SEALed with a Kiss Q & A

Mary Margret Daughtridge, author of SEALed with a Kiss has kindly done some Q & A for her web tour! If you have a question you'd like to ask Mary Margret, you can post it in the comments by the end of the week (4/5/08) and she'll answer it.

Both Jax and Pickett have occupations that are very technical and specific. How much research did you do for them?

Fortunately, my speech pathology and family education background is somewhat similar to that of a family therapist, so for Pickett I drew on my own experience. After all, she doesn’t try to be a therapist to Jax and Tyler—just a friend.

Detailed, current, technical data about SEALs is very hard to come by because their work is covert, and most of their operations classified. However, I was more concerned with how being a SEAL shapes a man’s character, than whether he would prefer a Heckler and Koch semi-automatic or a Glock.

JC Roat’s Class 29 was probably the most insightful book I read about what character traits make a man want to be a SEAL, and how becoming a SEAL changes him. I read and reread more than twenty books about SEALs and Special Operations, poured over military web sites, and corresponded extensively with two former SEALs, one of whom has become a good friend. A Navy lieutenant who works closely with SEALs was another source of information.
Without the two SEALs who patiently told me how they would handled this or that, SEALed With A Kiss would never have been written. In some scenes, I have actually used their own words. They exemplified the generosity of spirit, willingness to overcome all obstacles, and uncompromising accountability of these extraordinary men.

You created some important secondary characters in Tyler, Pickett’s Dogs, and many others. Talk about their roles and what made them so special to you.

There are characters that an author designs to fit a role, and characters that just appear. Tyler was the former. I needed a bright child, old enough to talk fluently, but too young to be left unattended under any circumstances. I chose a four-year-old because between four and five is an unstable age emotionally. Without warning, an otherwise good-natured child may return to the trantruming and non-compliance one associates with two’s, so Tyler could be counted on to give Jax a hard time. [grin] However, once I had established the parameters, Tyler proved he was his father’s son. I knew it the moment he surprised me by asking Pickett out of the blue, “Is my mother dead, do you think?”

As for the dogs, the lumbering yellow Lab, Patterson, and his sidekick, the cheerfully lowbred Lucy, just popped into my mind. Later, scruffy and a little dangerous, a Shepherd-mix named Hobo Joe turned up and I almost wrote him out, because, my goodness, Pickett didn’t need another dog! I was wrong. It turned out there was a lot more to Hobo Joe than met the eye.

The other secondary character is Tyler’s grandmother. When I first imagined her, she was only Jax’s antagonist, but in time I came to feel such compassion for her…she isn’t evil, she’s only trying to stop the pain of losing her daughter. I hope I get to write her story someday and give her a happy ending.

See, there’s this SEAL who’s not intimidated at all by her money, power and beauty. He tells her some truths she needs to hear, and then, because no good deed goes unpunished, he winds up having to ride herd on her, but he’s got troubles of his own, not the least of which is an injury that could sideline him permanently, and then…

Navy SEALs lead a pretty intense life. What do you think this brought to the character of Jax?

I chose a SEAL as my hero precisely because the life of a SEAL is just too hard, too all consuming to bear unless he wants it passionately. Jax’s marriage foundered because being a SEAL came first, and he has a son he hardly knows, because being away two-hundred plus days a year doesn’t leave much time for visits. But SEALs also feel hyper-responsible for those in their care. Of course every SEAL is an individual, but both by nature and by training they share certain characteristics. It was fun to extrapolate how Jax would think like a SEAL in a non-SEAL challenge.

Pickett seems so unsure of the developing relationship with Jax. What was it like creating a character with such an internal struggle?

The truth is that therapists have as many insecurities and blind spots as everyone else, and can just as easily fool themselves. Pickett has worked hard and overcome much to become the woman she is. However, she has placed all her confidence and her personal pride in her clinical expertise. So when she’s attracted to a man who doesn’t measure up to her husband checklist, she’s more lost than the average person would be. Pickett’s real problem is that she’s achieved a certain a level in her life and now she’s playing it safe. Jax is just what she needs to kick her out of her comfort zone.

I had fun dropping hints to the reader that Pickett is much more than thinks she is. Right up to the end, the reader can see Pickett more clearly than she sees herself.

What’s next for your writing?

Jax’s friend, the wily and subtle MENSA material, Caleb “Do Lord” Dulaude, demanded his own book before I was half done with SEALed With a Kiss. For this ex-bad-boy who grew up at the dirty fringes of society, becoming a SEAL saved his life and probably his soul. Now, to finally live up to a promise he made his mother, he has to trust an absent-minded professor, rather than another SEAL, to watch his six and he has to lose his heart, if he hopes to mend it.

What else do you do other than write?

I love choral singing, for which I have extremely minor talent, and painting. Recently I took up ballroom dance. It’s so much fun, one of these days I want to work it into a book. I also love to learn and most of the time I’m taking a course in something—right now, I’m studying a communication process called “Non-violent Communication.”