Jessica Scott

Have you ever posted pictures of your children on Facebook? Did you know that once you post anything to Facebook, they own it and can use it in advertising if they wish?

Or how about this. Google yourself in the white pages. I was highly disturbed today to find that not only was my name and phone number listed, but my exact physical address was also posted. For anyone who wishes to find me, my address was just a key stroke away.

Color me a little freaked out. In the age of cyberspace and especially for a public figure like an author (or in my case an aspiring one) the fact that anyone could Google me and come up with not only my address but my husband’s name and my phone number was incredibly disturbing.

While social networking is critical for the success of any author in this day and age, it also means that authors have to be selective about what information they do allow. NY Times Bestselling author Julia London has tweeted about received emails from prison inmates asking her to write their story. But what if that same content came by way of the regular mail?

It is all to easy to find someone these days. Be cautious about how much information you do choose to put on Facebook. If you own a domain name, if you did not register the account privately, your address and contact information is easily available in the WhoIs database.

I’m not writing this to scare you or to urge you to get offline. Doing so would damage potential future sales. In the online social networked world, readers expect to connect with their favorite authors. But be cautious. The internet is full of people pretending to be someone they are not.

Recommendations: when you register your domain name, register it privately. GoDaddy charges extra for this privilege but I have done so with every domain name I’ve bought. Google yourself in the white pages and then sign in to edit your publicly available settings. You can remove the listing easily enough so that only your name and city are available.

Once you do that, look at who you have for friends on Facebook and MySpace. Do you know them? All of them? If not, do you really want to share baby pictures with random strangers? Check out your followers on Twitter. It seems like every week there is a new hacking attempt at violating your account. Only click on links you know, which is often difficult because of URL shortening services that are so commonly used.

From snopes.com “Facebook users can prevent their profile photos from appearing in association with social ads by selecting the following options:
Settings –> Privacy –> Facebook Ads (tab) –> Appearance in Facebook ads (pull-down menu) –> Set to “No one”"

The online world is full of dark corners most of us cannot imagine. It doesn’t take much for those corners to extend into our own social networks. Use caution with the information you put online and if you’re disconcerted, take action to hide yourself. In today’s day and age, it’s still incredibly easy to find information on people but you can make it just a tad more difficult by practicing some common sense.

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Anyone who knows me will tell you I am high strung. I tend to jump before hearing the whole story, which has lead to some tasty dishes of crow over the years. But I’m pretty intense, especially when I’ve got something I believe passionately about is at stake.

Last year in Iraq, I enjoyed the busy times. But there were too often times when I would lie awake with this tight little knot around my heart. It felt like something was squeezing. I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t sad. I just felt my heart being squeezed. I’ve since learned to call it my anxiety knot. Sometimes its there, sometimes its not. But when it is there and its unrelenting, I start looking for ways to cope with it.

In Iraq, I could turn to Ambien to help with my insomnia. My kids weren’t there. Plus, everyone I knew had some or if they didn’t, they were on their way to get some. It seemed like we all had problems sleeping at some point or another. And I’ll be honest, the drag of the Ambien, pulling you down into the darkness of uninterrupted sleep is a pretty damn good feeling.

Until I started waking up more tired than I was when I’d gone to sleep. Clue number one that I needed to ease back. When I couldn’t remember what I’d tweeted about. Clue number 2 that I needed to back off.
The whole time I was enjoying the use of my little chemical buddy, I knew that when I came home, there was no more Ambien for me. Remember my anxiety knot? Yeah, well I live in chronic fear that something is going to happen to my kids. I’m paranoid that if I take an Ambien, I won’t hear my kids at night.

That’s probably more than you wanted to know. I’m not sure why I’m sharing, other than to be completely honest with what I’m going through. It’s not all easy. There are a lot of good days but there’s a lot of emotion that I don’t think I’ve properly dealt with. I’m working through it but I’m also determined to work through it without pills. I don’t want my girls to grow up seeing mommy pop a bunch of pills or getting drunk to cope with stress.

Yeah, stopped drinking, too, primarily because I wanted to do so too much. The urges are there but I’m coping with them. And it’s hard because I work so diligently at keeping it all together. My kids are adjusting well. I’m dealing well. I damn sure wouldn’t want to go back to Iraq any time soon.

But I keep driving on, trying to remember that each day is a gift I get to spend with my family.

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I’ve been researching. Ever since PBS offered me the opportunity to be part of the POV blog Regarding War, I’ve been researching. Women’s roles in the military. Statistics. Facts and media reports.

What I find is astonishingly upsetting. There’s allegedly an 8% prosecution rate of rapes in the military compared to a 40% rate in civilian cases. 1 in 3 military women are alledgely victims of sexual abuse or harassment but are too embarrassed/ashamed/afraid to speak up. There was an increase in 2008 of 165 rapes reported in Iraq compared to 131 in 2007.

So as I research, I wonder.

What if I’m wrong? What if the military that I serve in really is misogynistic and anti woman and hiding a multitude of sins that I don’t see because of my rank or simply because it hasn’t happened to me? What if commanders are incompetent and leaders are failures all around me and women really are victims in an organization they wanted to serve in and be thought of as equals?

I don’t believe this but the research I’m finding disagrees with my experience. I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience and I know that rapes and assaults occur in the military and I also know that there is significant doubt facing women who come forward, especially if alcohol is involved. But is it ‘rampant’ as one congresswoman says? Is it prevalent so much that nearly every woman interviewed for books on Iraq and Afghanistan say they’ve been harassed, assaulted and marginalized as a result.

I find the media reports stunning and shocking and all the more so because it does not reflect what I’ve seen. And I’ve been in a diverse set of units. I’ve been in a Patrior Battalion. I’ve served at a Division headquarters and a test directorate. I’ve served in signal battalions and in a brigade combat team. Short of being assigned to a combat arms battalion, I’ve run the gauntlet of assignments and I just don’t see it. I’ve served as an equal opportunity representative, where I saw first hand the kind of complaints that come through the EO channels, complaining of bias based on rage, gender, or religion.

And still, I don’t see the military that is reflected in the media. But still, the seed of doubt has been planted. So as I go through this journey of writing for PBS, I’m growing and learning, not only as a woman but as a soldier as well. I can at least see the difference between what the media reports and what happens on the ground but I’m seeing things in a different light.

I have to say, I did not expect blogging for PBS to change my point of view. To an extent it hasn’t but at the same time, it has. Because I wonder now.

What if I’m wrong?

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I’m not sure why I stopped reading sci-fi. As a teen, I devoured anything that had a spaceship on the cover, even some stuff that was pretty adult for a teenager. When I was a kid, I read the Star of The Guardians series by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman. I loved this series but I loved the characters of Derek Sagan and Maigrey Morianna more.

Theirs was deep love there but that love had been twisted by betrayal and had turned into deep hatred and mistrust. The space opera involved putting the lost king back on the throne. There was betrayal, a space pirate and a loyal sidekick.

But Sagan and Maigrey’s story was the one that enthralled me. See, they’d once been inseparable but Sagan had a vision that he would kill Maigrey. When the book opens, its pretty easy to see how he’d be able to kill her. They hate each other but are unable to end the other.

The vision is fulfilled in the third book of the series but not for the reasons you might think. Maigrey has been poisoned and with all her powers, will wreak destruction on the galaxy and so begs Derek to kill her.
Derek does not die until the end of the fourth book and it closes with them standing at the gates of hell, facing a journey, together, at least, “through the darkness two must travel together toward the light.”

As a reader, I never understood why that book was never written. I want to see more of Maigrey and Sagan, even if their journey takes them through hell. But as an author, I understand why. The journey through hell would be simply a journey through hell. Maigrey and Sagan have already been reuinited, so there would be no major interpersonal conflict to carry the story.

But I wanted to see that book written because I adored those characters. Maigrey was incredibly strong and Sagan was deeply tortured. They were great and memorable and I wanted more.

So tell me. What book did you never get to read because it was never written?

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We’re up and running over at PBS POV Regarding War: Women and War and I’ve got to say, NOW I am a nervous wreck.

I’m in some pretty esteemed company. Anu Bhagwati, Helen Benedict and Erin Solaro have defined the field when it comes to discussions on women in the military. I simply wrote a blog from Iraq. It’s an honor to be included in this discussion and I only hope I bring something new to the conversation.

I’m shaking as I write this because this is real and this is serious and I’m all of a sudden filled with doubt as to what I can really add to the conversation because my experiences are so dramatically different from what the media portrays.

So I’m still shaking. I think I will be for the rest of the day. But this is it.

Holy. Crap.

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I’m guest blogging on 18 Feb over at MamaWriters. Please drop in!

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So I was on my way home from Iraq and I figured I’d go ahead and throw the manuscript into a contest. I mean, the book had gotten me an agent and it was in waaay worse shape then than it is now. What the hell, it couldn’t hurt, right?

Wrong.

Well, I just got those contest entries back today and, well, I got hammered. Badly. Like beaten soundly around the head neck and shoulders with a blunt object beaten. Which, of course, has me wondering what the hell is going on.

So, between the contest comments and the agent comments, I’ve got a problem, right?

You betcha.

Now what?

Well, I could sit in a corner and lick my wounds, whining about how everyone is being mean to me and it’s really a gem if only the right person would pick it up but I won’t. I’m also not inclined to dig into this manuscript right now, either. But I’m going to. I’m letting all these comments swirl around my brain and fester. I’ve got ideas of things I can change. Plot points, characters.

Basically, I’ve got my work cut out for me if I ever want to see this book in print.

I’ll be honest. I’m tired of the damn thing. I’ve been working on it for two years and I can’t tell you how many times I rewrote the thing in Iraq. So, the fatigue is an issue for me. I’m letting it sit for a while so that when I do finally dig back into it, I’ll be able to do so with a fresh perspective.

How do you take comments from contests? Do you send in to contests at all? Why or why not?

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Something has happened to me and I’m not sure what. It might be that the rejection list is growing. It might be that I wrote a LOT in Iraq and was hoping to have something to show for it, other than rejections (and when I say that, I’m strictly referring to the fiction side of the house. The nonfiction seems to coming along nicely, if accidently:).

I finally finished my revisions on my first paranormal Resurrection and fired it off to my beloved critique partner, Julie, who is squeezing in time to hack it via hard copy.

I wanted to start on the next book. I still need to finish Monster, which is about 10 – 15K from the end. And once more, I find myself, well, stuck. I love the idea behind Monster. I think it might be the first book that I’ve written that doesn’t require a complete do over to get a workable plot. And yet, this is probably the hardest book I’ve ever written. It comes in fits and starts. I jam on it for a few days, then take a month off but the story remains, nagging at the edge of my brain.

So I’m getting there. But then what? I’ve got other books to revise but I’m seriously considering moving beyond everything I wrote in Iraq and starting something new.

But nothing’s coming. I keep getting these great ideas but they’re all just kind of bouncing around with no spark demanding they hit the page. I’m sure I could write them, if I, oh I don’t know, had a contract or something. Or maybe an agent. Yeah, someone to say, this will work, write this.

Cause I’ve written and I’ve written and I’ve written but I don’t have a direction right now. I’m lacking purpose because you see, I’d had a purpose. Then I received a Facebook note that summed up a LOT for me: I’ve no interest to read about war, romance or otherwise.

What if there aren’t a lot of books out there like mine because, well, no one wants to read them? That’s sobering, huh? Kind of takes the wind out of your sales.

But I’m okay with that even. I’m digging into my religion degree and writing my paranormal and I LOVE being able to justify reading Jewish legends and lore as research for a book. But the new book won’t start off. Actually, it started, but fear, that rat bastard is stopping me.

See, I have a problem with plotting. I don’t do it. Funny, when I rewrite a book, it comes together into a decent plot (at least that’s what I keep telling myself), but that first draft? Total shit. In that I don’t even bother sending them out to my critique partner because, well, she’s too busy to waste time reading my first draft shit.

But as I stand on the blank pages of the Dreaded New Novel, I’m afraid. I want to reach a point where I don’t have to write the whole book over. And what if I write this book, then rewrite it and then it still doesn’t sell? On the other hand, maybe that’s just my process. Maybe I need to rewrite the whole book so I can find what the story is really about and I need to take a 100,000 word detour to figure it out. Sure makes writing a synopsis sound a little better, huh?

So I’m not sure what’s going to happen. I’m researching book 2. I’m pretty sure I’ve got my main plot points (in that I know the last sentence, if that counts). And I know what happened between the characters before the book started (at least there’s a rough idea of it fleshed out in my scrivener window). So I’m not sure where this is going but I do know that I need to figure out a way to deal with the Fear of the Blank Page.

I’ll muddle through, I always do. But fearing the blank page? Yeah, not used to that.

And since I’m sharing, here’s the last sentence of this book:

Across the ocean, in a dark house at the edge of a farm, a little boy sneezed.
And Death smiled.

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So there are rules about Facebook. Friending someone on Facebook is not the same as following someone on Twitter. It’s completely appropriate for you to look at other people’s follow lists and follow those people who you deem interesting on Twitter.

Facebook, however, is another matter. Because people are on Facebook to truly connect with friends and family, writers and other professionals out there (movie stars, etc) are often stuck between deciding to friend everyone or only friend those they know. If you’re really popular, you can start a Fan page, which has no limits and is a more public place for your persona.

The first thing you have to do is decide is your Facebook page public or private. You might think you don’t have to decide this but you do. Because the minute you dip outside private page (ie close, known friends and family) those baby pictures you’ve got up there are available for the world to see. I deliberately don’t post pictures of my children on Facebook or my website. I’ll talk about them all day long, but I’ve seen one too many episodes of To Catch A Predator to be comfortable putting my kids out there for the world to see. Because my Facebook page is public. I use it to connect with other readers and other writers. There are a handful of people on there that I actually know and I’m okay with that. I’m using it as part of my platform, not as a way to keep in touch with friends and family. I prefer email and in that, I believe I am soo last decade (sorry, bad joke).

But you have to decide and when you make that decision you also have to consider just what you are putting out there. What is your message? What is your audience? And do you really want to talk about that gastrointestinal episode you had in Iraq last week, unless that’s part of your message (yes, I had dysentery every other week in Iraq and I just had to share because that was part of my and most every other soldiers’s experience in Iraq that most folks don’t think about).

But for writers looking to connect with their readers, Facebook is a must. And – and this might get me in trouble – I see no problem with writers looking to connect with other authors and readers – connecting via other people’s friends lists.

To a point.

As you go through and find people to friend, use the rule of mutual friends. If you have more than 10 friends in common, odds are this person will friend you back. However, if you’re on a NY Times Bestselling author’s friend page and you see that you have 1 friend in common, odds are, that person is a real friend and not a facebook friend. So don’t cross that line and friend them. If they ask who you are, explain yourself politely and leave it at that. And if they get nasty, its best not to respond. Nastiness will be a part of your life as a writer, be it a negative review or a rude ‘fanmail’ letter. Say it with me now, “no matter how fun, do not respond.”

Figuring out your Facebook presence is important for a writer. If you do it deliberately, you’ll be able to work on consolidating your platform and building your public presence, all with the goal of connecting with potential readers.

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So a week ago I recieved an invitation to participate in PBS POV Regarding War blog. I started shaking, I was so excited. I mean, it’s a huge deal. This is PBS. So yeah, I’m still a little awestruck.

My first thought was oh, shit, now I HAVE to make sure my unit knows about this. Little did I know everything that was going to belong to this process. First stop was my company commander. I’d sent him the two pieces I’d submitted to the NY Times, but now that this was going to be an ongoing project instead of random submissions, I really needed to make sure my unit knew I was playing the public swimming pool. Second stop was to the battalion commander. He thought it was a great idea and I was pleasantly surprised to discover we actually had some of the same thoughts on various topics, such as gays in the military and women in combat.

Stop number 3 (and remember all of this is taking place at 1600 on a Tuesday) was to my brigade PAO. Who wasn’t there. On my way out of the office, I ran into the deputy brigade commander, who thought I looked a little more frazzled than usual. I explained what was going on and he pointed me to the legal office.

Because apparently, not only do I need to have PAO review stuff, which I knew, I did not realize I was stepping into fuzzy ethics. See, apparently, there are rules about what soldiers can do to make money and with the small honorarium that PBS was going to pay (for those of you that don’t know, an honorarium is a small fee for participating in a project, a token, if you will) I’d stepped into the confusing landscape of the Joint Federal Ethics Regulation. Good times.

The ultimate decision was reached that yes, I could participate in the blog but would have to forego the honorarium. The good folks at PBS had no issues with that clause at all. Also, I was told I had to ensure that while we could tell folks I was in the army, I could not use any pictures of me in uniform, nor could I use my title. Basically, there could be nothing to imply that my words represented offical policy.

And with that, we’re off. I’ve submitted my intro and my 2nd post to PAO for approval and am working on the 3rd post. I’m excited to be part of this project because we’ll be discussing women at war, which is something that, even though I might not have been out running the streets, I’ve got a pretty strong recent experience with.

So I’m thrilled and nervous as hell because my brigade commander is going to be reading everything I submit, which is terrifying. He’s a little intense, to say the least.

And we’re off. Wish me luck as the story unfolds!

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I was sitting in mass today and Father Richard started talking about living in a dark fog. Sometimes, things just keep you down and you can’t see your way through them.
Kind of like how life has been for the last two months. Well, almost two months. I don’t count the two weeks I spent in Texas without the kids, so I haven’t been a mom again for sixty complete days.

Here’s the thing. I’ve been trying, really trying, just to keep my head above water. And its not like I’ve got a ton of stress going on in my life but it’s the stupid things that are bothering me. I hate traffic. I loathe it. It is the ultimate time suck and I have to do fight Fort Hood traffic every single day, because unless you’re up at 8 am, even going to the store involves crowds and lines of cars and bodies all jockeying for a place in the checkout line.

I’ll do anything to avoid going to the store, but especially when it’s busy. Thankfully, my hubby is cool with that, because well, if I’m not in the store, I’m not shopping. Gone are the days when I’d run to Target for a gallon of milk. Nope. I’m using a list and at the beginning of the week, I’m buying everything I need for the week, to include 3 gallons of milk.

I get this tight knot around my chest when I get in crowded places. I start getting frustrated and rude and I don’t like feeling like that. I won’t go to lunch on Ft Hood b/c of the lines and lines of cars 2 miles long to get off post. And no, there is no unused gate. All orifices leading to and from Ft Hood suck.

It’s something so trivial and so stupid and yet, its real to me. I simply won’t do it and will do anything to avoid it.

But its not just traffic. I’m also tired. I love having my kids around. I’m incredible glad to be home and be able to take my kid to school and be involved with her education. I love her teacher and she’s adjusted well to being back in Texas, away from the family up in Maine.

My writing is struggling, as is my ability to think clearly. I’m working my ass off to finish my WIP Monster but, as remains the case with this book, inspiration comes in fits and starts with it. So I’m not forcing it, I’m working on it as it comes. I’ve discovered that the book I sent out to agents has a massive pacing problem, but fear and the worry that I’m going to once more paint myself as an amateur has kept me from contacting them and pulling the project back. I still have hope that someone will take me on and work with me, but if this book isn’t the one to do that, I’m okay with that.

I’m frustrated because I had time in Iraq. I had time to write, I had time to read, I had time to work out. Here, there simply isn’t enough time. I have to get up at 5 every day for workout time. And when my kids are awake, its all mommy all the time. By the time they’re in bed, I’m exhausted. I might be awake for an hour after they’re in bed but by 9, 9:30 at the latest, I’m toast. How the hell was I working 18 hours days in Iraq like it was nothing? I don’t know, but I sure as hell have found the cure for insomnia.

So I’m dealing with a lot and trying to keep up a positive outlook on things. I’ve had days where I would have gotten out of the army if another opportunity presented itself, but I’m a realist and I enjoy being able to go to the doctor when my kid breaks her arm. I want to be published so badly I can taste it but it seems to remain just out of reach. If this book isn’t the one to do that, then all I can do is write the next book.

But at the end of it all, if I’m frustrated and tired and remain unpublished, all of these things don’t matter. What matters is that I’m home. For the time being, I get to be a mom and all these other things. I don’t have to go to the store. I don’t have to get angry when I’m in a store. Fr Richard spoke today of perseverance. Stick with it. You’re going through things now that you might not understand the purpose behind.

So I’ll persevere, even when I feel like crawling into bed and pulling the covers over my head. I’ll keep writing and I’ll keep making things normal for my kids and I’ll keep working on achieving that panacea of all working mom’s: balance. Wish me luck!

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As much as I complained on Twitter about it, I actually had a good time at the ball (if by good time you mean your feet hurt and you can’t breathe b/c the last time you wore your Blues you hadn’t had 2 kids but I digress). These things are tradition. They’re part of the lineage and history of what we do. The pants on the blues are lighter color than the jackets to symbolize our soldiers from the civil war, whose pants were bleached by the sun.

If they’re going to be done, they should be done right. When I tweeted about the spouses at our table looking beautiful, I wasn’t kidding. They were all dressed in very classy gowns and carried themselves in the finest tradition of military wives.

Other spouses, however did not look the part and those were some of the ones you read about. But here’s the thing: those folks might not have known better. Our soldiers should know better. Our soldiers should know that if you are in that unit, you come in uniform and at a formal, that uniform, ladies, is the skirt. Like it or not, at a formal event, you don’t get the option of wearing pants. And gentlemen, please refrain from sliding your hand up your wife’s thigh at the table. Not cool. Funny. But not really cool.

But over all, it was a good time. I shared a lot of laughs and we remembered some of the fun we had in Iraq, laughing at our mistakes or at others. It was a night of comraderie and laughs.

There are some units that you can’t wait to leave. There are others that you will never forget. My current unit is one that I will never forget, and that I will laugh over and remember for the rest of my life. I have a fantastic commander and first sergeant who are growing into a superb command team. The NCOs I work with are truly great and have potential to grow into the next generation of fantastic senior NCOs.

I will miss these folks when I move on to my next assignment. It’s a pretty special thing.

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I love books. I love good books even more. If an author has made me care about a character to the point that I can do nothing more until I see what happens next, bravo. But when authors cheat? When they build me up for expectations and then short cut through the problems that have been carefully laid out for almost 500 pages?

Yeah, I’m irritated. I expect an emotional payoff that is comparable to what the author led me to believe. I read a book last year in Iraq that left me so betrayed, I vowed never to read that author again. Turned out, there was a sequel, but even then, the author cheated in that book. Some of the issues that were laid out and were important to the over all story development were completely ignored or swept aside in the second book, leaving me as a reader with more questions than answers.

There isn’t another book after that one, so the questions remain. And so does my irritation. I just finished a book yesterday that has me irritated. It took a looong time for the story to get going (just a hint, if you’re writing romance, it should not take until page 120 to get the hero and the heroine together. I’m just saying. Urban Fantasy, no problem, take your time. Romance? Not so much). Anyway…The book took a long time to get me into the story. I couldn’t figure out who the main characters were or why they were important and I had a hard time giving a damn about wide variety of people I was introduced to in the first 100 pages. But I pressed on b/c this author is huge and, well, I wanted to give her a chance.

I probably won’t do it again. I’ve now read 3 of her books but have only finished 2. I just can’t care about so many characters. The rule for me is, write the book that features this books characters. I’m all for a good secondary romance or a secondary plot, but it has to be integral to the main one. Obvious sequel bait is irritating. And I LOVED the premise of this book but really? It just completely missed the mark for me.

So authors, don’t cheat. But also, don’t listen to your readers. Write the book that needs to be written and focus on the characters. Make me care. Make me feel their pain, their joy. Don’t bury them in pages of preparation, then leave it flat at the end.

What kind of author cheating drives you nuts?

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So things have been a little insane around my house lately. My kids are starting to settle in with being home and more importantly, being comfortable being home. Part of that comfort is trusting us to be there when they wake up in the morning.

When my hubby and I left, both for R&R and for the original deployment, we delayed talking about leaving until it was time to go. It was important to us because we wanted to enjoy our time together. But inevitably, it came time to tell the kids we were going to be gone. We never said we have to go to work. We said we had to go away for a while and we told them we were not going to be there in the morning. It sucked every night while my kids cried, telling me they did not want me to go.

They still don’t understand that work is every day and that we’ll be home in the evening. Every time there is a break in our new routine, they get upset. And I’m talking sitting on my lap with red faces, tears streaking down their faces, crying ‘Mommy, I don’t want you to go.’
It’s not easy to turn it off and deal with it rationally. It’s hard, because I know they’re hurting. I know there is an ache inside them that they don’t have the words to explain and I know that I am responsible for the insecurity in their lives.

It’s hard to find the words to comfort them because they don’t understand but I have to keep trying. I have to find a way to tell them that mommy isn’t leaving again, any time soon and convince them that it is true. I’ve wrecked their trust, even though it was unintentional and it’s going to take time to rebuild that.

It’s hard and it hurts but it is getting better. Things are starting to slip into routine. My oldest is starting to enjoy school again. My youngest is still not a fan of the daycare but she’s no longer screaming mommy don’t leave me when I drop her off.

They’re doing okay and with a lot of prayer and plenty of vitamin b, I’m doing okay, too. But that, my friends, is another post.

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Please join me in welcoming Laura Kinsale to my blog. She’s the author of 12 novels and a career that has spanned more than twenty years. What’s truly spectacular about her career is the impression she’s made on both the romance industry and the writers who are part of it. Nearly every romance author will name at least one Kinsale book as having a profound impact on them.

Today, Laura joins us celebrating her return to romance after a five year break between Shadowheart and Lessons in French. Lessons in French is a fantastic story and though she specifically mentions that it’s a lighter fare than usual, her characters are no less intense or lovable. What makes Laura’s books so memorable are her strengths in characterization and Callie and Trev are notable additions to an already memorable cast.

While Lessons in French was lighter in it’s tone, I found myself just as engaged with characters as much as Jervaulx and Maddie in Flower From the Storm. One reader from Austin’s RWA (where your books are used as examples in many classes): “I’ve always been amazed by her characters. She takes these wounded or deeply flawed people and makes them so sympathetic you just ache for them. They are so memorable.” So how do you create such memorable characters?

I’ll admit that my characters are very real to me while I’m writing them. This may make me a crazy lady, but I seem to be able to put myself into their heads with ease. I don’t have conversations with them, which is a technique some authors use–I just sort of slide into their point of view in my mind as I’m writing each scene. If I can’t do this, things aren’t going well.

Since I spend so much time in their heads, they have to be interesting to me or I’d get bored pretty fast! So while writing I am thinking, as the character, what I’d do next, and at the same time observing it. I’m curious about them. I like them. But I don’t mind putting them through hell, either, just to see what they do and how it feels.

This is one reason I don’t start with the plot (and why my plots spin out of control.) I start with a character, or both characters, and a situation, and then I think about it all a lot, and talk about it with my small circle of trusted readers, and inch forward, discovering the characters along the way.

I also draw on books I’ve read, and my research. Sometimes it helps to fill out a character fact sheet–at least to get the basics, hair color, etc–and even those basics can suggest things about the person. For instance, Callie’s red hair and skin that easily turns pink in the wind fit with the strong emotions she keeps hidden inside. I do have a blank “character sheet” which has questions like “What is X most ashamed of?” and going back to that can help if I get stuck.

It is the most fun part of writing for me, learning about these imaginary people. If they are memorable to readers, that’s even better.

I don’t want to give away anything to spoil Lessons in French for your eager readers, but how did you come up with the idea of Hubert and the adventure he causes?

In stages. First, I always know I will have a particular animal in my books, so I was looking for an animal I hadn’t done yet. Second, I knew I was writing a “romp,” and if you’ve ever been to the stock barn at a rodeo or fair, you know that tame bulls are pretty amusing just standing there chewing their cud. (Sort of like some heroes, big dumb and cute). Given all that, I’m also highly aware of the destructive capacity of a large animal. I once stood by helplessly while a loose steer chased my horse across a pasture and over the fence. Then the steer went right over after him! If you are handling an animal like Hubert, taller than many women, nearly 12 feet long and weighing almost a ton, you’d better know what you’re doing.

I won’t say I put myself in Hubert’s point of view, but I can certainly hear the floorboards thudding and creaking perilously as Callie and Trev led him out of the kitchen.

In both The Shadow and The Star and Lessons in French, you bring up the French as less than savory to the English. While they are held up as somewhat deplorable to the people around them, as a reader, it only endears them to me further. What is it about the French that draws you into creating them and us into your characters?

I think the English have a love-hate relationship with the French. Maybe we Americans do too (there must be something about them!) In both Lessons in French and The Shadow and the Star I was drawing on the cliches about how romantic and “in love with love” the French are. In fact I’ve only been to France for a couple of brief visits, but I certainly thought the people were elegant and seemed to truly enjoy life. On a weekend evening in Avignon, whole families were eating out at sidewalk cafes, or just sipping wine while the kids ran about the square. We don’t do that much, do we? Just sit and enjoy the time passing.

In addition to your stunning characterization, many readers want to know about how you manage to convey emotions so precisely. I know when I read one of your books, I’m going to get characters that I deeply care about so that when things hurt them, I ache. The only times I’ve cried this year at the end of a book (other than Black Hawk Down), was at the end of Flowers from the Storm and Seize the Fire. How do you bring your readers so deeply into your stories?

That, I have to say, is almost an impossible question to answer. The best I can say is that I’m deeply into my stories as I’m writing. If I’m not, I don’t think the reader will be either. I think every aspect of a book, from the plot, to the word choice, to the characterization, to the pacing, work to bring the reader into the writer’s world. The reader has to care about what happens to the characters, and be curious enough to read on and find out. Making that happen is the essence of a writer’s job.

Laura, your fans are eager for any news so before we close, what are you working on next? What can we look for regarding your website’s future content and updates?

I’m writing! That’s all I can say at this point. I don’t plan to keep up a regular “blog” on my site, but in the Laura Makes Tea section, I’ll post some commentary and essays on things that pique my interest. I will keep readers more updated on what’s going on with my books than I was before I got the new website up. (The old site had simply become so out-dated that it seemed like a huge job every time I thought about dusting it off, so I quit doing it.) The best way to be sure of updates is to sign up for my extremely-rare-to-never-newsletters. Just type your email right into the box in the footer of any page, and click. Voila, you’re signed up!

Thank you for having me on your blog, Jessica. I hope Lessons in French gives readers a smile and takes them away from their troubles for a while.

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