If you were nice enough to click on my Facebook post, you are probably wondering, "Why the heck is Carrie calling herself Jacqueline Lewis?!? What - she thinks herself a real author, deserving an awesome pen name?"
That's not it. I promise. I don't think I'm this super cool author. I realize that I've only written one rough draft of a book and I'm working on my second. I realize that it's going to take a ton of work and time to hopefully be published someday. I'm not trying to be cool.
I realized, though, while writing that first draft of mine that when you write you put so much of yourself into your characters and story, that the name you go by - the name you use to think of yourself as a writer - is so important. The times that I would dream about sending Maura's story to a publisher, I would wonder, "Am I sending this under the name Carrie Lewis or Carrie Jacks?" Even though most people wouldn't struggle with that question, I did.
I am a Lewis, and Lewises feel pretty darn cool about being Lewises. If I didn't use the name Lewis, it would feel like a betrayal to my family and all that I ever was. But Carrie Jacks is who I am now. Carrie Jacks has been through so much in life that has made me the person I am today. There is an awful lot of Carrie Jacks that goes into my stories.
So one day my sister-in-law (also my very good friend) was over, and we were discussing a book we wanted to write together. Erin was trying to come up with a pseudonym for the two of us by combining our last names, and she said, "Jacqueline Lewis." I instantly latched on to that name and asked Erin if I could steal it.
Jacue for Jacks
line for Lynn, my middle name
and Lewis of course, for Lewis.
It felt so perfect, and it's pretty. I like pretty things.
I also have a couple ideas for some silly stories, like "Don't Believe Anything The Alligator Tells You," that I'd like to write under the name Jackie Lewis, because it's more fun. I like fun things, too.
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