Am female, 40ish and having a ball writing about my favorite book (and movie, 2005 version-seen too many times to count) Pride and Prejudice. It's true what they said all those years ago in English class--"write what you know". No finer advice than this. It all goes so much smoother when you actually like the characters, or at least, understand what motivates them.

A native New Yorker transplanted in the South, I like to study people-which is really easy to do in my profession--I work in the service industry and meet alot of "characters".

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed any of my pieces, I can't tell you how encouraging and inspiring those words you sent over the airwaves have been! They made me want to write better and to write more. And thanks be to God from Whom all talent comes...

Thought I would give a little background story for my four entries.

Lizzy's Declaration and His Hand were both "written" in my head after seeing the movie. I finally put them to paper after I found the fanfiction.net site and knew there were other people like me who weren't content to take movies and books at face value, but wanted to add our two cents.

A Matter Between Friends-the idea for this story came to me very suddenly on Oct.22, 2007 and I wrote the summary of the story that evening while I was at work. The very next morning, the teenaged daughter of a very good friend of mine was killed in a car accident. Whereas originally I was going to have Mr. Bingley's main feeling be anger, this very real event in my life changed the course of the story as well. If you read it with my overall emotional state in mind, you'll notice the sad undertones. The very first couple of chapters are melancholy, bittersweet; and Mr. Bingley is more hurt, sad and disappointed than angry. Finishing the story with it's happy ending was a catharsis for me as well. Looking back now, I really feel that the change in Mr. Bingley's mood was the right one, his character would be apt to be disappointed in Mr. Darcy's actions, because he is a person who sees only the good in people, and if someone he loved (a trusted friend) hurt him, he'd be sad. I think of all my stories, this one is my favorite, it practically wrote itself (or so it felt at the time).

Happiness, found was inspired by two scenes of the movie as I watched it recently. The scene of the first proposal at Hunsford, and the second at Longbourn both make me to understand the passion and the tenderness of this couple. You just know that when they finally got to be alone, it would be sweet. I tried to convey it in a way that was intimate, yet not explicit, and I feel, from the reviews, that I succeeded.

All in all, I like to write what I like to read. And I try to never send anything out without spellchecking it first or making sure it makes sense grammatically. I am not always successful in that vein, I will go back and read my stories and see all the mistakes, but so far have been content to leave them as they are, warts and all, because there seems to be a few people who like what I've written.