Thoughts on novel writing

I wrote for many years before my novels found publishing homes and my plays were professionally produced. During those years, I felt occasional pangs of guilt for pursuing my passion, rather than giving my all to the transitory pleasures of gainful employment or housecleaning. I’ve tried not to neglect my loved ones, yet some may have felt a little jealousy regarding my affair with the written word. Certainly, there have been times when my tryst with a novel-in-progress felt as thrilling as meeting a forbidden lover at the keyboard.

Oh, the eternal triangle! And the three-act structure. Writers sometimes call it simply beginning, middle, and end. Screenwriters may label it set-up, complications, and pay-off. I suggest foreplay, climax, and afterglow.

I choose to write about the 19th century South—the dark, mysterious, Southern gothic side far more than the romantic. WOMEN OF MAGDALENE, my new post-Civil War novel, explores misogyny in a ladies’ lunatic asylum as seen through the eyes of an idealistic young physician. Its publication with Kunati Inc. has left me with a lingering glow, indeed, even as I plot the next rendezvous at the keyboard.

WOMEN OF MAGDALENE by Rosemary Poole-Carter, ISBN 13: 978-1-60164-014-7