Jacqueline's Novel Nest

 While editing in Atascadero, I realized that the location of my tale worked better in Mendocino County, especially in the Fort Bragg area. In part one of Ironic Dance, one of my key characters, Jake McAllister, is a logger. It turns out, that the working and life circumstances that I weave into the storyline, are very well represented by the old town that existed in Kibisilah Fort Bragg. That mill town is long gone but acquaintances have a vacation rental up there now. Fort Bragg is near and dear to me. I grabbed my little sister and off we went to Fort Bragg, where we visited all the amazing coastal spots and found so many wonderful stories of the history. My main focus is the 1870s which, as luck would have it, was a very interesting time full of drama and upheaval, so HERE WE ARE. Welcome to your new home, my beloved characters. Speaking with the Fort Bragg museum curator was a life-saver. I was able to have a better understanding of what life would have been like for my characters

EXCITING NEWS!   July 3-6 I will be at the 60th Cape Cod Writers Conference in Massachusets, hosted by the Cape Cod Writers Center. I will be taking a class on how to turn a novel into a screenplay-could come in handy I hope. The best part of course will be my 15-minute chat with a literary agent who will discuss 10 pages of my work. I can't think of a better way to verify I am on the right track. Information about the conference can be found here. https://capecodwriterscenter.org/conference-2/

 FROM ATASCADERO I am on a week-long personal writing retreat on the central coast. I have reworked a few sections of Ironic Dance and while doing so, created a cool process to share. I felt the need to better define a couple of key archetypes. In my story, there are two orders each representing opposite purposes. Good guys and bad guys are too simplistic, but I will use that here for clarity. Their names are Oliver (Team Good) and Calvin (Team Bad). I needed a writing tool that helped developed their strongest motives and how they actually perceive each other and their work. This will help strengthen how my plot unfolds. The tool I came up with was a letter. Oliver writes a letter to Calvin who writes back. I was taken aback by how much this helped define the work of these two characters and the orders they represent, which work mainly behind the scenes. Calvin, especially in the first book, is very shadowy. He comes out swinging in Book II.  So inciteful was this that I am going to c

Welcome Back Me! I come bearing the gift of Ironic Dance, the rewrite I am gleeful to bring back my game to Jacqueline's Novel Nest. It has been 10 years since this blog has been in service. I left while editing and I come back amid a rewrite. Where have I been? I have lived a life, taking editing picks on my first novel. I attended graduate school, earned a clear teaching credential, taught, and lost my greatest fan, my husband Rick, to cancer. Like you, I traveled through the pandemic and now, in 2023 I am far enough along to reopen the view of my travels toward publication. I look back over these years and realize that my story had to unfold a while before the story of Ironic Dance could unfurl into its true self. I am back, working strong, and have an awesome account to share. As I move along these next few months I will post at least once a week to share my experience editing, and rewriting this story. I will share some of my processes, lessons learned, and some teaser section

What if you saw yourself more than a hundred years ago? What if that person has unfinished business with you and a few others? What if you found yourself in a race against time to save your life and the lives of those you love? You are in an Ironic Dance with your self and the question is, who will lead?

Before I finished my first draft, I thought the Time of Edits would a process fraught with anxiety. But I was wrong. It has been a surprisingly enjoyable movement through the through the pages I have created. Editing has allowed me to see my strengths as a writer as well as my weaknesses. As I work through my story as a reader, I am able to enjoy my characters and rather than see their lacking, I am happy to find myself, jumping at chances to bring their personality and actions out further and more vividly. All this is because I am treading familiar ground. Having worked through one draft, I have the skeleton and muscles of my story fleshed out in my mind and heart. So that now, as I read through and mark up and post it all over the place where I need to show more, or maybe less, it is the act of placing the skin over the body of my work. It feels like a give-and-take; a relationship with the world and its inhabitants that I have devised. Hey, writing is fun work, but fun