I’m excited to have as my guest today Mary Buckham, who has released a Novella and Book One of an exciting new Urban Fantasy series, called the Invisible Recruits. I’ve had the pleasure of taking Mary’s Active Setting class via WriterUniv and learned some great methods of writing strong settings. Now a little about Mary:

Mary was born into a family of artists so as a natural story teller didn’t realize she was creative until an adult. After working in the financial and media industries, as well as raising five children, Mary turned to writing and now loves creating thrills, spills and spells as she follows the ups and downs of fascinating characters starting with Alex Noziak, the heroine of INVISIBLE MAGIC, INVISIBLE FATE and INVISIBLE POWER.

Please tell us a little bit about yourself. Your interests? When did you start writing?

I wish I had a wonderful, marvelous tale of sitting down one day and deciding to be a writer but my journey didn’t start there. It started with the death of my two-month old son from SIDS or Crib Death one dark December day, a few days before Christmas. He was my fourth child and after his death I had to find a reason to get up every day and put one foot in front of another in order to take care of my other three children. When you experience such a loss you have to dig deep, really deep to discover your own core, your reason for being. For me that was writing. I felt I was meant to share stories with others and that’s what I decided to do, one page at a time, one book at a time.

Thanks for sharing that. I’m sorry for your loss. I have a four year old son and just couldn’t imagine. It’s great that writing gave you something to work through the tragedy.  

What has been one of your biggest challenges so far in your writing career?

Never learning how to type. <sigh> When I was in high school and college women were pressured into learning how to type so they could be efficient secretaries and assistants. Since I didn’t want to be either I figured if I didn’t learn typing I would be forced to explore other avenues more in line with my Type A personality. So I still hen peck my way through manuscripts. In my next life I’ll learn how to type so I could finish twice as many books!

LOL. I’m not a good typist. One thing I know for sure is you can teach 🙂 How does teaching help you with the writing craft?

We’ve all heard the old adage, those who can’t teach. That’s a bunch of bull-larkey! I think those that teach have the ability to learn and keep on learning and that’s the most amazing gift! I was not trained to be a teacher but found that in sharing what I’ve learned, usually through trial and error, and helping others I have connected with the most amazing writers worldwide. And these are writers of all genres and at different stages in their careers so the give and take of the learning/teaching process is amazing! If I could live two lives simultaneously and had an extra 24-hours a day I’d write full time and continue to teach full time and love both equally.

What type of scenes do you enjoy writing the most?

Action scenes. Maybe it comes from raising five kids. Give me a good skirmish that’s fast-paced and creates winners and losers and I’m in heaven. But I love dialogue scenes too, and scenes rife with sexual tension. Wow, this was a harder question than I realized 🙂

Yes, with kids, you’re constantly on the move :). Let’s talk about your Invisible Recruits series. When I read about it on your website, I had so many interesting questions pop in my head. Let’s start with what made you decide to expand the concept for Invisible Recruits from an original story of everyday women brought together to fight international threats, to one where they have extra abilities?

I love the theme of self-discovery for women. Many of us are so defined by our roles in life—daughter, sister, friend, wife, mother, volunteer, employee, etc.—that we can easily forget or never realize our own potential.  That’s where the core of the stories started. Everyday women who have a little extra something-something but have hidden or ignored their abilities until tapped to be part of this secret organization. So these women start from a certain self-identity; hairdresser, debutante, temp worker, con artist and kindergarten teacher and expand that into a secret agent status and then have to embrace their otherness until the women they are becoming are nothing like the women they were. Continue reading →