Lisa Pietsch Got Hijacked!

Lisa Pietsch writes about terrorists and terrorism -- and as a former US Air Force military cop you can trust the details she packs in her stories. So I'm thrilled to welcome her back today as she relates how her characters hijacked her NaNoWriMo project.

* * *

The short version:
Two characters hijacked my story.

The long version:

It was National Novel Writing Month (November 2009) and I was working on the fourth manuscript in my Task Force 125 series. I wanted to keep the story short since it would be released in ebook format and action packed since that's what my characters and readers enjoy. My goal was to shoot for 35000 words which is smack dab in the middle of Novella word counts.

I started writing and things were going swimmingly when my main character needed to hire a bodyguard. So I tapped on the take-out window of my imagination and said "One bodyguard please, easy on the eyes". Within seconds, this is the character that came out.

Jay Stanstead was a career man in the British Special Air Service (SAS). He spent twenty years jumping out of planes, cut more throats than he cared to count and drank more pints than he could remember. He'd invested his money well and had a comfortable retirement courtesy of the crown but his life was missing something he couldn't live without - action. On the suggestion of a mate, he met with an American named Brock Benjamin who ran a private military company that specialized in providing freelance work for guys with a certain type of military experience. Jay enjoyed the freelance work and made a good reputation for himself. One day, Brock called him and two other men in for a special job. Brock showed them a photo of a woman and explained that she was an international businesswoman who needed a personal security specialist, a bodyguard.

No woman, real or photographed, had ever made Jay's heart stop until that day.
Jay wanted this client. He had to have this client.

The pay was excellent and the conditions guaranteed were first class. All three men expressed an interest in the job.

Brock stood, smiled and announced he expected to see one man in his office in ten minutes after they'd worked it out amongst themselves.

Jay broke bones that day to be a bodyguard, to be Sarah Stevens' bodyguard.

Jay was much more than I was expecting and I must admit my heroine was a bit surprised too. Not only that, but two of my most macho characters developed man crushes (the "wow, I want to be like him" kind as opposed to the "wow, I want to sleep with him" sort). So Jay, this charming British action man jumped into the story and created some fantastic scenes.

I was totally enamored with Jay for about a week when a new character showed up.

Giselle Dumais is in her early sixties and still grabbing life, and men, by the balls. If it is hot and at least twenty years her junior she'll try to mount it. She has an oral fixation and is either chain smoking her unfiltered Moroccan cigarettes or enjoying the company of a younger man in her bed. Either way, she's smoking something.

This woman threw such a twist of comedy into the manuscript that my face hurt from laughing. She was French, bold and oh so brazen. She reminded me very much of my mamere (my family is originally from France and only a few generations out of Canada).

All of the books in the Task Force 125: American Swift series feature a team of six main characters. Sarah Stevens is the heroine and she works with Vince (a former U.S. Marine), Will (former U.S. Navy), Brian (former U.S. Navy SEAL), Jason (former U.S. Army Green Beret) and Chris (FBI Intelligence Analyst). They all work for the C.I.A.'s Special Activities Division as Paramilitary Operations Officers (what one may commonly refer to as super spies).

I know those characters and expect certain behaviors from them but I was just not expecting Jay and Giselle. They've hijacked the story with action, romance and laughter and I have to say this story will be much longer than 35,000 words!

If there is one thing I love about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) it is the speed with which these surprises pop up.

If you'd like to find out more about my characters and win a free copy of the first book in the Task Force 125: American Swift series, The Path to Freedom, leave a comment telling me who your favorite action hero or cougar is and why they are.

Thanks for reading!

Lisa (Thibault) Pietsch is a Franco-American novelist who lives in Denver with her Air Force husband, two young sons and two very large dogs. You can find her and her stories online at www.LisaPietsch.com.

(You can also follow Lisa on Twitter.)

Tis the season

Gizmo Guy often sends me jokes to distract me. I decided to share this one with you. (And after you've finished, don't forget to visit Tera's blog, the Samhellion (click on the graphic to get to the rules), and to Rock the Raven Christmas Tree for your chances to win a Kindle or Sony Reader.) Oh, and my "Spot the Differences" contest for a 2010 Toronto Firefighter Calendar is still open. (Hint, if you're finding it difficult to see the pictures, you can click on them to enlarge them.)



Miss Beatrice, the church organist, was in her eighties and had never been married.She  was admired for her sweetness and kindness to all.One afternoon the pastor came to call on her and she showed him into her quaint sitting room.

She invited him to have a seat while she prepared tea. As he sat facing her old Hammond organ,the young minister noticed a cute glass bowl sitting on top of it. The bowl was filled with water,and in the water floated, of all things, a condom!

When she returned with tea and scones, they began to chat. The pastor tried to stifle his curiosity about the bowl of water and its strange floater, but soon it got the better of him and he could no longer resist.

"Miss Beatrice," he said, "I wonder if you would tell me about this?" pointing to the bowl.

"Oh, yes," she replied, "Isn't it wonderful? I was walking through the park a few months ago and I found this little package on the ground. The directions said to place it on the organ, keep it wet and that it would prevent the spread of disease. Do you know I haven't had the flu all winter."

Pizza Pan Cookies

Over on my editor's blog on Friday, Tera asked me about my favorite holiday food. I told her it was Pizza Cookies because although it doesn't sound particularly Christmasy, I only make them at this time of year. (There are too many calories for me to indulge more than once a year.)

A few people expressed an interest in them, so I decided to share the recipe with you. (Although I did share it over on Shelley Munro's blog during a guest spot I did over there last year.)

Pizza Pan Cookies

1 cup butter or margarine, softened
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup packed brown sugar
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2 ¼ cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 package (or 1 ½ cups) semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
(You can get inventive and try raisins or M&M pieces, etc.)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly grease two 12-inch pizza pans. Cream butter, sugars, cream cheese and vanilla in a large bowl. Add eggs; beat until light. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Add to creamed mixture; blend well. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts. Divide dough in half; press each half evenly into the pizza pans.

Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. Cool completely in pans on wire racks. When cool, the cookies may be decorated with icing, icing sugar or other toppings. To serve, cut into slim wedges or break into pieces.

Enjoy!

Winner of the November Reader Appreciation Contest

It's December 6th already and I just remembered that I forgot to announce the winner of my Reader Appreciation contest for November:

flchen1!

You've won your choice of Samhain e-book. I'll be contacting you shortly.

Remember, you get entered in this contest every time you leave a comment any time that month. So come back and comment daily to up your chances of winning!

There were 90 items in your list. Here they are in random order:

1. flchen1
2. RKCharron
3. Sue L
4. Cate
5. Bridget
6. Meg Benjamin
7. flchen1
8. Joder
9. Shelley Munro
10. Amy Ruttan
+ 80 more names...

Timestamp: 2009-12-06 16:04:06 UTC

Snippet Saturday - Secondary Characters

It's Snippet Saturday again - today's topic is secondary characters. Personal Protection has a half dozen secondary characters, and I liked this snippet because it includes two that are in what hopefully will be in the next Hauberk book. Chad originally was Sam's boss over at the FBI but desperate to protect his sister, he inserted Sam into a situation that wasn't approved by the bosses with disastrous results. Now their roles are reversed as Chad works for Sam as the head of Hauberk's Washington office. The second secondary character is their uber-efficient assistant, Sandy. Which may give you a hint to the next book I'm working on (but don't be deceived by appearances.)


When the outer door opened and Chad walked in, Sandy’s head lowered. She stared up at Chad through her bangs in a Lady Di pose. With anyone else, Sam would have said it was practiced, but with Sandy it was a natural movement.

“Good morning, Chad. Can I get you a coffee?” Her voice had a little breathy hitch to it he’d never noticed before. Now wasn’t that interesting?

“No, thanks, Sandy. Sam, you got a minute?”

Anyone not knowing Chad would look at his businessman’s haircut with a few prematurely silver strands at his temple, and his double-breasted black suit, and be taken in by the relaxed image he projected. They’d assume he was just another mid-level management type. Or perhaps they’d catch his dark grey eyes and notice his sharp assessment and think him one of the hundreds of lawyers that populated the nation’s capital. Only if they managed to spot the shoulder holster he wore beneath his jacket, or the baby Glock strapped on his ankle, might anyone guess he was former FBI agent now in charge of the D.C. office of Hauberk Protection.

But today all trace of his relaxed persona had vanished. He prowled into Sam’s office and paced until Sam followed him. Once the door was closed, he folded his arms across his chest. “Why do I have to hear from my receptionist of all people that you had a break-in while you were away?”

“It’s no big deal, Chad. There was no damage.” Other than the word “Bang” written in ketchup on the comforter his mother had given him last Christmas. Sam pulled the envelope containing the photograph and slid it across the desk. “It’s basically the same as the others, though this one is a bit better quality.”

Chad cursed under his breath. “You touch it?”

Puh-leaze, like he’d make such a rookie mistake. “Nope.”

Once they’d both donned latex gloves, Chad peeled open the envelope and shook the contents onto the desk. When he saw a photo of Sam standing in line at Reagan National, half his head missing, brains trailing down his shoulders like snakes, Chad exhaled noisily.

“Jesus! It’s worse than the last one.” Chad grabbed a pen from his pocket, and turned the photo right side up. “I’ve seen real crime scenes with less gore.”

“Yeah, the addition of the blood and exposed brains is a new touch.” Sam pushed himself away from the desk, wanting to pace, but forced himself to stay seated. There had to be a clue here. More than just a threat. Some key to the identity of whoever was stalking him.

“Good thing the bastard didn’t have a gun at the airport instead of a camera,” Chad muttered. “Ink jet quality photo paper, eight and a half by eleven, same as last time.”

“Yup.” Sam lifted his coffee cup then swore when he realized it was still empty.

“Which means it was probably printed with a home quality printer as opposed to a professional printer.”

“Yeah, can’t see Wal-Mart processing that.”

Chad carefully slid the photograph back into the envelope. “This has been going on for three months now, Sam. At least let me assign a couple of CPOs to you.”

Sam scowled and flopped into his chair. “Come on, Chad, I don’t need close protection. Of all people, you know I’m trained in escape and avoidance techniques. In fact, I’m better than anyone you’d assign.” Sam shifted in his chair. “Besides, what’s it say to clients if the owner of a protection agency can’t protect himself?”

“It says he’s smart that he knows he needs an extra set of eyes. Damn it, Sam, this is no idle threat. You’re being followed. Stalked. And someone broke into your apartment, remember? The bastard could have set a bomb to go off when you opened the door.”

“Yeah, well…”

“What’s Mark say about the threats?”

Sam shrugged one shoulder. He’d meant to talk to his Dallas-based partner last time he’d flown down to Dallas but then Mark announced Jodi’s pregnancy and Sam hadn’t wanted to intrude on his friend’s happiness. And now he felt uncomfortable discussing it via email. Oh, by the way, thought you should know, someone’s taking pictures of me. Yeah, that would make him sound a real lame-ass weenie.

“You haven’t told him about them, have you?”

“Damn it, Chad, there’ve been a half dozen pictures in the past three months. And the phone calls—it’s some kid who dialed a random number and got lucky, that’s all.”

“Christ, Sam, listen to yourself. You get a picture doctored so it looks like your brains have been shot out, you’re getting phone calls with some mechanized voice telling you to prepare to die—”

Sam covered one fist with the other, cracked his knuckles. “If they wanted me dead they could have shot me any one of those times, but they didn’t. They took my picture a couple times and made a coupla calls. Big deal.”

“What about the break-in? No,” Chad corrected himself. “They didn’t need to break in, they had a key. And they knew the code to disable your security system so they could take as much time as they wanted. And yet here you sit trying to pretend it’s…what? A kid pranking you? Some practical joke?”

Yeah, the break-in had been hard to ignore. But damn it, that meant he knew whoever it was who was stalking him. Intimately. This wasn’t something he wanted to call the cops in on. He’d handle it himself. “So they emptied the ketchup bottle on my bed, along with one of those damned photos. That’s it. They’re not trying to hurt me, Chad.”

Chad forced his shoulders down and exhaled through his mouth in a long slow blow. “Sam, if I were a client receiving these pictures, you’d recommend I wear a vest every time I went out in public. You’d tell me to change up my routine—to take different routes at different times—”

“I’m already doin’ that. I check my six regularly—no one’s following me. They’re trying to psych me out, that’s all.”

Chad continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “You’d insist I used one of our special bullet-proof limos with a bodyguard trained in defensive driving as the chauffeur, and you’d assign a team of Close Protective Officers to guard you twenty-four/seven. And if I still didn’t listen, what would you say?”

Sam slumped back in his chair. “I’d ask you if your will was in order.”

Chad folded his arms across his chest and rocked on his heels. “So tell me, Sam, you got your will in order?”

Don't forget to drop by the other Snippet Saturday participants ...

Vivian Arend
Moira Rogers
Ashley Ladd
Anya Bast
Jaci Burton
Kelly Maher
Lauren Dane
Mandy Roth
McKenna Jeffries
Sasha White
Taige Crenshaw
Shelli Stevens
Shelley Munro
Eliza Gayle
Victoria Janssen
Jody Wallace
Juliana Stone
TJ Michaels

Contest winner, and four contests yet to win

So much to cover for today's post, covering both winners and ways to win.

First off, the winner of Meg Benjamin's Be My Baby is FLCHEN. Fedora, please could email me with your choice of format - PDF, PDF for Sony, HTML, Mobipocket, Rocketbook or LIT, I'll send you your copy upon its release next Tuesday.

Contests:

I'm the featured author over on my editor's Kindle contest today.  Remember, you have to leave a relevant comment on the post AND you also have to EMAIL Tera with your answer to the question that's posed. Do not answer in the comments, and don't send me your answers. (I have to chuckle - I did that "interview" a while back and I said that it's warmer in Texas than it is here. NOT. Parts of Texas are getting snow today while we've not had any yet this year. Hehehehe!)

I'm also part of the Samhellion Holiday Hunt that starts today at NOON. It's a scavenger hunt so you'll have to scour the websites of the participating Samhain authors looking for holiday related icons such as Christmas trees, lights, candles, that type of thing.  The prize for this week is an international Kindle loaded with the participating authors' books. (I've donated a copy of Private Property.)

Don't forget the Rockin' the Raven Christmas Tree hunt is open until December 24th - the prize for that is a Sony Reader, a $50 Visa card, or a $25 Amazon gift certificate.  Again, it's a scavenger hunt - you have to find a black Sony reader hidden on the participating authors pages in order to qualify.

I'm really excited about my "Spot the Differences" contest, which is also still open. There are only about a dozen entrants at the moment, so the chances you may be the winner are pretty darned good.

Oh, and one last note - if you want to save some money (who doesn't love to save money), head on over to Barnes and Noble where you can pre-order a print copy of my Personal Protection for 32% off. ($10.12 US instead of $15.) You'll have to wait until March to get it but still, $5 off? What a deal!

Spot the Differences Contest

Post #800

It's not that much of a milestone. I really shouldn't be celebrating anything until post #1000. But I have this thing for numbers, especially if they're even numbers, and even more so if they're round like this one. So 800 tickles my fancy. Not to mention it's coming up on the holiday season and I felt like doing something nice for my readers. Then Nika Dixon posted that blog post a while back about the Firefighters without Borders Calendar, and I found the Toronto Firefighters and voila, an idea for a prize.**Edited** since some of you haven't seen my earlier posts on the calendar, the proceeds from the sale of the calendar benefit Toronto's Princess Margaret Hospital, one of North America's top 10 cancer hospitals.**

I decided to have a bit of fun with the contest - something to make you work a little harder to earn this prize.

Thanks to a suggestion by Gizmo Guy, Curly's used his fantastic Photoshop abilities to adjust a photo I took when Blue Sue and I were visiting Fort Worth back in 2007. And so we've ended up with my first "Spot the Differences" challenge.

There are seven things different in the bottom photo compared to the top photo. I recommend you click on the pictures so they will be displayed in a very large format for easier viewing. You must find ALL seven items to be entered. Partial answers won't qualify.

Once you've found all seven differences, EMAIL your answers to leah DOT braemel @gmail.com  and you'll be entered in the Firefighter calendar contest.

Do NOT post your answers in the comments. I've turned on moderation, so your answers will be deleted and you will be disqualified.

I'm going to leave this contest open until December 10th.  The winner will be chosen from amongst those who have submitted the correct answers using Random.Org and announced on December 11th. If the winner has not contacted me within one week (by December 18th), I will redraw a new winner.

Picture #1

 Picture #2

Good luck!