Thanks to supremely supportive parents, I grew up believing I could have any career I wanted. My problem was figuring out what that career would be. There were so many interesting jobs in the world, I wanted to try them all. In college, I experimented with classes in medieval history and chemistry and psychology. After college I held jobs in restaurants, worked for a world-class quarter horse trainer and started my own window cleaning business. But both in college and out, one thing remained constant: writing. That’s were I finally landed, with a degree in creative writing and, eventually, a career as a novelist. But the thing I hadn’t counted on was that my choice would enable me to explore more different careers than I’d ever imagined.

A fiction writer must live in the skins of all her characters, and that includes understanding enough about each character’s career to make it seem real on the page. Often times that means doing a lot of research. Most of my early books were legal thrillers. I’m not a lawyer, so that meant a lot of studying. Not only did I learn answers to the specific legal questions the books presented, I had to figure out how to make the day-to-day work lives of my characters feel real. But the most important thing I discovered was what questions to ask and where to go to find the answers.

Of course, writing mysteries and thrillers usually involves various law enforcement characters. So the past few years, I’ve taken part in several citizen academies. I started with my local police department. There I shot a Glock, drove a squad car, collected evidence like fingerprints and footprints and learned defense and arrest tactics. After that, I explored the fire department, an adventure that eventually led me into a burning building. To check out pictures, go to my website.

Just this fall, I completed my county sheriff’s department’s citizen academy. This blog entry is getting outrageously long, so I’ll wait to tell you more about my most recent adventure in the next couple of weeks. The question I’d like to ask you today is: what careers did you always want to try out?

By the way, if you want to check out a fun interview I did today with fellow Intrigue author, Kathleen Long, go to Writers At Play.

Posted on 11/17/2008

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