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If Isabel Allende’s office needs to be painted, it has to be done by January 8th or put on hold. Every year, that’s the day she starts writing.

The pattern goes back to January 8th, 1981, when Allende began her first novel, The House of the Spirits. Ever since, she has cleared her calendar and started a new book on that date, assuming she had finished the previous one. The ritual has helped her publish a book about every 18 months for 43 years. Today, at age 83, Allende is the most translated female Spanish-language author in the world, by far.

“When I am writing a book, I need to close the door when I finish, and no one should get in,” she explained when I visited her home in Sausalito, California. “I have the idea in my mind that the story is an entity that lives in that room, with the characters and the emotions that I have been putting together. And when I come back the next day, I open the door and it’s waiting for me intact. I don’t want anybody to go in and vacuum, or to use my computer—that would kill me!”