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Did you know that when you loosen the bolts to drop the transmission pan, you should leave the bolt over your head for last and then pry on the corner farthest away from your face? Unless your actual goal is to cause your husband to choke with laughter while pointing at your tranny fluid covered face and body, the above procedure should be followed. If you can’t learn from the actual experience (as I did when I spent several hours trying to get old tranny fluid out of my hair) then you will need to learn from those who have the appropriate experience.

This is about figuring out how something works so you don’t sound like a complete idiot when someone reads your book. I know that all my friends think I’m brilliant (otherwise they aren’t my friends) but the simple truth is that I’m often lacking in the necessary knowledge to write about certain technical things. I’ve always been okay with admitting when I don’t know something, and over the years, I’ve learned to ask those questions sooner rather than later.

“So, finger tight is not an extra quarter turn with a 3/8” ratchet?” The failure to ask that particular question resulted in my splitting the pan gasket and having to remove the transmission pan a second time. Mr. Scott was not as amused by this failure to ask the right question. Although by then, I knew the secret of which corner of the pan to drop.

The point of this is that you have to know your limitations about the subject. I’m a firm believer in asking for help when I need it. I can “wing it” on certain things, but I can’t and won’t do that when it comes to the technical material. I can’t ask the reader to suspend their belief on everything. Ninety percent of what I write about can and has happened to someone, somewhere. I try to weave the story around certain realities so that the reader is comfortable coming along for the ride. But if you screw up basic stuff, then you’ll cause the reader to step out of your world and say bad things. We’ve all had this happen when reading.

Several years ago, I had a terrible experience with a novel in which the heroine was some bada**, super-dooper FBI agent. About half way through the book, the heroine drew her weapon, previously described as a nine-millimeter semi-automatic, cocked it, and fired two rounds, dropping the villain in his tracks. She did not share with us where the rounds hit the villain. Being a good agent, she immediately reloaded her weapon by taking two bullets from her purse (I guess they were just laying around in the bottom with her lipstick), placed them in the cylinder, and gave the cylinder a spin before closing it and putting her weapon in her holster. Then she went over to make sure the villain was actually dead.

WHAT??? Are you kidding me? (If you don’t know why this is wrong – email me and I’ll explain it.) I ranted to everyone who would listen for about two days on this one. I was so torqued, that I took the time to write a review, send a letter to the author, the editor, and the publisher telling them why I firmly believed they were idiots. I couldn’t even finish the book, which up to that point hadn’t been all that bad.

But, this particular author had provided a valuable service to me and in the long run, my $7.99 for that paperback was well spent. “If you can’t be a good example for everyone, than you’ll just have to serve as a horrible warning.”

I started work on my current book and hit a spot where I didn’t have a working knowledge of something and the all-knowing, all-powerful Internet wasn’t going to fill the void. Well, it would have, but I don’t need Homeland Security showing up because I’m trying to do research on bomb making. Anyway, I wrote past it for the moment simply by writing, “She says something intelligent here about the IED/Bomb. Paragraph break – add bomb detail crap here,” paragraph break, and went on with the story. I then put out a request to my friends asking for help and knowledge concerning IEDs and mortars, and my friends responded. Prior to completing this book, I will ask some of my friends in law enforcement to get me in touch with someone on a bomb squad (I have interesting friends), and I will send them the chapter and ask them if I got it right. My goal is not to tell someone how to build a bomb (you can learn this for yourself on the Internet) but to make sure the things my characters are discussing, as well as the effects of the bomb and blast, are things that they would and could know and are as correct as I can get them.

It’s all about asking someone who has the knowledge to share it. Most of your friends will.

I am very excited and proud to announce my latest release Stuck In Korea Time.

Air Force First Sergeant Brenda Livingstone may have returned from her assignment in South Korea, but that doesn’t mean she has been able to leave her tour behind. It’s been five years, but the memories of one violent weekend still represent the best and worst of her life – a time when love and honor faced off against fear, pain, and loss.

Editor: Marcia Lindley. Cover Design: Liquid Reality Studios

Stuck In Korea Time is now available on Amazon – the large button on the left will take you there. Also available from Barnes and Noble for the Nook. Thanks so much to all the folks that help me make this happen. Please share the link with your friends and family.

I work alone… but I don’t. The writing is definitely done alone, but I like to talk over my ideas and discuss possibilities and more importantly – problems. Several of my friends and beta readers are involved in this process. The discussion often begins with my friend Jennifer. I’ll tell her what I’m working on, and ask her what she thinks about something or someone. The resulting discussion usually helps me sort out the who or what issue that I’m working on. In one book, I was stuck with how the lead character would decompress at the end of the day. While I like to drink heavily and break things to relieve my stress, that wouldn’t be something this character would do. We talked for a little while about the character’s job and the role of the character in the book and Jen said, “She’d get on her elliptical with her iPod and tune out her day.” It’s a tiny part of the book, but a huge key to this character. With that comment, I saw the character as a whole person for the first time.

Arwen and I took a road trip two years ago and I brought my notebook along. I was trying to figure out why someone would put out a contract on my lead character. We spent at least an hour tossing ideas back and forth. I knew what I wanted as soon as I heard her say, “…a son in prison.” We discussed many other things, but in the end, I went back to that one comment and focused on it. As soon as I typed the words, “Joe’s testimony had been key in sending him to prison,” the entire backstory played out in my head. All I had to do was write it down.

My friend Dave is often the catalyst for some interesting turns in a story. Dave was in the Marine Corps for some years and he always has a unique take on behavior. Many of his smart a** comments in our discussions become the basis for things in my books. In a recent email, he was telling me about his platoon sergeant, who was really a corporal – I’ve bleeped his language.

“He was a wiry, black guy who also happened to be a Recon Marine (go figure, right?) Had his Marine Corps jump wings and scuba bubble and everything. F***er loved to P.T. and ran our 18-year old d***s into the dirt. Also taught us a lot of cool, useful s***. Lots of good tactical grunt s***. (Of course, he also told us to check for d**** on the hooks if we ever got to the P.I., how to check to see if our San Miguel was ‘green’, that Trobicin was your best friend, and which fat broads to stay away from at the Del Mar E-club). He was also a HUGE fan of Monty Python, The Black Adder, Rudyard Kippling, Warren Zevon and skinny, tall, slightly-dikey, white girls. We all thought he was pretty cool.”

Just in case you’re confused – he thinks this corporal walked on water. So what did I get from that email? I have a clear picture of one of my side characters and an immediate idea for a scene in my book about two very different generations of Marines and the connection that music provides. Sometimes, when I’m getting ready to write a specific passage in which one of my Marines is talking, I’ll call Dave and talk to him for a few minutes. He has a very military cadence to his speech. It’s like watching westerns when you’re going to write a conversation involving a Texan. All you’re looking for is the rhythm.

And then, there’s my friend Pat. He’s my devil’s advocate. I tell him what I’m doing, he makes fun of me, and then he picks apart my idea. He asks really tough questions and neither of us is offended when the other one calls us an idiot. It’s not a book until we disagree on at least two things and sort out the details. He once prefaced his written comments with, “Okay, take a breath, read my comments, walk away and scream – then call me and we’ll talk.” I didn’t scream, but we had a “lively” discussion. Pat also firmly believes that I like Marines way too much to have ever worked with them, and I remind him that I’ve known him for over twenty years and still like him.

The point of all this is that I like to toss the ideas around with my team. Some things sound really good in my head, but not so great when I say them aloud. Sometimes, my friends will say something that sends me down another path from where I was going when we discuss the idea of what could happen versus what should happen. These conversations are often question and answer periods about the character or the location in which I have to defend and justify my character’s behavior and reasoning.

Most often, the conversations tell me what I don’t want to do. I’m able to clarify my characters and plots by saying, “No. He wouldn’t do that. He’s the type of man who would do this.” Because sometimes, knowing what is not happening is more important than knowing what is happening. Did that make sense? Well, it did in my head. See why I need a team.

There are characters who flash through my head like wild bikers. They zip in and out, cutting off other characters, and laughing with impunity at their own devil may care behavior. They have no regard for the plot or the timing. But the roar of their Harley combined with the flash of their grins makes them irresistible to me, and I try to grab onto their stories and jot them down before they disappear. I don’t always know how they will fit in the story arc, but I never ignore them when they show up.

Other characters peek out from behind something, only letting me catch only glimpses of their true selves. They aren’t ready to venture into the spotlight or stand up and announce themselves at the weekly support group meeting. “Hello, my name is Ichabod. And I’m a goofy character in Lynne’s imaginary world.” They are developing into real people, but they aren’t there yet.

Most of my characters simply wander into my head and pull up a chair to the table. I know who they are the minute they walk in, and I know which story they fit in. They show up fully developed with a rucksack full of back-stories and attitude. The primary role players are usually in place as soon as the first ideas flash through my head. I often don’t know their names, but I know them.

Casting a book must be similar to casting a movie. I find myself muttering things aloud as I work out a character, “He’s like Peter Lorre without the bug eyes.” Or, “He needs a sidekick. Like Tom Arnold to Arnold Schwarzenegger in True Lies.”

Many of the characters in my head are like actors who audition for roles in my books. Am I looking for short or tall, thin or fat, funny or morose? Some of them can do it all, but a few are those character actors that appear in show after show. The ones you can’t name, but you know their face. “You know. That guy. He’s in everything for God’s sake! What the hell is his name?”

In the concept for the new book, my first image was of a young military woman who’d worked her butt off to get a certain job in a certain place. I saw a single scene in my head between this woman and an unpleasant individual and I knew I’d write this book.

From the moment I had the idea, I saw her in my head. I could describe her, I understood her, I knew her. But for over two weeks, she didn’t tell me her name. I simply knew her as Sergeant. Only when I sat down and wrote the opening paragraphs did she tell me her name. USMC Sergeant C.J. MacLean, hometown Niles, Ohio. I still don’t know if the C.J. stands for anything or not – no one has asked her and she hasn’t volunteered the information to me. Knowing who she is as a person doesn’t mean that she’s revealed all her secrets yet. That’s what makes this so fun – I don’t know where C.J. will lead me yet. But I keep hearing an explosion in the back of my head so something bad is going to happen to somebody.

Well, I’m seven days in and I feel pretty good about the opening. The first words are down and I am ready for some real trouble to start. Something will be going boom soon. Sadly, the opening and some ideas are all I have right now. I can feel the story building, and I think I know where I’m going, but I’m not convinced that I have all the details right.

Sometimes when I have a story idea, the whole thing unfolds before me. It’s a bit like shaking out a tablecloth. When you look at a stack of tablecloths in the linen cabinet, you only see a tiny slice of the cloth. Yellow. Yes, that’s the color I want today. But when you pull it from the cabinet, you see a larger segment of the cloth and realize that it’s yellow with some embroidery along the edges. It’s suddenly so much more than just a rectangle of yellow cloth. Then, when you shake the cloth open to spread on the table, you find the center is full of beautifully detailed stitching. Flowers and birds create an intricate pattern across the table. Each flower and each bird is its own character in the larger scene.

When I sat down to write Protecting Parker, I saw the whole tablecloth at once. I may not have seen all the embroidery in detail, but I saw the entire thing. As I worked and reworked the story, the details became clear and I was able to share them. When I started A Shared Fear, I saw maybe half of the cloth and hoped that the rest would be just as rich when I spread the tablecloth. There was a lot more work involved in creating that book.

In this story, I have only seen the opening – the slice of yellow in the stack of tablecloths. My experience tells me there’s some great needlework on that cloth. Now if I can just get that darn cloth out from under all the other ones without tipping over the stack and getting distracted by all the other pretty colors…