Jacqueline's Novel Nest

To kill or not to kill. This is a question that my writer's mind has been contemplating lately. It may seem to a reader than killing a character comes easy to an author. After all, we need only type the act of dieing, in any way we can devise, and said character is officially deceased. Be that as it may, an author is a creator of worlds and lives. We know our characters down to their souls, and believe me characters have soul. When I began writing Ironic Dance, I thought it would be easy. When my fingers first pounded the keyboard, I had a plan; a death plan; and I knew just who was going to fall. They had to fall. It was logical that they fall. It was just. They were the bad guy. Then my characters began to do what characters do: they became people with thoughts and words, motivations and actions. In short Ironic Dance has taken steps in surprising directions I never foresaw when it was first conceived. I am both an author and a reader as my story draws itself on the pages before ...

I have a chick in the nest I am feeding. This would be my first novel, Ironic Dance. I am currently at 50,000 words which rests me in Chapter 24. This is an exciting time for me, for not only am I about send forth my babe into the world, it is also a graduation of sorts. I began Ironic Dance in 2002. That was the year I joined my first writer's critique group. Before then, the upper compartment of my file cabinet was stuffed with beginning novels at various stages of gestation. Some were at a literary development of ten pages, some had lived into thirty pages; at which point the movie would have played out in my head, I'd be bored and move on. Not a great way to be a published writer. With Ironic Dance I had eight people who were serious writers and who were familiar with all the crazy little pitfalls beginning authors fall for. Best of all, they put me on the road to learning "how to write." So, I can truly say, that I have learned to write creating Ironic Dance. Now...