Jackie Coupe – a writer’s biography

http://stores.lulu.com/jackiecoupe

*Some free downloads and art now available*

I can’t remember the first book I read. I just remember feeling quite clever that I could see what was being described to me…

Asterix the Gaul was my best friend through junior school and I read everything he was ever featured in. ‘Weetabix’ multi ending books and Pan Children’s horror booklets were what I mainly borrowed from the library. After a while I took to looking over the covers in the adult fiction section.

I remember feeling hot and cold when I first saw the cover of ‘Rats’ by James Herbert and the menace it promised. I dabbled then with whatever the librarian would let me take. It got easier as I went to High school because the uniform that allowed me to buy cigarettes also made the librarians less likely to reject what I wanted to read when I placed my books on the counter.

At fourteen I read the book ‘IT’ by Stephen King and was profoundly moved by the tales ability to make me feel both afraid and upset for the characters involved. I had thought at times about ‘the big wide world’ and what my role would be in it before but without much analysis.

I had a happy enough childhood. We didn’t have a lot of money through one thing and another at times. I had two sisters and my parents each worked odd hours.

They didn’t act surprised when I started carrying around a red folder everywhere with me.

I had decided that it was a power I wanted to possess. To make people feel the mix of emotions I had experienced during ‘IT’.

The tale I first attempted with a story that followed a King of sorts from centuries ago, a corrupt and evil King and his need to possess someone in our time to comeback and rend a divide between our time and his. I was handwriting it. I knew Mum and dad couldn’t afford to get me a typewriter so I never asked. I just bought pads of paper from the stationery store. At times when I ran short I took pages from my school exercise books. Sitting on my bunk bed chain-smoking I felt maybe this was the finest thing I had ever done. I got half way through it and put it to one side. I had another idea for a tale. An ‘end of the world’ tale. The sun was going to implode and wipe the earth out. Spaceships docked in each country with a limited supply of seats were filled with people and they took off in search of ‘new earth’. I ended up putting that aside for another story I thought of, a story about a small town sheriff’s daughter who hangs herself and the terrible secrets her friends find out about why she did it.

THEN I ended up putting that aside altogether. Exams for school, mum not being well and then my very selfish grandmother killing herself conspired to put me so far removed from writing I couldn’t see a way back to it.

Three years later one of my siblings did something I have never forgiven her for. I would write a story with which to kill her. Now this was different entirely. All the poison that had been pumped into my heart over those three horrific years found its way into the work. 300 handwritten pages of A4 later and I succeeded in finishing a story. I cried my eyes out. The whole piece had been fuelled by hatred. The wound was excised at last and it was a good feeling.

I set about getting details of publishers to send a synopsis out too. My parents bought me an electronic typewriter and I very slowly started typing it out. I think back then I did about 10 words a minute! The rejections came flooding back. None of them really helpful. My thoughts of maybe turning my families lives around with my gift soured and I put the red file away again.

I decided I would give up my ambitions for the moment and go to college. My family weren’t heavily into further education. It would give my mum something to be proud of, show her that she wasn’t a bad parent, my sisters were just bad daughters.

I did four years, gained an advanced GNVQ in Business Studies, then a HND in Business and Personnel. Very dry and dusty I can tell you. ‘The working environment and regulations involved, EU law and its implications, Business Maths, Recruitment. IT.’ Boring as hell! But I finished and ‘graduated’. No major new ideas about writing. No sign that the magic was still there at all. The time spent at college telling myself that I was buying time to come up with a master plan was over. The part time work I did whilst attending college became my permanent full-time day job.

Fast forward a few years, family bust-ups in profusion, nervous breakdowns for some, death for others. I still had my head on straight. Just, but I was estranged from all my family, apart from my dad who came to see me when he could. For 12 months I was in denial. This couldn’t be my life? I had a job as supervisor at an insurance firm, earning good pay, renting my own house. But it all felt so very empty! That the hard work, whether academic or in the workplace wasn’t going to take away the nagging in the back of my mind that I had failed in some way.

In March of 2004 I purchased a crappy beat up PC and had it delivered to my house.

By June 2004 I had a novel in a folder next to it.

I got the shakes all over. It had been almost ten years before when I had first felt the excitement of completed work, caution was required if I wasn’t to hit the same brick wall I had back then.

The genie was out of the bottle, work started right away on the follow up novel and that was finished as I reconciled with my family and mum had her second life crunching breakdown. By Christmas 2004 I had two novels, each around 80,000. The stories involved touched on suicide, demons, monsters, loneliness, fear and lost love.

Everything I had faced up to that point. I had yet more to face but I was ready. I went back home to take care of the family again.

It’s not always easy to write in a house full of people. I have managed it though.

At home I have written many short stories, one of which is an ebook available to buy online as well as my first two books.

The third large book came which was an unrelated novel, it was a work of lesbian fiction. Almost 80,000 words of pure carnality intrigue and murder. It plumed new depths and facets of my life. A lot of fun to do and that’s also available online today.

I don’t think it matters what the subject is that I write. It will always come out dark and jaded I guess. They say write about what you know, they are right

I have begun to experiment with photography.  It has been very satisfying and as a hobby it can't be beat.

If you have taken the time to read this monolith I thank you. It’s not much of a blockbuster tale, but I think it explains so much.

Miss Jackie Coupe, 2007

www.jackiecoupe.com - personal webspace

 http://jackiecoupe.blogspot.com/ - blog