How I Wrote It
I taught high school in Angleton, Texas for almost twenty years. I taught Remedial Reading for part of the day, Speed Reading and Creative Writing for the rest of the day. One year a young girl entered the class. She was from Thailand. She spoke English, but needed more help with reading. Her story is the base of Breath of the Dragon. Her father was killed, her mother went to America to stay with relatives and the girl lived with her grandmother. But that’s all that isn’t fiction. The real girl was quite popular with her schoolmates, had been close to her grandmother all her life and kept in contact with her mother. I, of course, had to change the story and give my character problems—lots of them.
I got the name Malila from a high school student who was part Thai. When she heard I had a contract on a book, and that I need a new Thai name for my character, she volunteered her own. I thought that the symbolism of a tiny flower being purple and then blooming, and turning white while emitting a sweet aroma was a perfect metaphor for the growth and change of my main character.
Kind of makes me believe in fate.
