Today, upcoming author, Kristin Jaques discusses her own, unique way of character-creating, and her upcoming release, MARROW CHARM!
One of the more dreaded questions I have regarding Marrow Charm is ‘Where did you come up with the idea for this book?” Not because I don’t have an answer but because ‘from my dreams’ sounds like a total cop out.
Marrow Charm germinated in my mind through the spring of 2015, borne from a half-remembered fever dream during many broken nights of sleep. It was not unusual for me to wander through my apartment during the deep quiet dark of three in the morning. This is the quickening time, a time when my eldest son stirs with night terrors or simply wakes for various unknown reasons. He sits firmly on the autism spectrum, and sleep has never come easy. I joke with my father how I haven’t slept a full night since he was born, but it is not uncommon to be woken at 3am four to five nights a week.
Some nights, I’d stumble back to my own bed after finally settling him down again, to begin the process of falling asleep once again. On the fringe of bird song and moonless morning, the threads of Marrow Charm wove into existence from my wandering sleep deprived mind. It was in the semi wakeful state I imagined men with numerous mouths that ate magic and monstrous meldings of spiders and birds, of a brother and sister, tied so tightly together they would follow each other to the end of the world and beyond.
It took the better part of a year to pen the first book, through exhaustive morning writing sprints and late night sessions half asleep at the keys. There were a lot of interesting typos out of those sessions. All while doing the daily grind of work, and child care. It wasn’t the only story idea to spring from that nebulous space of dream and imagination, but it was one that stayed with me, stuck in my mind like a burr that refused to shake loose. I am grateful for the insistence of those little monsters who kept me company through those long sleepless nights. We made a lovely nightmare together.
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