exactly the same way as in the release of my first book, The Pilgrimage. Of course, with success, the dimensions change but the inner feeling of sharing my soul with others remains intact.
My personal legend has always been to become a writer. I’m glad I can say that I’m fulfilling my dream. But this must not be interpreted as “the end of the line” – on the contrary – I have to commit everyday in order to stay in this path that I’ve chosen. One is constantly challenged – even by success.
Q. You have stated that each of your books was written over a period of only two to four weeks. Describe a typical day spent writing.
PC: When I finally feel I’m ready to embark in a new book, I always go through the following cycle that takes me from two weeks to a month. Before going to bed I have everything planned: I will wake up early and dedicate myself solely to the novel I’m writing. The only thing is, when I wake up I decide to browse through the net, then it’s time for my walk. When I come back I quickly check my mails and before I know it it’s already 2:30 p.m. and time to have lunch. After which I always take a sacrosanct nap. When I wake up at 5 p.m. I come back to my computer, check another set of emails, visit my blogs, read the news. Then it is already time for dinner – and at this point I’m feeling extremely guilty for not fulfilling my goal of the day. After dinner I finally sit at my desk and decide to write. The first line takes a bit but quickly I’m submerged in the tale and ideas take me to places that I never thought I would tread. My wife calls me to go to bed but I can’t, I need to finish the line, then the paragraph, then the page…It goes on like this until 2 – 3 a.m. When I finally decide to go to bed, I still have many ideas in my mind-that I carefully note down on a piece of paper. I know though that I’ll never use this – I’m simply emptying my mind. When I finally rest my head on my pillow I make the same oath – that the next day I’ll wake up early and that I’ll write the whole day long. But this is useless: the next day I wake up late and this cycle starts all over again.
Q. Tell us about The Experimental Witch. How do you envision the finished product?
PC: I’m an “Internet addict” and decided last year to release 1/3 of The Witch of Portobello in my blog www.paulocoelhoblog.com in several languages. Readers from all over the world could read the first 10 chapters and leave their comments. It was a great experience and last year in July I wanted to further this interaction with my readers by inviting them to adapt the book for the screen. As you know there are 15 narrators and filmmakers are invited to chose one and film all the scenes where they interact with Athena. Once their video is done they are invited to post it in YouTube. Composers from MySpace are also invited to show their material until the end of May.
Since this is an original idea, it’s very difficult to predict how the finished product will be. We have many directors in mind to edit the raw material from the readers and the aim is to show the film in Cannes next year and then release it in movie theatres.
Q. Unlike many bestselling authors, you have opted not to sell the film rights to your books. The Alchemist is the only exception, and you have even tried to buy back those rights for a very high price. What is different about The Witch of Portobello?
PC: It’s true I’ve always been reluctant to sell the rights of my books since I think that a book has a life of its own inside the reader’s mind. Seldom do I find that film adaptations of books work well. With time, though, I decided to open up this possibility for certain titles of mine like The Alchemist, Veronika Decides to Die and 11 Minutes. I don’t like, though, to meddle in these productions.
With the Experimental Witch is different because I decided to invite my readers through the Internet to adapt their vision of the book. It is my way of having a peep into their universe besides of being a true original idea: the first movie made by the readers.
Q. What advice would you give to a new writer just starting out?
PC: To knock as many doors as possible. That’s how I did it in the beginning. People don’t think about this now, but becoming a best-selling author was a long journey and I faced many setbacks along the way. For instance, I had a rough time with my second book The Alchemist. It was first published by a small publishing house and even though it sold well, at the end of the first year, the publisher decided to give me back the rights since, according to his words, “he could make more money in the stock exchange.” At the time I decided to leave Rio with my wife and we spent 40 days in the Mojave dessert. I needed to heal myself from this and when I came I decided to keep on struggling.
I realized that despite the fear and the bruises of life, one has to keep on fighting for one’s dream. As Borges said in his writings “there is no other virtue than being brave.” And one has to understand that braveness is not the absence of fear but rather the strength to keep on going forward despite the fear.
