—Or How I Got On A Government Watch List (probably)
So, I’ve been writing and had to take a break to track down some of my characters. You all know how I hate continuity errors; this is to prevent one.
During a break from putting down the name of every character in my opus cast of thousands series, I surfed over to read Kristen Lamb’s latest blog post. If you’ve never read her work, even if you’re not a writer, you’re going to love her style. I don’t think there’s ever been a post that I didn’t get at least a good chuckle over, much less a loud giggle that makes my husband wonder what I’m reading.
So, while her current post is What is a REAL Writer? Spotting Terminological Inexactitude Syndrome, she referenced one I had, somehow, missed. That one is 13-Ways Writers Are Mistaken For Serial-Killers.
Every one of the 13 items Kristen lists are ones I’ve done. We’ve joked (half-heartedly) that I’m probably on several government lists. As you can tell from previous blog posts, I do a lot of research from many different sources. Writing what I do, with a war and a mercenary/security attempted corporate takeover, there’s a lot of things I need to look up.
Some people are careless and run with scissors. I run with bazookas (Marcus is, after all, an arms dealer among other services), sometimes trying to find things I know that will probably trip some alarm or another. But they’re things I really need to know about to do the work on the books.
Even with having taken a police academy class (well, almost, I typed up all the notes and helped the guy study), there’s a lot of things that I still don’t know. That sends me online to check out how things are done by a variety of sources.
You know that there is a bombing in the series. Bombs aren’t in my personal repertoire, so I had to get information on that. I read up on the first World Towers Bombing in 1993 and the bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in 2006. While both of these sources are good, with photos, they leave out the one thing I needed: how to build the bomb.
I half-jokingly put up a note on my Facebook page “Hey, I’m going to go talk to the Houston Bomb Squad so if you get a call, please raise bail money.” In all honestly, I had no idea how a writer asking those sorts of questions would be received. They could tell me to take a hike, or they would sit me down and tell me that they needed my identification and proof of publishing before they would give me tiny details. Or, arrest me for domestic terrorism. Everything that could happen was in play.
I was spared that bit of angst, happily, by a dear friend who has military experience and who shot me a message of “what are you doing?” I explained and he walked me through what I needed to know and what to change to make the story “safe” from crazy people who might think it’s a good recipe. After about a half hour, I had all the information I needed to finish that part of the story.
And without going to jail. Yay!
We’ve also joked about how, when Bruce and I go out to eat, there are many times that we’re discussing the book plot. And those times have had murders, or other sensitive issues discussed. We’ve gotten funny looks from both restaurant staff and patrons. I’ve honestly expected having the local constabulary coming in to speak with us after someone overheard us and decided we might be domestic terrorists or a murder cabal. Yeah, like a couple of senior citizens are going to be doing that.
Fangs and Halos are so much fun to write, and to research. I just hope the spies like what I’m doing. They could just make it easy and read my books.
Maybe a little Running With Scissors wine??
