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In the last three weeks, I have been asked to read four different things for friends. I’m generally happy to do so. Lord knows that plenty of people help me out, so I’m happy to do the same. However, after returning two books without getting past the opening chapters, I find that I need to establish some guidelines just to prevent any misunderstanding between myself and the person asking me to read. I truly do care about your writing and I want to be supportive, but I have to step back from certain subjects.

There are certain things that I simply WILL NOT read.

There have always been things that I chose not to read. Everyone has their likes and dislikes. I’ve tried reading most everything at one time or another, and learned what works for me and what doesn’t. Some of it is genre, some of it is story, and some of it is location.

Genre –
I’ll read almost any genre. I’m not nuts about pure romance or historical romance, but I don’t hate it and will do it for friends and family.
Supernatural – I really, really, really don’t like zombies – except the ones in Shaun of the Dead. Don’t send me your zombie book.
Religion – No snake handling and I’m creeped out by Voodoo and those guys that ripped out hearts in the second Indiana Jones movie. Not my thing. Don’t send me that stuff.

Location
I don’t really care to read stories set in:
Africa – I don’t mind North Africa. I actually like stuff set in Egypt, but I don’t like stuff set in South Africa or the Congo, and with the exception of Tarzan, I’m not into jungle settings.
South America – and definitely nothing in the Amazon. Giant freaking snakes and spiders are an absolute no-go. I couldn’t watch large chunks of the second Harry Potter movie with all those spiders.
Some areas of Europe & Russia: Sweden/Finland/Norway/Siberia – it’s all the freaking snow and unpronounceable names – don’t judge. Albania/Bulgaria – Maybe I read/saw too many 50s cold war stories and these two places always freaked me out.

Story:
I won’t read books where the primary story line is about:
Crimes Against Children – NO! NO! NO! Don’t send it to me – even if it’s free I won’t look.
Sex Crimes – I’m not reading an entire story (either fiction or non-fiction) about some poor person’s assault no matter how well written.
Human Trafficking – It horrifies me. I will not spend time with it.
Animal Abuse – I don’t need to read an entire story about taking down a dog fighting operation.
Reptiles – Don’t be trying to get me to read Anaconda.

Don’t misunderstand – all authors touch on these things. I don’t mind if the bad guy is known to do these things. I don’t mind if an author has a victim of one of these thing. I do mind if the entire damn book is about one of these themes. I don’t want to read pages of history about the crime and what the police are now doing to stop it. I don’t want to read a book (no matter how compelling the writing) where the entire story is about some hero who is saving some poor woman from being a sex slave or attends ten dog fights so he can save all the dogs. Nobility isn’t enough for me to read about these things. I DO NOT want to dwell on the above subjects. Please DO NOT ask me or be hurt by my refusal to play.

If anything, an author should be thrilled that I’m not critiquing or commenting on something I already have a negative attitude about. Trust me, I’m not that freaking objective.

Yes, I do understand that the true stories written by some of the survivors of the above events are excellent and even uplifting. There are at least ten books out there about the Ariel Castro case and I admire and respect the authors and the survivors who are telling their stories, but I can’t read about those horrors. Those things make my heart hurt.

If you’re reading this blog then you’ve probably read my books. I touch on a lot of these subjects in my stories, but I never dwell on them. I don’t write in depth about any one of these things, and I have never made them the sole focus of a book and never will.

I’m not offended when someone tells me they don’t care to read my vampire books. I get it. There are too many great novels filled with stories we do want to read to be willing to spend any time on subjects that are a turn off. Choose wisely and enjoy what you read. By the same token please don’t be offended when I chose not to read your book about one of the above.

Thanks for understanding and respecting my choices as I respect yours. Yes, I still want to be friends.

Question: What do you do when you get stuck in a story?

Answer: I run in circles screaming like my hair is on fire and then I drink heavily. My friend Jack Daniels comes over and after a few minutes, it doesn’t matter if I’m stuck. Jack comes up with some wild and crazy ideas, we laugh, and then I take a little nap. It doesn’t usually fix anything, but it passes the time until I can approach the problem rationally.

While most of the things I discuss with my friends don’t make it directly into the books, some things do. When working through the idea of The Embassy Guards, I was struggling with exactly what it was the terrorists wanted from my arms manufacturer. I had a conversation with my friend Dave Dingley who offered the suggestion of a tactical thermobaric weapon utilizing nano fuel. It was perfect. I had no idea what it was, but it sounded impressive as hell. That was a case where an answer raised a lot of questions and I had to go do some research.

In the same conversation via email, Dave then told me exactly why a terrorist organization would love to have that type of weapon. His explanation was anything but politically correct. With his permission, I let my character Boomer share some of Dave’s words. Boomer and Dave have the same attitude.

Talking the problems through often brings me not only good ideas but great insights into my characters. By the time I’d hit the fourth book in the Blood Link series, my friend and beta reader Jennifer Sasnett knew my characters as well as I did. She didn’t hesitate to tell me when I got off course with Essie in a scene. Jennifer reminded me that Essie was a lady from a different generation and was unlikely to curse unless furious or frightened and that the men would respect that and curse less in her presence. She also reminded me that Essie would carry a purse. My characters are rarely dressed in anything other than utilities, battle dress, or blue jeans. When would they carry a purse? As Jennifer pointed out, though, Essie isn’t one of my usual characters. It might seem small, but this discussion stays with me and reminds me to keep my character’s words and behavior true to the character.

In my current work in progress, I’ve been struggling with the bad guy who’s a member of a drug cartel. The story brushes on border security issues and the presence of cartels in the U.S., things that I’m only slightly familiar with. I live in southern Arizona; you’d think I’d know more about those things. But I’ve preferred not to. They’re ugly and frightening to me. Which makes them perfect for writing about. I like writing about the things that evoke a strong feeling. But, writing about them means I have to educate myself on the problem. I started with a great series of article by journalist Brady McCombs and then moved on to more in-depth information. I was amazed at some of the things I learned and at the deep divisions between the organizations who are responsible for border security and the people who live on the border.

Then I spent time talking to my friends. People who were born and raised here and came to the conclusion that no one can agree on exactly how the problems of border security and immigration should be fixed. I eventually found a way to address the issue in the book, but as you can see, my freaking process is not really solitary. Without input, I’m flying blind.

My niche in the world appears to be kick-ass women. But that doesn’t mean they’re all like Janice Bracken in Saving Emily. Janice is a giant leap in my evolution of heroines and is the extreme of my characters. She’s doing what she does by choice, while my previous two heroines were forced into their fights by circumstances. I realize that may sound odd because both Parker and Evie Davis were in the military, but neither held jobs that would necessarily put them in a combat situation.

In Protecting Parker, Parker Cotton found herself in a combat environment, but while she carried a weapon, she didn’t shoot. She placed herself in the role of medic and stretcher-bearer. She did all she could to take care of her people while the men who’d been trained to do the job, did it. She did the same thing when she came home. She was prepared to defend herself and the people she loved, but she recognized her limitations and accepted the help at hand from those more experienced. Evie Davis in A Shared Fear was a little more proactive, but she also wasn’t planning on going out to hunt down the bad guy. She deferred to the people with experience.

As I was writing these two books, I was also writing the Blood Link series about military vampires. Samantha Elliott, the lead character in the first book, appears to be anything but kick-ass. She’s a lousy shot, can’t throw a knife, and perceives herself to be a non-combatant. But kick-ass is more than the physical. Sam has all the courage of a great warrior and the smarts to recognize what she can and can’t do. I saved all of the physical skills for her teammate Becky Taylor. Becky’s a military cop who trains and competes with her male teammates. She’s the first real kick-ass woman I wrote. It was okay in the vampire books, but I wasn’t sure how it would play in the stand alone novels.

The first standalone book in which my heroine made the choice to take an active fighter’s role was Stuck in Korea Time. Brenda Livingstone never thought of herself as anything other than the first sergeant. It’s only when bad things happen that she understands the costs of doing the right things. Her active role in the search and rescue of Alan Jamison plays well to her skill set, but she spends a fair amount of time praying that she won’t make a mistake that will hurt her friends.

Then came Janice… I wrote Saving Emily during National Novel Writing Month in 2011. It was blunt and direct, nothing fancy, just a story about a kick-ass woman who behaved a lot like one of the guys. I figured if Rene Russo could beat up on five men in Lethal Weapon 3, then Janice could too. Janice is everything that my other women aren’t. She’s single-minded when it comes to responsibility, she black-and-white when it comes to violence, and she’s not afraid to kill if the need arises. She’ll do exactly what every male hero would do – whatever it takes to get the job done.

However, there has to be some realism involved. Whether it’s physical or emotional, an author needs to give the reader something human to connect to. If you don’t find that connection, the reader will dump the book and equate the character to something out of a comic book.

I knew Janice Bracken was going to be the most physically aggressive woman that I’ve ever written. So I opened the story with Janice worrying about her future in a career where forty might be too old. I let her wonder if she could walk away and live the quiet life of an ordinary woman. I led with her fear of aging because I believe we all fear getting older and not being able to do the things we love.

I didn’t soften the edges by much with C.J. McLean in The Embassy Guards. She’s sort of a compilation of the female Marines and cops that I’ve met. Tough, no-nonsense, smart, and funny when the opportunity presents. The term: adapt, improvise, and overcome really means something to her. And like most of the Marines I’ve ever met, she’s not going to run from trouble. No matter how ugly the situation she finds herself in, she’s going to move forward and do what needs to be done. Marines are trained to be team players so I led with isolating C.J. from the unit she’s assigned to. Who hasn’t felt like the odd-man-out when starting a new job? It was just a little more extreme in this case.

My next character is no less take charge. You’ll get to meet Sergeant Jackie Johnson of the Phoenix Police Department in my next novel, No Safe Haven, coming soon. Jackie has been tasked with protecting an eye witness that a violent drug cartel wants to kill.

Yes, I know my niche. Yes, I’m comfortable with it. Yes, I like the women that I write about. I hope you do too.