Ask the Author: Jacqueline Hodder
Answered Questions (10)
Jacqueline Hodder
Hi Linda - how are you? Thanks so much for taking the time to read my answers! My book is brand new so happy if you would like to review it! So glad I have a fellow Narnian and someone who doesn't like horror as well :-)
Jacqueline Hodder
'I don't like horror,' she screamed. Aloud.
Jacqueline Hodder
There's only one answer: Narnia. I would go to Cair Paravel and talk with the mer women and mer men while watching the sun set over the snow capped mountains and listen to Aslan talking quietly with the 4 Pevensies.
Jacqueline Hodder
Great question! I have a Richard Flanagan book I want to pick up again as well as reading some old favourites like the #1 Ladies Detective Agency. I would also like to read Kate Grenville's A Room Made of Leaves.
Jacqueline Hodder
I have limited time so I just have to pick up the laptop and go or it won't get done. But, still, picking up the laptop can be hard. Sometimes I'll fuss around social media (it's the worst distraction) so I have to set deadlines for myself (both artificial and real) and these deadlines help me push through when I'm procrastinating.
Jacqueline Hodder
The best thing about being a writer is creating worlds/characters/events that are completely fictional and that you've brought out of your creative process. How cool is that! I just love the ideas that come and then working with them to create something out of nothing - it's like magic (and really, really hard work).
Jacqueline Hodder
I've wanted to be a writer since I was little. I even did my undergraduate degree in Professional Writing but I've also struggled with confidence most of my life. I think if I could give a few pieces of advice, it would be to:
1. Don't think of your first draft as your final piece - it's not! It's only the beginning of the whole process. In fact writing should be called 'wrediting' because most of the hard work is really in the polishing.
2. Find a place/routine/structure that works for you. I stumbled across 'The Guardian's' 'How to Write a Novel in 30 days' and although you can't (!), the worksheets in this article really helped me hone the story, the characters, the setting and the process.
3. Keep going - define success for yourself. My aim was to be published - I'm not seeking fame or glory (well only slightly!) so success for me was to actually finish the damn thing and have to a publishable place.
All the best - you can do it - I believe in you!
1. Don't think of your first draft as your final piece - it's not! It's only the beginning of the whole process. In fact writing should be called 'wrediting' because most of the hard work is really in the polishing.
2. Find a place/routine/structure that works for you. I stumbled across 'The Guardian's' 'How to Write a Novel in 30 days' and although you can't (!), the worksheets in this article really helped me hone the story, the characters, the setting and the process.
3. Keep going - define success for yourself. My aim was to be published - I'm not seeking fame or glory (well only slightly!) so success for me was to actually finish the damn thing and have to a publishable place.
All the best - you can do it - I believe in you!
Jacqueline Hodder
I've got several stories banking up but currently, I'm nearing completion on a Middle-grade fantasy/speculative fiction novel about a young girl who wants to be a special kind of pilot. She's always been overshadowed by her amazingly successful sister and brilliant parents. At the (special kind) of Academy where she's learning to fly she fails miserably until she meets one or two special people and has one or two special things happen. Then she starts to learn how to be brave and how to be herself. I'm hoping this will be out by Christmas:-)
Jacqueline Hodder
The inspiration to write can come in many different forms. I never know when the idea for a story is going to come and whether it has enough 'meat' (so to speak) to become a fully-fledged story. With 'The Sentinel' I knew it had potential right from the start. It's hard to say exactly why but I somehow knew it was a good idea and had depth. I just had to work for the next 4 years on it to get it to how I first envisaged it while walking around The Prom.
Jacqueline Hodder
At the end of 2016 I went on a 3-day hike around the southernmost tip of mainland Australia - a wonderful place called Wilson's Promontory (the Prom to Victorians). We stayed at the lighthouse for a night and while there did a tour of the lighthouse and lightstation. During the tour our guide told us about the short-lived lighthouse school (#2278) which opened for a total of 2 months in the 1880s. It had to close because one of the keepers was dismissed. That tidbit of information sparked my imagination; what would a keeper have to do to be dismissed? What would the teacher have thought about it? The children? What would bring a teacher out to such a lonely and isolated place in the first instance, and what might they have thought of the people and the place?
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