Murder She Writes

Talk about figuring it all out.

Okay, so I’m in a mood this week, and after the chit chat on A’s blog yesterday and how it veered to culpability, I decided to look around the internet for some bizarre cases. Bingo! Found one, and right in my back yard.

So, have you ever heard of the ‘provocative act murder doctrine’? Me either but boiled down here it is:

“The doctrine says that someone who provokes another person to kill can be charged with murder.” Makes sense. I think. This doctrine “originated in 1965 and has been used mainly to convict gang members in Southern California — drive-by shootings are a classic application.” Okay, clearer now.

Defense attorney Angela Carter said, “It creates an unusual situation in which the defendant who did not actually kill anyone can receive the death penalty.”

So here is a snippet of a crime in which the prosecutor is using this theory.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

“It’s very unreal,” said Judy Hughes, whose son, Renato Hughes Jr. — in an unusual invocation of a complex “vicarious murder” legal theory — is being accused of slaying his boyhood chums, Rashad Williams and Christian Foster. …
Williams, facing a three-year prison sentence for unarmed bank robberies in Danville and Lafayette last year, had been staying with his grandparents in Clearlake since April. On Dec. 7, just after midnight, Hughes and Foster arrived for a visit. ..

The preliminary hearing to determine whether Hughes will go on trial began Jan. 11 and will enter its sixth day today. Testimony has been contradictory and confusing.

According to prosecutor Jon Hopkins, the chief deputy District attorney in Lake County, at some point after 4 a.m., Hughes, Williams and Foster broke into the home where Edmonds was living with his young daughter, fiancee Lori Tyler, her son Dale Lafferty, and an unrelated teen, 16-year-old Justin Sutch. Hopkins maintains the three wanted to steal the medical marijuana used by the unemployed Edmonds, a former tractor mechanic, to combat depression. Police later seized at least 5 pounds from the house.

A free-for-all erupted, according to police, in which one intruder wrestled with Edmonds, one hit Tyler, and another bashed Lafferty with a bat. Edmonds grabbed his 9mm semiautomatic Browning and shot Williams twice in the back and Foster five times. It hasn’t been established whether the shooting began indoors or outside.
When police got there, Williams was lying in the middle of 11th Street, dead, and Foster was dying in bushes 20 yards away.

The Lake County district attorney hasn’t determined whether Edmonds has any criminal liability, but it has charged Mission High graduate Hughes, a 21-year-old clerk at a Trader Joe’s in San Francisco, with two counts of first-degree murder and one count each of attempted murder, robbery, assault with a deadly weapon.”…

It took me a minute to shake out all of the players in this crime gone awful, but I figured out who the provokees and who the provokers were. (Hey, it’s been a long week) So basically, this kid Hugh and his buddies decided to rob a house. And the homeowner, Edmonds, who obviously in fear for his life, and the lives of his family, had a problem with that, shot and killed two of them, and because he was ‘provoked’ to defend himself, his family, and his home, he is not the culpable one here, but the other robber, the one left standing is charged with two counts of first degree murder.

So, how does that sit with you?

(I know how it sits with me. And I’ll give you a leetle hint: you break into my house, threaten me and mine, I’ll shoot your ass where you’re standing.)

You can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater. You can’t talk about bombs in the middle of an airport. Some speech is prohibited because the end result can be fatal.

I am a staunch supporter of the First Amendment. I abide by Voltaire’s statement, “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” In my former life as a legislative consultant, this came in handy. I was a good listener. I didn’t have to be convinced that someone was right or I was right or they were wrong (I, of course, am never wrong) but in the end, our country was founded on the right to speak your mind.

But I’ve found something I can not abide, something that I can not believe is legal, and for the first time, I want to end an individual’s right to free speech because of a huge potential threat. I have a high tolerance for idiocy (I DID work in California State government), but this guy surpassed even my threshold.

Two weeks ago I was in Washington and while my pal Toni Hingleton and I sat in traffic behind a burning car (I kid you not), we were listening to the news. Apparently, an admitted pedophile got his website back up and running by using an out of country ISP–after he was shut down with a U.S.

What would a pedophile be doing with a website, you might hesitate to ask?

Putting up pictures of little girls (which he calls LGs). Posting information about public places where other pedophiles can watch and photograph little girls without being suspected of being the effing perverts that they are.

I am not making this up.

Over at Crime Scene Blog, a great place to waste oodles of time researching (guilty), I found an update on Jack McClellan, the pervert who started the Seattle-Tacoma-Everett Girl Love website. Gee, he’s taken down some of the pictures and he only links to other pictures, but he’s still telling his fellow perverts where to find little girls.

From the above blog:

Jack McClellan, who hosted the “Seattle Tacoma Everett Girl Love” site which was taken down earlier this year, is back again. He is an admitted pedophile who told reporters that he feels he is doing nothing illegal and that he gets “a kind of a high” from being around young girls.

The same blog also took content from the original website (which is no longer up) to show exactly what this pervert is up to:

This was my third visit to this roller rink, and like the previous two, it didn’t disappoint. There wasn’t much of a crowd when I arrived, but it picked up over the next hour or so and the place got quite lively. There were a few LGs that I rated above-average on the 1-10 cuteness scale, but my favorite (a girl I’ve seen here before) came with her father, so I didn’t get a chance to flirt with her. Another thing I noticed here tonight was more men like myself (in their mid-20s or older) who didn’t seem to be associated with anyone, and like me, were just circling the rink with a grin on their face (GL’ers or undercover cops?). The skate session closed at 10, and I left exhausted with sore feet. But the LG sightings of this marathon day weren’t over yet: I later saw two more running around the Mount Vernon Safeway.

The fact is that pedophiles are sick. They are not satisfied with watching little girls. They will attempt to make contact. When the watching and flirting and bumping into kids isn’t enough, they will take it to the next step. They will molest one of these girls.

Sexual abuse destroys lives. Sexual abuse can kill. This is not a harmless website where normal “men” are talking about attractive women. They are talking about being sexually attracted and turned on by pre-pubescent girls.

Crime Library reported on the original website when it was shut down:

The purpose of the web site is to promote consensual hugging and cuddling between men and girls who are aged 3 to 11 and bring pedophiles out of the closet, McClellan told Fox News.

“I guess the main thing is I just think they’re cute, a lot cuter than women,” he said. “I admit there is kind of an erotic arousal there. It makes me happy simply.

Freedom of speech? I think not.

Even if McClellan never rapes a child, what about the hundreds–thousands–of pedophiles who visit his site and use his information? Will McClellan be tried and convicted of aiding and abetting?

The laws must change to catch up with the times. We may not be able to take the website off the Internet, but we can damn well put the sicko responsible for it in jail.

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One of the women I work with brought her young son (I’ll call him Bry) to the office the other afternoon after his bi-monthly doctor’s visit. He’s a cute little bugger, about 8 years old, has an outgoing personality—and a brain tumor.

As is often the case when Bry comes in for a visit, he just opens my office door without knocking, gives me a big ol’ grin, then plops himself down in a chair across from my desk and says, “Hey, whatcha doin?”

Normally we talk about whatever he wants—the frog he found near their mailbox the day before—the cool video game he played last week—stuff like that. Occasionally, though, Bry comes up with some zingers that leave me slack-jawed. This week was one of those times.

“Hey, whatcha doin?”

“Working on my book. What about you? What’s new?”

He sighs and settles back in the chair, feet swinging lazily beneath the seat. “Nothin’. So what’s your book about? Does like somebody beat somebody up in it?”

Grinning, I type a couple more words so I don’t lose a particular thought. “Sorta.”

Bry nods, as if all knowing. I can see more questions swimming in his eyes, and it doesn’t take long before another rises to the surface. “But the good guy wins, right?”

“Of course.”

He nods again, his expression serious. “Good.” More feet swinging. A few minutes pass. “Hey . . .”

“Hm?”

“Can the good guy in your book climb walls and stuff like Spiderman?”

“Nope, he’s just a regular guy.”

A long moment goes by, then Bry cocks his head. “Hey . . .”

“Hm?”

“If you could pick something, what would you pick? What would you wanna do?”

“Whadda you mean? What would I be picking from?”

Bry tsks, as if he’s talking to the slowest right brained person on the planet. “You know, super stuff. Climb walls—see through stuff—be invisible—bus’ up a train with your hands—fly, stuff like that.”

“Ohhhh, super stuff . . .”

His feet resume swinging. “Yeah. What would you wanna be able to do?”

“That’s a good question.”

“I know.”

I thought about it for a few seconds. “Probably see through stuff.”

“How come?”

“’Cause that way nothing and no one could hide from me.” Where the hell that answer came from I’ll never know, but I figured it would probably fly right over Bry’s head. Instead, he gave me a little grin like he understood the answer completely.

“What about you?” I asked. “What would you wanna be able to do?”

“For a super thing?”

“Yeah.”

Bry stopped swinging his feet and pursed his lips, thinking. Finally he sighed. “’Be able to bus’ a train I guess.”

“Why?”

“’Cause that would mean I’d be strong and wouldn’t have to die.”

Arggg, that was one train I never saw coming. Makes you think about what’s really important, doesn’t it?

What super power would you pick and why?

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Nor am I stealing her theme. I actually was thinking about what makes someone become a cop. What motivates people to take this very dangerous and sometimes ungratifying job? It’s a profession in which it is very easy to step over the line, and disaster is sometimes just minutes away, and you have no way of knowing it.

People love cops, hate cops, envy cops, imitate cops, and, like some of us, write cops.

You have to admit, this is a multifaceted career choice, and a fascinating profession. The stories are endless.

Lots of people want to be cops. You read the stories every week, sort of like this one:

Fake police officers have graced News of the Weird (most recently in 2006) for pulling motorists over for officious scoldings on traffic safety, but a March 20 stop in Boca Raton, Fla., by an imitation, off-duty sheriff’s deputy was special. He was riding with his girlfriend when he decided to stop a discourteous motorist, and when a real cop later showed up, the “deputy” was revealed to be not a cop and also not a “he.” Rachel Otto, 21, wore her hair short on top and shaved on the sides, and her outing as a woman apparently shocked the girlfriend, who had been living with Otto for a week. Police said Otto’s rap sheet included nine arrests for impersonating police officers. [Palm Beach Post, 3-21-07]

Like I mentioned, this happens all the time. Uh, well, maybe not the girl-pretending-to-be-a-guy part. But the other is very common. Fake cops buy lights and uniforms and badges. Sometimes they do it for nefarious purposes, because unless we’ve been running drugs or trying to kick a meth habit, we trust cops. Stopped at night, on a lonely street, car broken down… flashing red and blue lights. You think, “I’m safe.”

But who will step out of that car?

Like I said, fascinating profession, with its own groupies (ever hung out in a cop bar? I have), wannabes, haters, and a strong sense of brotherhood.

So we write about cops for the same reasons as some people, like the guy/girl who was trying to impress his/her girlfriend. They are mostly heroes, with power, trying to keep the world safe.

Of course they are flawed. Of course there are bad cops. In my line of work that makes it interesting. In Karin’s Hubby’s line of work, it makes it dangerous.

All in all, we write about cops because they are fascinating. How many of you have police characters in your novels or WIPs (if you are writers) and what motivates YOU to write about them?

This weekend I was doing a little research for an idea I have. To that end, I bought the book WE, THE JURY, written by two journalists and several jurors from the Scott Peterson Trial. I had a hard time making myself buy this book. It’s an excellent insight to what I need for research but…

I have a hard time supporting anyone profiting from murder. I realize the jurors didn’t commit a crime, and they did their civic duty.

As an aside here, I think “civic duty” is one of those terms we throw around to either 1) coerce people into doing what they don’t want to, or 2) make sure people know we did something VERY IMPORTANT. It reminds me of when my kids were young and team moms, class moms, PTA moms used the phrase “for the kids,” or “for the children” to suck out endless volunteer hours, money or whatever they wanted from me.

But back to my point, it can also be said that journalists, police officers, or any number of professions “profit” from murder. But I would argue that law enforcement gets paid regardless of the specific murder, and journalist reports (theoretically) on all newsworthy events, not just murder.

However, getting a book deal solely due to the fact that you served on a jury bothers me. It’s profiting from murder. Remember OJ Simpson and how EVERYONE wrote a book? The lawyers, prosecutors, witnesses, journalists, friends…it’s like a nightmare that won’t end.

And yet, part of me is a true capitalist. You know how people make fun of Fabio who made a pretty decent career out of being a cover model for romance books? I actually think, “Hey more power to you bud.” I mean female models have made careers for themselves, why not a male cover model for romance novels? And now-a-days I hear the Romantic Times Convention has a big cover model contest and people love it. Fabio was the beginning of something big (No puns people!) I am a capitalist at heart. I admire entrepreneurs, I applaud their success.

But a juror charged with a deciding if the defendant is guilty or innocent, and in some cases, will live or die for their crimes…should they profit? Isn’t that a slippery slope? How do we know they aren’t taking their future profits into consideration when they deliberate? Will they get a bigger advance if they vote for death? Or life? What if they let the killer walk—will that get them a movie deal or on Larry King or Oprah?

And yet, I bought the book. I tell myself it’s for research, but I could have probably found another way. I don’t feel great about it. I don’t want people to profit from murder. It’s bad enough that we turn these trials into a circus in which the killer becomes the center of attention, so much so that even on death row, they get bags of fan mail and marriage proposals.

So what do you think? Should jurors be allowed to profit for doing their civic duty, a duty that is about justice for those who have been gravely wronged or murdered?

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My earliest recollection of what I wanted to be when I grew up was a nurse. That was in the second grade, and I was going to marry Phillip forgot-his-last-name. My teacher, Miss Melanie who was a beautiful Hawaiian lady, (she sang and did the hula for us adoring seven year olds, and she looked just like the pretty pictures), discovered Philip and I writing love notes to each other one day. I distinctly remember her snatching the note from my horrified hand, then reading it out loud to the class. I was so poetic back then. When she muttered those three words I had written, “I love you!” with such contempt in her voice, there was not a rock small enough for me to hide under. I was humiliated to the core, and to this day, every time I hear melikalikimaka I break out in hives.

We, the two love struck children, were promptly separated, and Phillip never spoke to me again. And that’s ok, because when I finally took a good look at the twerp, I discovered Phillip had big gaping nostrils and he didn’t blow his nose when he should.

But I digress.

In the third grade I was introduced to my first true love: horses. By fourth grade I had read every Margurite Henry book written, and my daddy was taking me to the local riding academy three times a week for lessons. Naturally I was going to be the world’s first lady jockey of note. I could not wait to grow up so that I could ride with the wind. Um yeah, I think by sixth grade I was 5’7”. A tall and lanky 115 pounds. Sigh. But that was ok, because now I had heard my true calling. I was going to be the veterinarian of all veterinarians. Here’s how I knew this.

It’s spring time, my daddy bought me a flat of colorful petunias to plant in the back yard. I’m toiling away when my little spade hits something hard. A rock I figure. Oh, contraire. It was a box turtle who hadn’t bothered to come out and play. I dug him out and put him in a box. And watched, breathless for him to immerge from his long winter’s nap. An hour went by, nada. Ah, I understood his reluctance. He probably thought it was still winter. Easily fixable. I cranked up the tried and true Suzy Homemaker Oven, slid ol’ Tom the turtle in, and voila, several moments later, he popped right out!

So, when that went by the wayside, I was going to be a model. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

But the turning point in my life (hey when I look back it was!) was in the eighth grade, when Barbara Zappo slipped me a dog-eared copy of The Flame and the Flower, and forbid me to tell anyone where I got it.
Sigh. After devouring the book in one night, under the covers with a flashlight, I knew then my heart’s desire was to be Heather Birmingham. That lasted me into high school.

Then I wrote my first love story. Long hand. About a beautiful tragic model and her pet wolf who lived in Manhattan and who accidentally bumped into a rock star who amazingly resembled Rod Stewart, and yes, after several temper tantrums and the Rod Stewart boyfriend coming around, and proclaiming his love for her to the entire world by dedicating his Central Park concert to his lady love, they lived happily ever after. The title of this critically acclaimed novel? THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME. Yes, my friends, I had found my calling. I Karin Maiden-Name was going to be the next Jackie Suzanne/Rosemary Rodgers.

Well, then reality caught up with me. I married, began a family, was still a voracious reader but it never occurred to me to write. I started a business at 25, a business that is still running strong. The writing bug didn’t hit me again until my last child was born. But I had four of the buggers and two businesses at the time to run and a husband who worked weird-ass shifts, and just no time. Or so I thought. It took me eighteen months, but I wrote another story, in long hand, between the hours of 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. Another masterpiece! A 175K word romantic suspense. It’s still under the bed.

I didn’t write again for 10 years. But this time when the bug took hold, my life was more conducive. Thank god for my office manager who did the work while I was squirreled away in my office and wrote like a mad woman. So here it is years later, I still have the same office manger, I work a little bit more in the biz than I would like, but in so doing it keeps me on my toes, and I am a writing fiend.

I think it’s odd, that until six years ago, while I always dabbled in writing and loved to read romance, it never occurred to me to write toward publication. In so many ways I wished I’d had this realization earlier, but then again, had I, I wouldn’t be where I am sitting right now, and from my window the water lilies in my koi pond look pretty amazing. So I have no regrets.

How about you? What did you always want to be when your grew up? And are you now?

After reading Karin’s sexy and fabulous book SKIN, I had a bit of an ephiphany. Then this morning, when reading one of my email lists and the talk prompt was about sexual tension (and I read all the advice given), I realized that there are some misconceptions about sexual tension, but more than that, there are misconceptions about reader expectations.

Karin does sexual tension really, really well. It pops off the page. The h/h don’t have to go to bed together for the book to be sexy (though they do eventually get to relieve their sexual tension!) The sexiness is in the anticipation and conflict. Karin can explain this better than me because she’s the one who does it so well. It’s part of what makes her stand out as a writer. It’s part of her voice. Even in her earlier unpublished books, which I’ve read in parts, her sexual tension was well-done.

If you don’t naturally write sexy, it’s really hard to force it. Like forced sex, it’s no fun, painful, and–frankly–a crime. If you’re forcing it, it shows on the page. The reader cringes.

One bit of advice on this loop I’m on suggested that all romance novels no matter what the genre must have sexual tension. Hmm, yes and no. Yes, in a romance you are expecting some sexual undercurrent, more or less. This is where reader expectations come in. If a reader is expecting a sexy story, you’d better deliver it. If the reader is expecting a scary story or a suspenseful story, such as what I write, the relationship is icing on the cake and should raise the stakes in the suspense.

One thing my editor usually catches is my lack of sexual awareness among my characters. In SPEAK NO EVIL, for example, she commented after my love scene, “Good, but can Nick and Carina be sexually aware of each before they go to bed?” Hmm, good point. In my opinion, it was there, but obviously too subtle. I fixed the problem by adding a conversation between them that tied them together emotionally, and by adding a passionate kiss earlier in the book. But there was no way I could have layered in pages and pages of sexual tension. It’s not my voice, and it would have messed with my reader expectations.

I may be wrong, but I think people who read me expect a good suspense story, a well-developed villain, and a hero and heroine who rise above to save the people they love and the innocent. The developing relationship between the h/h must compliment my story, and show that two people who may naturally be loners or grieving or angry at the injustices in the world, can find happiness.

Amanda, a regular visitor here, found my “brand” or my common theme in my books, and I think she was right. She said “no man (or woman) is an island.” This is something that my characters need to learn in order to attain that happily ever after.

Romantic suspense is such a broad genre, that almost anything goes. Sexual tension works if that’s your voice, like Karin. So if you want a master lesson in sexual tension, read SKIN. If that’s your voice, you’ll learn so much. But if it’s not your voice, and you try to do the same thing because people tell you you HAVE to do it, then you’ll fail, and that certainly won’t get you anywhere in your career. (But still, read the book because it’s good.)

Be wary of people who tell you that you HAVE to do anything. Unless, of course, that person is paying you for the book. Editors definitely get a lot more leeway in telling me what to do, but the BEST editors will always make suggestions or show that something isn’t working, and let the author fix it to suit their voice and story goals.

So where am I going with all this? Well, in my current work-in-progress, KILLING FEAR, my heroine Robin McKenna is a former stripper. I thought that by having a sexy profession my book would be sexier. But it’s not. Why? Because even though that’s what she used to do, I’m not writing the scenes where I describe her moves or her costumes or anything like that. It doesn’t fit the story. What fits is how she views herself, how the hero views her, and more important, how the villain views her.

In fact, my hero and heroine both remember passionate love scenes because they were really hot for each other seven years ago. Thing is, I don’t think I could write the actual scene if I tried. I’m doing snippets of the scenes, like the core purpose of the past scene, because otherwise I wouldn’t be true to my voice. I wouldn’t do it well. Reader expectations are, frankly, more about the FEELINGS of your reader when they put down the book. For me, I want to make sure that they have some sort of adrendalin rush, a thrill if you will; I want them to be scared and then relieved and elated when good triumphs over evil, and the girl gets the guy should be a smile on their face–it’s the reward after a life and death journey.

The single best thing about being unpublished is that you have no reader expectations. You can do anything you want, try anything you want, any genre, any story, any tone. Do it now, while you have the chance. Because when you sell, you’ll have reader expectations and fulfilling them should be your number one goal.

Now, for a question. I have two huge pet peeves in romantic suspense. The first is when the author stops the action in order for the hero and heroine to scope each other out, and then I have a couple pages of physical descriptions and/or reactions to something physical about the h/h when there’s other things going on. Time doesn’t stop, so why are they standing their lusting after each other? My other big pet peeve is the h/h having sex when they shouldn’t, i.e. when they KNOW (or should know) that the bad guy is about to catch up with them, or when an innocent is in danger, or when bullets are flying. You know what I mean.

What’s your big pet peeve about sex or sexual tension in romantic suspense novels?

I had a WOW! moment this week—You know, one of those rare times when the fullness of something you thought you knew and understood really comes to life inside you. Kind of like knowing there’s a recliner in a dark living room. You know it’s there because you’ve busted your shin against it a time or two. Then all of a sudden someone turns on a light, and the chair you knew was always there is now in full color and view. You can confidently walk towards it, sit in it if you want to, walk around it if you choose, whatever, because the path to it and the shape, colors, and texture of that chair are crystal clear.

Here’s what happened . . .

A high school teacher contacted me recently to ask if I’d be interested in allowing his students to interview me. I agreed, of course, but since time schedules were tight on both ends, we decided to do the interview over phone. So, on the agreed upon day, he called from his classroom and put me on speaker phone.

At first the kids were a bit shy, hesitantly asking stock questions like, “Where do you get your ideas? How long does it take you to write a book?” While I’m answering the questions, I’m thinking, “Man, if I had a choice between sitting in a classroom and listening to some old broad blabber over a speaker phone about how long she’d been writing or me doing something else, I’d choose doing something else . . . like getting a root canal.” No, really, it’s true, I was boring myself.

I knew the teacher had prepared questions beforehand to make sure the kids participated in the interview, but I also knew that as soon as we hung up the phone, they’d forget 98% of what was said. And who could blame them? In truth, when you push aside the curtain of social niceties, 97% of the human population wants to talk about themselves, their issues, their accomplishments, their dreams. They’ll listen to you because it’s the polite thing to do, but few really ‘hear’ what you’ve got to say. Why? Because all we’re yakking about is ourselves. –My book—My tour—My life—My kids—My this—My that. Blah—who gives a flip, really? Folks will hear you talk about these things, though, if what you have to say on the subject gives them something, like laughter, motivation, encouragement, hope, etc. In the same vein, if your words stoke any of their emotional embers, be it anger, pride, fear, happiness, etc, you’ll usually find yourself with more ‘hearers’ than not. All that being said, though, I knew I faced an even greater challenge here because I was talking to teens, the majority of whom have the attention span of a gnat. So I decided to gamble….

As soon as the next question was asked… “How old were you when you started writing?” I threw that slow-moving, boring-ass train off the track with this answer…. “I started playing around with words when I was a kid, but I really didn’t start writing until the day I saw my first dead body.”

There was dead silence on the other end of the phone.

Then I heard the teacher clear his throat. He asked, “Did you say dead body?”

I confirmed and gave a short summary of the first autopsy I’d helped with and how that changed the way I wrote. In my mind, that’s when I really started ‘writing’ because I went from imagining what it was like (even with research) to hold a person’s brains, heart, liver, etc., in my hands, to knowing what if felt like, smelled like, looked like.

As I suspected, this opened a flood gate, and the kids couldn’t ask questions fast enough. Before I knew it we were all over the place, jumping from crime scenes to embalming rooms, to ghost hunts, and how all this fit into writing. Time flew by, making the hour-long interview seem like five minutes. When the teacher told the kids it was time to end the interview, I heard a loud collective groan. They didn’t want it to end.

Later that day, hours after the interview, the teacher called to let me know that since the interview, his students had been hounding him for copies of my books, and he wanted to surprise them with autographed copies. Needless to say, I was thrilled. I had him send me the names of all the students who’d been in the class, along with the box of books, so I could personalize each copy.

My WOW came when I signed the first book: For Ana—remember to always keep it real— In that moment, I flashed back to the sound of the kids’ excited chatter over the phone, their hunger to hear more, to understand more, their disappointment when we had to hang up. Reviewing that, I realized I had told them very little about Deborah or her writing process. Instead, I’d shared my adventures with them, fleshing out the stories with details of sights and sounds and smells, bringing the kids as up-close and personal as I could so each of them felt like they were standing right there with me, experiencing those same adventures. And I did it without the physical aid of gestures, facial expressions, or eye contact. And they heard.

So did I.

I’m a storyteller. I just happen to write down more of my stories than I speak them, which makes it all the more important for me to pay attention to each word I put on a page. They have to have life—they need to breathe—and I’m the one who needs to remember to always keep it real.