Hope all is well with everyone.
I’m working on the first draft of a novel which I’ll have done in five weeks or so.
I’m also reading love letters. Yes, that’s right. My great great grandmother kept all the love letters she wrote to her boyfriend (soon to be husband) in 1882. He lived in Des Moines, Iowa and she lived in Storm Lake, Iowa. She was 18 and he was about the same.
The letters are amazing. First for their timelessness and veiled sexual longings. And also for the historical view into rural pioneer life. Yes, these could be Laura Ingalls’s letters.
I have the orignal letters (my mother typed them and I’m reading from computer copies) and to save money, they wrote around the paper so that you have to turn it when the words reach the end of one side of the paper. It’s amazing to think they needed to do this.
Most interesting is that eventually these two lovers end up divorced. Yes in the early 1900,s people got divorced. I have a feeling my g.g. grandmother’s pent up feminism go the best of her. MOre to come on that.
Anyway, I’m going to use these letters in some way in a future book. I just can’t decide whether to take the straight historical fiction vein or do something more magical with a combo modern day/historical thing…any suggestions?
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I didn’t even have grandparents or otherwise in the United States at that time. How great that you have that bit of history.
Wow, Kathie – that’s very cool. I like the modern day/historical thing, but only because historical fiction has me nodding off a little. Plus, if I were doing it, I’d constantly be comparing myself, unfavorably, to Willa Cather.
So how about a modern-day protagonist living life as she knows how, until she runs into these early-day feminist missives from her gg gramma? Sounds very cool. You could even do it semi-autobiographically.
Wow, that’s really cool! I think Mignon has a great idea, too.
Thanks guys, all those ideas are great. I do think the modern story drawing from the letters would be great. I have another half of them to read so I hope by then a firm idea will have emerged. If any other thoughts come to mind, I’d love to hear!