The Danger of the Good

by M.L. Buchman

One of the great jokes on a writer is that most of the job is mental...okay, 99.999% of the job is mental. During my decades of corporate I'd say it was about <25%.

Oh sure, in corporate there were good days and bad days. Having a positive attitude made for a more pleasant working environment, made my teams function better, and made clients happier. But in corporate there was one implacable rule: it never stopped. A good day today didn't stop whatever s*** was about to roll down the pipe and plop on your desk the next morning. And having a truly crappy client call didn't mean that your presentation that afternoon wasn't going to rock and leave you feeling great. They might make me go a bit "mental" at times, but it was the job that did much of the mood making. My only choice was to make the best out of whatever plopped onto the desk.

Writing is about staring at a blank page and finding story. It's about writing through the times when the story isn't working, as well as when it's flying. And the joke on the authors is that something good can bump you off the tracks just as well as something bad.

My traditional press editor told me that Target Engaged (the first book of my new Delta Force romance series) is the best book I've ever written (not that she's read any of my dozens of indie books). Guess what? That simple bit of feedback made it almost impossible to write the next book in the series (Heart Strike will be out next August). How do I live up to the standard of "best ever?"

Simple answer: You don't!

You write the next book to be the best book you can at that moment in that place and time.

I can't begin to emphasize that enough. So, having just finished (finally) Heart Strike (and I'm quite proud of it actually), and understood the mayhem that simple compliment to Target Engaged had caused me, I thought I finally had the "Danger of the Good" under control...

HA!

Last week I found out that Hot Point had been chosen as a Top 10 Romance of the 2015 by Booklist. Then they offered a compilation of the Best 101 Romance Novels of the Last 10 Years which had two of my books on it.

Now the challenge is to go back to that blank white page and simply write the best book I can. Harrumph! Saying I need to do that and actually doing so are a world apart as any writer will tell you. So I was looking for a way to reengage with my next Night Stalkers novel (coming in October).

And then I look at another upcoming release. On October 14th, by first "Ides of Matt" short story collection will become available (you can pre-order the electronic now, paper available on release day). I think about this collection a lot when I'm having trouble writing. There are some really wonderful stories in here that I don't know how I ever found them in the world of the blank page. There are others that I think of as simply "good stories." They work and I'm glad that I wrote them, but they don't have the Snap! of one that really clicked. Yet as I was writing the introduction to each story, I remembered how much fun it was to write that particular tale. Every time I so enjoyed the experience of discovery of character and story.

That's the secret I've discovered about how to react to the good reviews and the bad. It extends into everyday life as I contemplate the good news and the bad as well.

Follow the fun!

I love every tale mentioned on this page and on my website. I had so much fun writing the two short stories that went up this month on my website (one was free on my site--no longer but it's still for sale, the other one is still free to newsletter subscribers or for purchase). And I love the Night Stalkers book that will be coming out in October though it has neither cover nor title yet making it hard to promote,

I love writing!

It gives me something to be thankful for every day. And if I focus on that instead of reviews, accolades, stray comments, and other distractions, then I can dodge the "Danger of the Good" (or the Bad) and keep doing what I love most: Telling Stories.
---

M. L. Buchman has over 40 novels in print. His military romantic suspense books have been named Barnes & Noble and NPR “Top 5 of the Year,” nominated for the Reviewer’s Choice Award for “Top 10 Romantic Suspense of 2014” by RT Book Reviews, and twice Booklist “Top 10 of the Year” placing two of his titles on their “The 101 Best Romance Novels of the Last 10 Years.” In addition to romance, he also writes thrillers, fantasy, and science fiction.

In among his career as a corporate project manager he has: rebuilt and single-handed a fifty-foot sailboat, both flown and jumped out of airplanes, designed and built two houses, and bicycled solo around the world.

He is now making his living as a full-time writer on the Oregon Coast with his beloved wife. He is constantly amazed at what you can do with a degree in Geophysics. You may keep up with his writing by subscribing to his newsletter at www.mlbuchman.com. 

A Little Too Appropriate

by M. L. Buchman

As a writer, I often seek both the appropriate and the inappropriate.

The inappropriate makes me think, jars me out of preconceptions and frames of reference that otherwise would echo with dull familiarity through my stories (and my life). I'm drawn to the writers who force me to think, who take my view of the world and jar it loose with a sharp nudge of their pen. Hesse, Rand, King, Clarke, their names we know without their given names even being needed. Go to any list of "the hundred best novels of all time" and their names will be listed there. They have broken the ground of the familiar and made themselves memorable to millions.

The appropriate has a different power: it is that which makes us comfortable in a story. That winds our minds and our emotions down a path and makes us feel safe. These storytellers make us feel hope, joy, possibility, or, if they do their job well, wonder. These names are no less familiar: Tolkein, Heinlein, Roberts, Wiggs, Gabaldon, Austen, and this list goes on as long as the other. Surprisingly few show up in those "100 best ever" lists outside their own genre, but they touch us, move us, and, I think most importantly, make us feel safe. They make us believe that the world has order and purpose.

When I set out to write, I spent years attempting to discover what were my criteria, what was going to guide my writing. I found it over a decade ago in a class that said, "Writer a story like you've never written." After a lot of thought, I chose my criteria. I wrote in first person, which I'd never done before--I got so deep into the head of my character that I never made it up to the word "I." And I wrote a villain, a true villain, one with a different morale standard. It was the nastiest, most evil place I've ever gone as a writer. This is a power in that place--a carnival-like draw that makes us click through on the latest news story about a murder or an explosion in China, that causes gawkers' blocks along the other side of the nation's highways.

That story was never published and the novel that character still demands over a decade later will never be written, because that story helped me find my simple guideline. All of my writing follows a single precept:

To champion the human spirit.

If it fails to do that, I'm not interested in the story. I want to live in a better world. I want my amazing step-kid to live in a better world. I want to pass on a better world than even the one I received if I can find any way to do so. Therefore, all my writing shares that one common thread.

I now live in Oregon, I lived in Washington State for almost thirty years. I wake up in the morning and watch the smoke-red sunrises from the wildfires that burn for to nearby, I read today that Washington State is now suffering from the largest wildfire in its history (over a quarter of a million acres, 390 square miles). That one fire burns over some of the most beautiful hills you can imagine. It is a quarter the size of Rhode Island and still growing. One more growth spurt the size of last night's shift and it will be bigger than the five boroughs of New York City. There are presently 32,000 men and women fighting fire across the west. Sixty-six of those are classed as large fires and complexes (multiple fires joined into a mega-fire), Only 12 of those are classed as 75% contained or better by the National Interagency Fire Center (20 are rated at 0% as I write this). 

My last two novel releases and my latest short story are about honoring the men and women who fight wildfire. The books were written before this fire season had truly begun and the short story a month ago before we knew quite how bad a one it was going to be. I love these stories. They are about hope, commitment, and love. They are about passion for the firefight and for each other. They are about that world I wish to pass on.

I just wish my romances, which I'm very proud of, were a little less appropriate to the season.

All my thoughts and good wishes are with the men and woman who have answered the call to face the fire. I hope that my words reveal even a tiny slice of the amount of heart that you are bringing to what you are out there doing for us right now.

M. L. Buchman has over 35 novels and an ever-expanding flock of short stories in print. His military romantic suspense books have been named Barnes & Noble and NPR “Top 5 of the year,” Booklist “Top 10 of the Year,” and RT “Top 10 Romantic Suspense of the Year.” In addition to romantic suspense, he also writes contemporaries, thrillers, and fantasy and science fiction.

In among his career as a corporate project manager he has: rebuilt and single-handed a fifty-foot sailboat, both flown and jumped out of airplanes, designed and built two houses, and bicycled solo around the world.

He is now a full-time writer, living on the Oregon Coast with his beloved wife. He is constantly amazed at what you can do with a degree in Geophysics. You may keep up with his writing at www.mlbuchman.com.

Writers at Work

by M.L. Buchman

When my kid was little, she was riding with her mom in the car. A flagger stopped them at a construction site and they both watched the happenings around them in a comfortable silence. Then my kid turned to her mom and delivered her first-ever complete sentence with absolute seriousness, "Men move dirt."

I've done a lot of jobs over the years; some fairly normal, some rather peculiar, and yes, some moving dirt. I spent five years odd-jobbing in restaurants, rebuilding a 50' sailboat, as an electrician and technical director in live theater, etc. Then I stumbled into corporate and for the next few decades I did a wild array of law, computers, construction, opera, and even designing tourist maps. I was on the leading edge of IT, Lean, Project Management, and a dozen other things that have turned into a blur.

And then 2-1/2 years ago, I became a full-time writer. That's not a leap you make idly, or should make at all without massive savings or a large retirement fund. We had neither but by dint of hard work (and totally awesome fans), it's working out okay.

So, we decided to take our first vacation in a long time. Let's just say that having a kid in college during a recession that cost me two different jobs and the loss of a house I'd designed and built to last as long as we lived, we haven't had one in a while. But we checked the bank account, and then we checked it again, and it said, "Sure, but don't go wild."

Oddly enough, that was easy. We live in the Pacific Northwest and it is one of the most beautiful places on the planet (No, wait! Don't move here. It rains all the time. Honest...No, really!). We thought about it a little and I also happened to think about the book I was presently writing. The lead female character was being reluctant about revealing her past...in other words, she didn't have one and was falling flat on the page due to the lack.

And then I thought about a nice trip and I turned to my wife, "Victoria, BC on Vancouver Island seems like a nice place to visit, doesn't it?" We've both been there several times and it is truly one of the highlights of the Northwest. "Sounds like a good place to come from as well," my stumbling character stood upright and nodded knowingly to the north.

It did.

So we drove from our home on the Oregon Coast, up along the Olympic Peninsula, and took a ferry over to Victoria. And that's when things started getting strange. As the ferry was pulling in, I looked out the window and saw the town's gorgeous skyline. Which I didn't get a picture of, because I was taking this one instead.

Little known fact, Victoria is the second busiest seaplane port in North America (the busiest is Skagway, Alaska because it's the only way in or out). And parked right there was the plane that I had already decided would be the featured aircraft in my current novel (a DHC-6 Twin Otter). At this point my character was chortling over my shoulder, "That's where I learned how to fly." I'd been wondering.

Then we visited the BC Royal Museum, one of the nicest small museums anywhere. My wife had arranged a behind the scenes tour where we, by pure chance, managed to meet the Head of Exhibits, the guy who heads the group that builds, installs, and maintains all of the exhibits. No pictures, but a great half hour conversation. My character thought this was almost as cool as I did and insisted that she wanted to work here before joining the military.

Then we wandered down to the docks where I was able to see my planes a little closer.

Even a lot closer.

I also spent about a half hour chatting with a pilot about handling characteristics and a tricky landing he made in Malta that is definitely going to end up in the book somehow.

We drove all over Victoria to find out where my character lived. We explored libraries and finally took a little ferry ride to see what her daily commute would be like. These ferries are just too cute for words. They're so cute, they even do ballets. Watch this, you'll thank me. (Ballet begins around 1:00.)

As we were taking this tiny ferry tour along the harbor, my wife and I were taking photographs and discussing what my heroine might see and think as she passed different sights. We were afloat in a beautiful harbor on a gorgeous day and would soon be out having a nice English tea in the middle of our first vacation in seven years.

Then I was struck by an interesting thought and I turned to her in astonishment and said:
"I'm working right now."

Let's hear it for being a writer!

My character who grew up in Victoria, won't actually have her book out until next September...it isn't even finished yet. But my next Firehawks book will be out in two weeks, so you might want to catch that in the meantime. It's set in another lovely part of the Pacific Northwest.

Release August 4th - available for pre-order now

This is definitely my favorite job yet!

Fire isn't coming...Wildfire is here

by M. L. Buchman

It's odd...one of the things I've become known for is the level of my research. It wasn't a skill I set out to achieve, or something I really expected in my writing. But the characters and the stories took over and insisted that they were real world tales. Even when I write my thrillers or fantasy, some part of me insists on making the world's setting as realistic as possible.

So, study very hard to get as much right in my stories as I can. I am no more a firefighter than I was a Special Operations helicopter pilot or a former Delta Force operator (upcoming new series this winter), but I do seek authenticity. Granted, it all is background to the love story, the relationship, the emotional roller coaster ride of self and other, but still it is there.

And one of the problems with all of this research is that sometimes I learn too much. So how do I find a balance between telling a romance and the pending horrific wildfire season that is already burning in unlikely places like the Olympic National Forest (which is a temperate rainforest for those of you who don't know Washington state)?

I keep my focus tight on one key element, the origin of all of the heat in a romance, even in one about smokejumpers: the characters.

One of the amusing things was that I made the focus so tight, that I fell in love with both of the characters and didn't know which one should be on the cover.

So, I asked my newsletter readers and offered them this image to vote on:

And that's where "realism" tripped me up in an interesting way. When I write a romance, I typically write about "Strong women and the men they deserve." This naturally made me want to place Krista on my new book cover, because she was more "real" to me, or at least a more realistic reflection of my story, at least as I thought it up.

What happened was I lost focus on the "story" of Wildfire on the Skagit.

The story here, according to my reader survey (who agreed by a surprisingly strong factor of 4-to-1 out of hundreds of votes), was focused on the object of the woman's search for romance (even when, like Krista, she isn't looking for it). Many fans wrote in to tell me that they already knew what they themselves looked like, already knew they were strong. They wanted to see the man they deserved in order to project themselves more easily into the story.

Which is what it's all about. The ride. Journeying along in the hero and heroine's right-hand pockets through all of the fun and misadventures on the path to that perfect Happy Ever After moment that we all so want...even if we're already living our own.

So, I offer you a pair of "Hot" wildfire rides that are accurate, but only pleasantly real to help you while away the hot summer. :)

Available now -book #3 of the Firehawks Smokejumper series.

Coming August 4th -available for pre-order -book #3 of the main Firehawks series

For folks who love to feel the heat, check out the links at my website at: www.mlbuchman.com or your favorite retailer now!

Small Towns in Myth and Truth

by M.L. Buchman

Wait a sec! What do I care for "truth?" I'm a fiction writer.

Curiously I think that fiction may be one of the great repositories of truth. It's a writer's truth—caught in story like in a droplet of amber—and passed on to the reader in the hope that we've somehow captured the least nugget of an inner reality and passed it on.

Passover (which started last night if you're reading this on Saturday) was a truth I have yet to try and capture in fiction. We were Jewish, and about as non-traditional and unobservant  as you can get (and yes I mean un- not non- [especially as a kid I was about as naivest you can imagine]).

Yet every Passover we made the great pilgrimage from our small town of Marathon, New York with its 1,200 people and its 10,000 head of dairy cattle, to the grandparents in New York City (a hamlet of 7,000,000+ people and very few cattle, dairy or otherwise). I discovered many "truths" on those journeys that were passed on to me:

• the simple traditions of family -for this was the great annual gathering of our small family and my grandfather always ran a very formal Seder wearing his one good suit
• the traditions of a religion to which I had no other exposure, but has been a surprising on-again / off-again community over the years since
• and the madness of the city. I saw a hundred events and 1,000s of people who convinced me that I was blessed to be in a small town. In among the bustle I saw: fear, theft, carjackings (from the next car over), loss of hope (up close and personal). I never saw murder, thank goodness, but I heard the ambulance and fire engines running multiples per night on each visit.

Despite living in Seattle for a 20-year aberration that I'm little able to explain, I'm happiest in small towns. I like being able to walk out my door and be in nature in a half-mile (in some places only ten steps were required to enter hundred of acres of woods populated by deer and bear).

What I only recently realized is that in my first 37 novels, however, I had yet to journey to a small town. And so I found one. It is a place that doesn't exist, yet I know it well and love its people deeply. There will be more adventures there, for I've discovered a place very near my heart and can't wait to return.

Why it took me 37 novels to reach it, I can only guess. That is part of the writer's journey. Perhaps I wasn't ready to write it yet. Perhaps I had to once more live in the country. This time it isn't a "country" of the rural fields and streams I grew up in, nor the forests of other years. But it is the nature of a small town and a long beach. Here it is on April 3rd as a storm moves in (promising to block all view of the coming lunar eclipse).

And here is the small town that I discovered hidden behind the storm of big cities and a busy life. It started in my Firehawks romantic suspense series, but it also became a crossover to my upcoming Larch Creek contemporary romances. Welcome to Alaska!

-----

M. L. Buchman has over 35 novels in print. His military romantic suspense books have been named Barnes & Noble and NPR “Top 5 of the year” and Booklist “Top 10 of the Year.” He has been nominated for the Reviewer’s Choice Award for “Top 10 Romantic Suspense of 2014” by RT Book Reviews. In addition to romance, he also writes thrillers, fantasy, and science fiction.

In among his career as a corporate project manager he has: rebuilt and single-handed a fifty-foot sailboat, both flown and jumped out of airplanes, designed and built two houses, and bicycled solo around the world. He is now making his living as a full-time writer on the Oregon Coast with his beloved wife. He is constantly amazed at what you can do with a degree in Geophysics. You may keep up with his writing by subscribing to his newsletter at www.mlbuchman.com.

Hot and Cold Running Releases

by M.L. Buchman

One of things I think I enjoy most about being an author is finding out about strange places and people. Writers cover a wide spectrum from "I just make it up as I go" to "I want to get as much right as I can" to nutcases like me who are total research hounds!

"Bloodhound Trials Feb 2008 -79" by John Leslie - Flickr: Wikimedia

Okay, maybe I'm not that bad.

This habit of asking: "What's over there?" has led me to innumerable odd places over the years, an ice & snow climbing class on Mt. Rainier, hiking in the wilderness of a half dozen states, flying and jumping out of airplanes (though not the same one), and bicycling around the world for a year and a half to name a few.

All of that experience gives me the jumping off points for my stories that lead me to yet stranger research corners. And sometimes it is the juxtaposition of those corners that is the most fun.

This month I have an ice-bound short story and a blazing wildfire novel. Writing those back to back was particularly amusing because, as a writer who is a research hound, I immerse myself in the environment.

To write Heart of the Storm I drew on dozens of climbing texts that I've read (mostly when I was younger and it would scare my parents to death--I then started building plastic model motorcycles which really freaked them out, though I've never owned a real one), winter climbing blogs, equipment sites, and my own experience riding my bicycle around the base of Mt. Rainier (a 14,000' peak in Washington state that's at the center of this story).

To write Wildfire at Larch Creek I was abruptly back in my Firehawks world of wildland firefighters, specifically the smokejumpers. For that tale, in addition to all my prior research into wildfires I was off into mircoclimates in the valleys around Denali and just how do the small village survive out in the Alaskan bush, I also went reaching back to the tiny town where I spent six years as a kid in upstate New York (1,200 people and 10,000 head of dairy cow).

This is pretty much the whole town; the school and gas station take up the other side of the street.
(image from Google Maps--new sidewalks! Very cool!)

A Night Stalkers short story (click for more info)
How Michael and Mark came to fly together.

A Firehawks / Larch Creek romance (click for more info)
Two-Tall Tim finds returning home is never easy on the heart,
especially when true love awaits.

They were certainly fun to write!

Also look for (or pre-order), the next Night Stalkers novel coming March 3rd!!

A Night Stalkers novel (click for more info)
Delta Force Colonel Michael Gibson gets his Night Stalker...for life.

Perhaps I should have titled this blog, "A Bro-mance and Two Romances" or maybe "Cold, Hot, and Steamy Releases!"  I do so love writing! 

Now I'm off to research...but that would be telling!

I (heart) Romance Cliches...

...because it is so much fun to break them!
by M.L. Buchman

I actually started writing romance based on exactly that concept. I began as a science fiction and fantasy writer. I discovered romance and began incorporating stronger and stronger love stories into my writing (still not romances).

I wanted to try a romance, but I did want to write along a cliche. Why? One, I actively despise cliches and stereotyping (this is one of my rabid platform things, so don't get me started [don't believe me? Check out this Publisher's Weekly Radio interview.]) and two, I had seen the success of those who find the cliche and buck the trend.

Sandra Brown looked out at the world of romance and the world of mystery and made a huge success that practically created romantic suspense.

Suzanne Brockmann read an article on Navy SEALs and military romantic suspense exploded onto the market.

Both of them had looked at a cliche and wondered how to turn it on its head.

For me I was doing research for my Dead Chef thriller Swap Out! My hero had to be rescued by a cool helicopter. (I don't know where my writer brain comes up with these ideas, but I trust it and went looking for a really extreme helicopter.) While researching, I stumbled on the U.S. Army's 160th SOAR, the secretive, helicopter-flying Special Operations Aviation Regiment, also known as the Night Stalkers.

That still didn't do it for me. Cool, might use it some day, but it didn't have the cliche-breaker I'd been looking for.

And then I found the Night Stalkers application: "Must be male to apply." (After 30 years, this finally changed in 2013, but I was back in 2008 at the time.)

BANG!

I knew I had it! Was I going to create a whole new genre with this idea like Brown or Brockmann? No, but fitting right in as "Buchman" struck me as a good sign.

What did I create by spotting the cliche and breaking it?
Cliche: The alpha male hero and the woman he falls for along the way.
New: The alpha female hero who meets the alpha male on the common ground of the military, and  who gets the man she happens to deserve.

Thus was born The Night Stalkers series:

(this includes the first reveal of the draft cover for Michael's story coming in Spring 2015!)

And the Firehawks series:

(Full Blaze is coming Dec 2, 2014 and takes the wildfire battle Down Under.)

And I just sold two more "First Women of..." series that will be launching in 2015 & 2016. Maybe they're all just one big series: Buchman's "First Women" of Military Romantic Suspense... I like it!
---

M. L. Buchman has over 30 novels in print. His military romantic suspense books have been named Barnes & Noble and NPR “Top 5 of the year” and Booklist “Top 10 of the Year.” In addition to romance, he also writes thrillers, fantasy, and science fiction. 

In among his career as a corporate project manager he has: rebuilt and single-handed a fifty-foot sailboat, both flown and jumped out of airplanes, designed and built two houses, and bicycled solo around the world. He is now making his living as a full-time writer on the Oregon Coast with his beloved wife. He is constantly amazed at what you can do with a degree in Geophysics. You may keep up with his writing by subscribing to his newsletter at www.mlbuchman.com.

Leaping into Military Romantic Suspense

by M. L. Buchman

I didn’t set out to write military romantic suspense. I was a fantasy and thriller writer, though always with “strong romantic elements.” After all, what’s more fun that a love story? Right, my point exactly.

So there I was, writing a foodie thriller entitled Swap Out! When I needed my hero to be rescued from a Chicago high-rise by a kick-ass helicopter. I knew nothing about helicopters, so I started researching them. Meanwhile, a kick-ass heroine shows up in [helicopter] (square brackets are how I, as a writer, tell myself, “Research this later, and fix it right here, but don’t stop writing now.”) She isn’t his love interest, instead she’s…well, that’s a different story.

Bottom line, there I am learning about helicopters on the side of my foodie thriller. And in my research, I learned about a great deal of truly intriguing technology. Then I stumbled on the U.S. Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, who call themselves the Night Stalkers. These are the dudes who fly secret missions for much of the U.S. Special Operations Forces, including the raid on bin Laden’s compound among hundreds of much less publicized events.

And here I think is where one of the great joys of being a writer pays off, and one of the great secrets of writing as well: I went down the rabbit hole. I was intrigued and I followed that curiosity I followed it all the way down to the transfer application (because you can’t even apply to fly for SOAR without at least five years helicopter experience in the Armed Forces.)

On the transfer application, there used to be a little box that said, “Men only.” (That only changed recently.) I had been wanting to write a true romance for some time and I’d actively been hunting for a story to tell. And in that instant, I had the key to all of my military romantic suspense writing:  

The first women to fly for the Night Stalkers, 

and the men they deserve.  

With that as my motto, I launched into writing and was an overnight success.

Not really, just kidding.

What I launched into was two years of research into every aspect of SOAR, helicopters, and most importantly the stories told by the men of Special Operations Forces. For in a romance, the most important thing is getting the character right and that constituted the bulk of my research reading and interviews.

I have come to love my women who fly to battle in "The Night Stalkers" series and fly to fight forest fires and worse in my "Firehawks" series. Perhaps the most surprising lesson for me in all of this has been learning a deep, deep respect for the men and women who choose to serve in the U.S. military, especially those who serve at the tip of the spear in our Special Operations Forces.

To this day, I research nearly as many hours as I write, always seeking authenticity while still honoring both the military I have discovered, balanced with the demands of the love story that is what I set out to tell in the first place.

coming Sept 2, 2012

Keep up with M. L. Buchman by signing up for his newsletter at www.mlbuchman.com

Realism, PCism, and Surrealism

by M. L. Buchman
My pal and all around amazing author Sarah A. Hoyt just wrote a piece entitled The Publishing Business is in Crisis. I won't argue with Sarah (for one thing I'd probably lose, for another, I'm not sure that I disagree). But there's a few items deep down in her article that really caught my attention on an entirely different subject.

She points out two small examples to make points that collided for me to open up insights into something I have long been contemplating in my own writing. (Holy wow is that a messy sentence, but you get the idea.) (pardon my paraphrasing):
1. (While discussing mysteries): The extreme realism that has moved into fiction is really irritating. For that "I read the news."
2. (While discussing romances): The extreme emphasis on PCness has taken historical romances and turned them into Politically Correct stories in which every woman of the ton is a closet suffragette or a corporate maven of the 1700s.

In both my Night Stalkers series about the women and men of the U.S. Army's 160th helicopter regiment and Firehawks series about the women and men of heli-aviation wilderness firefighting, I work very hard to be realistic. But I also work to strike a balance for the reason I'm telling these tales is still a love story that is the main point of my books. This balance is something I pay attention to all the time while I'm writing.

Curiously, my writing habits and my reading habits have both been making a slow shift lately. Some of which is already evident, some of which will not be evident until next year. (Fear not fans, the Night Stalkers and Firehawks will fly onward.) This is a subtle rather than a drastic change, but one I have been contemplating for some time. What I am looking at doing is: "Avoiding the Surreal."

To me, the "Surreal" is when the story lost the reason I picked it up in the first place. When tale-telling becomes so realistic and PCistic that we lose the joy that made us pick up a romance. For I too have started up books and found the same reactions that Sara discusses above.

What drew us to read in this genre in the beginning? Was it great story or great realism? Was it love, romance, passion, or was it politically aware characters who bear twenty-first century sensibilities and mores even if they were rakes and wantons? Was it great adventure or accurate recounting of events? I recently read a romance in which the road trip was more important to the author (i.e. way more detailed) than the characters. I should say I started it, I didn't finish it.

I try to step aside from my own writing and ponder it sometimes as if from the outside. One thing I know for a fact, there is no worse judge of my own writing than me. This is true of every writer. Beginners think, "Wow! This is great stuff I'm writing." (Uh, sorry, probably not.) Seasoned pros have learned that when they think, "This is such crap that it's embarrassing," that they're probably on the right track. (That's what a trusted first reader is for, a reality check on the storytelling.) So I have to look through the eyes of others. My latest Pure Heat was 4-1/2 stars and Top Pick in Romantic Times. It garnered a starred review and Top 10 Romance of Spring 2014 in Publisher's Weekly. Great reviews came in from Booklist, Fresh Fiction, and many cool notes from fans. (Thank you all, btw.)

So, uh, I guess I'm on track.

Still I find I must worry at the boundaries of the Surreal, like a puppy who won't let a squeaky toy lie until the squeaker has been excised (whoever thought up squeaky toys must really despise parents and dog owners). I write fictional heroes doing heroic tasks that pale beside what our soldiers and firefighters are doing out in real life. The Night Stalkers of the 160th and the wilderness firefighters who face the monster of wildfire share a daunting dedication and the more I learn of both groups, the more they astonish me. It is hard not to gush about the amazing people I have discovered in my research.

But I try to tread lightly for I have a story to tell.
A love story.