This is a blog about writing, writing my stories, and the journey taken to get to here.
My debut novel The Last Daughter of Elizabeth Light has not found a publisher or even an agent, but that’s not what this blog is about. It is about what I have learned in the process of writing. The fictional family tree going back nine generations was inspired by curiosity. Why did my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother leave their home, their family, and their country to travel great distances to find a new life? My research using newspapers, diaries, journals, and biographies led me to uncover a real history of women struggling to be themselves.
Before 2005 I only wrote business memos, but one beautiful day in San Francisco, after I had left my career in advertising behind, I had an argument with my mother about a plastic ruler. That was the day I really began to write.
My mother inspired me because she “embraced life like a bride married to amazement”. Whether we have had to lean in, or follow another path, history repeats itself. We are part of what comes before us, each generation leaving something for the next.
Later edit from 9/16: The novel’s title has changed in this journey, and in October 2016 it was self-publish.
Bonita LeFlore 