Eva Baltasar: "I surrender before writing, and the story drags me along"

Eva Baltasar receives us far from Barcelona, in an old-fashioned coffee shop. The writer immerses herself in her creative process, which has engendered the triptych of Permafrost, Boulder and Mamut, and the jolt of Ocaso y fascinación (Club Editor), always with a starting point but without a pre-established ending: "I don't have any story in mind; when I start, I don't know how my novels will end."

"I discover them as I write, and this is very addictive," she explains behind an oat milk latte. She has been a shepherdess, a house cleaner, a pedagogue, and now she delves into the sea and the world of men to nourish herself with experiences that may (or may not) transfer to her books. A new story will see the light for Sant Jordi, and she already has a new tale in hand: when she finishes one, she always opens another: "It's a way to protect myself from grief."

— Every story has a beginning. What's yours?

— I started writing very young. My parents worked a lot outside, and my sister and I were locked up at home for many hours. My way of having a good time was reading. Reading was like my life.

— What did it represent for you?

— Reading was an escape from a boring, very closed childhood. It filled my life inside the house, it was the way out. Until I started copying books. I bought a notebook and copied them to fill the hours, for pleasure.

— When did copies give way to your own stories?

— I started keeping a personal diary, and around 17, I started writing poetry. I wrote and threw everything away. I played with language while studying philosophy. Although I graduated in Pedagogy, the longest university journey I made was Philosophy. I don't have a degree, but I went through several universities choosing the subjects that interested me.

— This existential drive and questioning comes from afar, then.

— I discovered it while studying Pedagogy, but they wouldn't let me change careers! I finished and it has served me punctually to work and live, but, in this journey through philosophy, I wrote a lot of poetry that I kept for myself. Until at 28 I fell deeply in love, and I wrote a book of poems for my beloved. I wanted to give it to her, and I was excited to do it in book format. That's why I entered the Miquel de Palol Prize, and I won.

— And that's how your first poetry collection, Laia, was published.

— It was a joy, although in life, I handle joys and misfortunes without drama: neither with excessive enthusiasm nor with excessive drama. But since I wrote so much poetry, I thought a way to have my poems in book format would be to submit them to awards. Ten were awarded and published.

— And the leap from poetry to the novel?

— In my late thirties, I went through existential problems. I went to a psychologist, and she told me to write four pages with my biography. While writing, I realized that I was adding details that were not real, that I was fictionalizing to make the story more interesting, and that new voice interested me.

"I don't know what I have to write; I start and it immediately pulls me in. It's as if that voice, in some way, pre-existed"

— Give space to this voice. I quit therapy, because writing had acquired that therapeutic power it has for so many people. Of putting words to discomforts or feelings and connecting with the unconscious. For me, it was very interesting to do it through writing, and to connect with dark areas that we don't dare to go to, or that we have repressed. It's very healthy to send a protagonist, and you accompany her and you're scratching there, but being safe while writing.

— How do you choose where to scratch?

— It's very organic, I don't decide anything beforehand, I let the story take me. When I finished writing Permafrost, I had the feeling of having thoroughly known someone who wasn't me. There had even been a kind of falling in love, I woke up every morning wanting to meet the protagonist.

— A very deep connection with someone you create yourself.

— It's like meeting someone you keep seeing, and who keeps telling you things about their life that you didn't know. I don't have any story in my head. I don't know how my novels will end. I discover them as I write, and that's very addictive.

— Do you start without being clear about the beginning and the end?

— I start from some detail, but I don't know more. For example, in Ocaso y fascinación I wanted her to be a cleaning woman, because I have been one and I found it interesting. I surrender before writing. I don't know what I have to write; I start and the story immediately drags me in. It's as if that voice, in some way, pre-existed.

— As if you were the channel through which the story is told.

— Yes. And that opening up, that surrendering, leaves the channel very free for it to pass through. I experience it that way. There is no struggle, or a pursuit of a story, it's being open to this coming to you, and with writing you can guide it a little. I let the character guide me, and I only intervene very decisively when she is in a situation where I want to save her, because I think she will have a very bad time. Like in the case of Boulder, when she wants to carry out a life and family project that she doesn't actually want. And there I say: I have to save her. I had the feeling of telling her: now you wait, and I'll save you.

— Is a dialogue generated with a character who acquires her own personality?

— And it's a bit schizophrenic, because there's a part that's like a mirror of me, in which I express discomforts I've suffered, but on the other hand, it's a person totally alien whom I'm getting to know little by little. It's this dichotomy, and I navigate between these two waters. My feeling is that there is real life, the life of dreams, and the life of the novel, which is very real when I'm writing: it absorbs me a lot and contaminates my daily life a lot.

— In what sense?

— It happens to me as it can also happen to actresses, who play a certain role and adopt certain postures. It happened to me in the case of Boulder, who was a woman who smoked and drank a lot, and I started smoking and drinking, when I hadn't smoked since university. And for me, the writing process is all day long. In fact, when I work the most is when I walk my dog, thinking about the story. It's like carrying the character with me all day. And when I'm in this process, I forget many practical things, my food burns, and I abandon laundry. It's like when you're in love and you become so obsessed that other topics suffer from disinterest.

"The life of the novel is very real when I'm writing: it absorbs me and contaminates my daily life a lot"

— In the case of Boulder, I even had a physical sensation of falling in love. I was aware that it was fiction, but it was like that. I was married then and had a feeling of infidelity. It's such a passionate moment that your body reacts, it's also a matter of chemistry.

— And when the story ends, do you have to go through a grieving process?

— I don't experience it as mourning, but sometimes it's very hard for me to let go; we have to go to print and it's hard for me to abandon the story. Grieving as grieving, no, because then comes a whole part of promotion where you continue with the novel, although in a less intimate way.

— And with the book clubs.

— Yes, they stretch out over the years. Also, I do like those very immature people who have a partner and, when they see that the relationship is ending, they start another one, so as not to have that existential void of not knowing how to be alone. It happens to me with novels: when I'm abandoning one, I immediately start another. It's surely my way of protecting myself from grief. And in this case, it's healthier than in the case of couples!

— After the three novels of the triptych, was it hard for you to make the leap to a new story?

— I gave myself the gift of continuing to write with a lot of freedom, and of telling myself: let's see where this novel takes me. There are readers who feel that it's hard to understand, but for me the point is that, however you understand it, it's fine, because all readings are good. I've played a lot at being subtle so that the readings can be varied. There isn't one good reading; I don't have the absolute truth of my books, that's the magic of literature. In fact, when I started the novel, I started from nothing more than a cleaning woman, and I said, let's see where it leads.

— And it turns out it led to fascination. And now, what are you working on?

— We have now closed a novel that will be released for Sant Jordi. With it, I have entered a very small world and created a very monstrous character, a symbol of life situations that we may all have experienced at some point in our lives. And I can't say more!

— And if it's already closed, does that mean you're already on a new story?

— Yes, in a very initial phase. Because when I start, I do like Penelope: I write a few pages, I delete them, and I start again, back and forth. Until I find the moment when it starts, when I find that voice that it has to be.

— How do you look for this start?

— I tend to start from landscapes of my own life, like the case of the cleaning woman or the one who leaves the city, like Mamut. The landscapes of my life are many, but they are limited, and what I have done now is open myself to new experiences, things I have never done, to open the door for them to integrate naturally into the narrative.

— For example?

— I've started sailing, on a sailboat. It scares me, I have a lot of respect for the sea, but the port environment calls to me a lot. I have entered this world, which I don't know if it will cross over to the world of books or not.

— What else?

— I have entered the world of men. Until now, there were no men in my life. I come from a very large matriarchy, of sisters, cousins, partners, and friends, and I had never had the will to approach men. Until now, I didn't even see them, and now I am seeing and getting to know them. And it's very beautiful, in a way it reconciles you with life. The rest of my life is very quiet, with reading clubs and accompanying some translations. I also really like being with my daughters.

"I let the character guide me, and I only intervene very decisively when she is in a situation where I want to save her"

— The part of being a writer that involves traveling, I do with joy, although I have come to the conclusion that I don't like to travel. I really like being at home. I love the week when I turn the page of my agenda and have nothing. For me, this is an oasis that I fill with writing. I really like living a home life, and living a village life.

— Can this quiet life also be a source of inspiration?

— A good part of the writing process is feeding oneself, and this also means talking to neighbors, going into shops… Sometimes a word can give you a scene, or a character.

— And at that moment, do you know it?

— No, it comes to me later. In fact, until now I haven't been the typical writer who carries a notebook. They gave me many, often even Moleskine, and I ended up using them to make shopping lists, and I felt bad about it. Now that I've opened myself to new things, I do carry a notebook. (She takes it out of her bag and opens it randomly: notes, drawings, names of birds, a tiramisu recipe, and the name of a perfume she ended up buying appear).

— Do you review your notes for writing?

— No, everything just comes later, flowing.

— There are some recurring themes in your novels, such as death.

— It's a theme that has interested me since I was little. I see death as a great journey. I hope it comes late, but it doesn't scare me. I am scared of the suffering and pain you might cause, but not the moment of passing. We have all been born; it is a passing. And we all have themes that accompany us throughout life, and for me, death is one.

— Is it more so in a context of international conflicts?

— I am not connected to current events, beyond hearing some news of the day while I'm in the nut shop. For me, it's a lot of mental noise, and it would be very difficult for me to write if I were very open to the world and everything that is happening. The fact that I don't pay attention to it every day allows me to continue doing my work, which I believe also contributes; literature also contributes.