My Writers' Police Academy Experience: More Than Just Blowing $%&# Up (Although Do You Really Need More?)

I’ve spent the last fifteen years of my life teaching college-level public speaking for a living. My hubby, Captain Awesome, (engineer that he is) once added up roughly how many speeches I’ve seen.  Three speeches a semester x 75 students a semester (a very low estimate) x 45 semesters = 10,125

Over 10,000 speeches.

So when I say I don’t jump at the opportunity to attend conferences and conventions where people are doing more speaking, you can probably understand.

The Writers’ Police Academy was different. 

Held near Greensboro, NC each year, the Writers’ Police Academy (WPA), is a chance for crime/mystery/thriller/romantic suspense writers to experience hands-on what happens in the real world of law enforcement. So we can then turn around and get it right in our writing.

Here are some of the opportunities I was able to experience at WPA:

The decisions EMTs/Paramedics/firefighters have to make when faced with a multi-victim situation. We were given a demonstration (using actor victims) of what such a scene would be like.

I stopped watching this so I could write a scene for a book, it came to me so clearly

What it feels like to get to try to get your weapon out of your holster when someone is rushing at you with a knife from only ten feet away (not easy! Keep perps at least 15 feet away or you don’t have much of a chance)

Self-defense with partners -- I somehow ended up with the Black Belt lady. Great pick.

What it is like (via simulator) to drive an ambulance with sirens and lights blazing. 

Instructor turned on the sirens & I didn't even flinch -- I'm used to a loud/chaotic vehicle

How daggone heavy a SWAT vest is (all in all, SWAT moves around with 40+ pounds of gear on them).

Sadly, they wouldn't let me hold the rifles.

How loud it is, even from 30 yards away, when a door is blown off its hinges. Being inside the building would scare the pants off someone who didn’t know it was coming.

The adrenaline that comes along with doing a building search, knowing someone is inside. Seriously, I was one of the more calm people (the officer helping us kept telling me how natural I look with a gun in my hand – that ought to be a frightening notion to some of my ex-boyfriends), and my heart rate was through the roof by the time the exercise was completed.

I'm telling you, it was SCARY. Even knowing it was safe.

The pressure of giving CPR to a critical patient while a REALLY HANDSOME young paramedic is watching in a moving ambulance.

Um, yeah... I don't know how his phone number ended up in my notes.

So basically, I loved it. And not just the hands-on stuff. I also enjoyed the more traditional workshops I attended on: prostitution, K9s, Special Ops, and forensic art. Not to mention all the information I gleamed just from talking to law enforcement officers, firefighters, EMTs, lab technicians and TSA agents. Just getting inside their minds, listening to their language, was fascinating and useful.

By the time I left I had a notebook full of scenarios, stories and specifics you can plan to see in my book soon. (In particular, you can expect to see a forensic artist and a hot paramedic in my future books. I’ve already got stories mapped out for them).

Plus, to be surrounded by writers the whole time --people who understand when you stop talking to them in the middle of a sentence to jot down an idea-- just made the entire experience even better. 

I'll definitely go again, and hopefully bring all my fellow Harlequin Intrigue authors along with me.

Why Is Getting Rid of Kids Easier than Getting Rid of Characters?

Yesterday I sent the kiddos off to school. 

I was terribly sad to watch them go. You see, I am one of those mothers who would spend all her time with her kids if I could. And having them home with me – all the time – just completes me in a way I never thought possible.

Is anybody but me rolling around on the floor laughing yet?

Holy cow. I love my kids, but THEY HAD TO GO!!! Here in Virginia we have a late school year start (the day after Labor Day) and I thought I would kill them the last couple of weeks.

But now they’re gone.

This was them, heading on off to school:

As soon as the last one was out the door, this was me:

(Or even better, see this dancing orangutan. That was really me: https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10153151189783228&set=vb.135376688227&type=2&theater) 

Interestingly, the day I said goodbye to my kids was the day I also said goodbye to Omega Sector Series characters I was writing for my next Harlequin Intrigue books. Book 4 was due to my editor on September 2, the day after Labor Day. 

Kicking the Omega Series guys out the door was a little more difficult than kicking my kids out. Maybe because the characters in my books rarely ask me to make them a sandwich or demand an iPhone for their birthday. 

But these characters have consumed me for the last ten months. Together, we’ve been in plane crashes and on yachts and in dangerous situations we were both sure there was no way out. I’ve spent hours every day figuring out what drives them and scares them and makes them more than they thought they could be. I’ve gotten to know each character as if he or she was a real person. Because to me they were each a real person.

Deadline reminder that has sat on my desk for 10 months

And although pitching, writing and editing four novels in ten months was CRAZY, I was sad when I wrote The End on book 4. 

Because that meant these characters were gone.

I guess they’ll be back somewhat in the form of copyedits, cover reveals, and, of course, the books themselves. That makes me happy and I truly hope readers will fall in love with these characters like I did. But for all intents and purposes, they’re gone for me. I have to move on to the next project with its own set of characters that need my attention. But hopefully not any sandwiches.

So I send off my Omega characters – the Branson siblings and those special people who come to love them in their stories– but without a happy orangutan dance. Because I know these guys won’t be getting back off the bus at 3pm.

I’ll miss them. I really will. They've been my buddies. 

But now I’m ready for the next set of stories and whatever crazy adventures we’ll take together.

2014 Family Fun Trip Part 1 - Livin' La RVida Loca

Traveling is one of my favorite things to do. If you’ve known me for more than ten minutes, then that’s probably already apparent. I don't tend to stay in one place too long.

I’ve been blessed to travel all over the world: Australia, Bahamas, Canada, China, Curacao, England, France, Germany Israel, Jamaica, Mexico, and Scotland.  And I’ve been to roughly two-thirds of our great fifty states, including Alaska, Hawaii and all of the West Coast (it’s that blasted Northeast that’s killing my percentages).

About a month ago, since we were already had plans for the six of us (Captain Awesome, Me and Tax Breaks 1-4) to attend a family/friend reunion of sorts in New Mexico, we decided to make a two week family adventure out of it. My parents joined us for some of the merriment. We went to a total of six states.

And part of that time would be in an RV.

Before we go any further, you should probably know that this is kind of what my entire family had in our minds when we were thinking RV. The movie RV with Robin Williams:

Yeah, some of that wasn't  too far off.

I got a SUPER deal by watching this site daily (like, stalking it, really): 

http://www.cruiseamerica.com/rent/hot_deals/#  We were able to get a one-way RV that was coming out of Phoenix and returning to Las Vegas seven days later for $15 a night, plus gas. That was an INCREDIBLE deal. It fit almost perfectly into our itinerary.  Here's what the RV looked like from the online brochure:

So nice and cozy...

But this was more the reality of it:

(I had the camera out just in case this turned into an RV-movie moment)

The RV ended up being everyone's favorite part of the trip. We were all on top of each other, yeah, but it was an ADVENTURE. And since we traveled nearly 1800 miles in seven days, I'm glad we had it. (My 14-yo Tax Break has commented multiple times since we've been home that she "misses the RV". Does my heart good).

We didn't try to cook any dinners in our RV, but we did use it for breakfast and lunch. And snacks. With four kids, you have a lot of snacks. But $50 at Walmart bought much more than stopping at gas stations.

Things we did right with the RV:

• Did a mega trip to Walmart the day we got the RV. Stocked it with breakfast and lunch stuff,  fruits and veggies, and sodas & snacks. Also bought a small pot (for boiling water for coffee and soup). 
• Used almost all paper products so we wouldn't have dishes to wash
• Figured out you can take a piece of duct tape (that my 10 year old had brought for some reason) and put it on the bottom of a plastic cup. Instant cup holder. Which you need, because everything slides around everywhere.
• Used individual blankets and sheets that could then be folded up and put out of the way during the day (no need to worry about dirty feet climbing all over sleeping spaces during the long days)
• Brought a power strip. There were an excessive amount of things needing to be charged.
• Didn't use the shower in the RV. The RV parks we stayed at had bigger showers, so we just made that a rule. Plus my parents stayed in a hotel room, so Tax Break #1 was able to shower there every night, reducing trauma

Things I wish I knew:

• There is no need to buy paper products as if it's the end of the world. Your family of six is not going to go through 200 plates and four rolls of toilet paper in one week. 
• But your family will, in fact, go through one pack of double-stuffed Oreos A DAY. Plan accordingly.
• Everything will fall out of the refrigerator every time you open it. Don't yell at the kids when that happens because IT WILL happen to you the very next time.
• Bring a (or two if you have them) car adapter that gives you an actual plug. We had a car adapter that would allow to charge our phones, but nothing that would allow the kids to plug in their portable DVD player. That meant we had to run the generator (which cost $3/hour) if we wanted to use the regular plugs while driving.

But overall, we had very few complaints. It was a trip of a lifetime and we loved it. The RV was a big part of that.

Next time: Family Fun Trip Part 2 - The Itinerary Nazi