The Family Mystery That Inspired the Novel (part 2)
In 2017, my aunt contacted a man who appeared as a second cousin on Ancestry.com. To our surprise, he replied that he’d heard rumors that his great-grandmother, Carmen, had abandoned a baby girl named Mirta in a Havana hospital in the early 20s.
The Family Mystery That Inspired the Novel (part 1)
My grandmother Mirta longed to know who she was and where she came from. She died in 2008 at 85 years old, never knowing who her mother was.
A Graveyard for My Darlings
“Murder your darlings” is perhaps the most disturbing advice proffered to newbie novelists. If you’re not in this illustrious category, you might be understandably befuddled. Basically, it means don’t get too attached to anything you write — characters, storylines, highfalutin prose — because chances are you’ll have to cut it.