A Few Minutes With Mary Margret Daughtridge

Mary Margret Daughtridge has been a grade school teacher, speech therapist, family educator, biofeedback therapist and Transpersonal Hypnotherapist, and for twenty years a Master Practitioner of NLP the techniques Paul McKenna uses on I Can Make You Thin. She is a member of the Heart of Carolina Romance Writers, Romance Writers of America, and Romancing the Military Stone. She lives in Greensboro, NC and is currently working on her next romance.

SEALed With a Kiss is Mary Margret's debut novel and since its April release is garnering rave reviews.

Q -- Navy SEAL heroes remain a popular hero in romance fiction -- what makes your hero, Jackson Graham different?

SEALs are professional heroes. Their warrior persona is so staggeringly capable, it can be easy to forget that when they don't have their flippers on, they are human beings fumbling through their lives just like the rest of us. Jax's difference from the usual SEAL hero is that the reader gets to see his private face.

Instead of starring in romantic suspense, Jax is cast as the hero in what I call a feel good' story all about home and family and what love brings to us, and also what it requires of us.

But I didn't turn Jax into Ward Cleaver in a wet-suit. He's still a SEAL. Oh yeah.

Q -- You chose to focus on Jax's vulnerabilities in your story, yet he still comes across as very much the Alpha hero. Did you find this a difficult balance to maintain?

Nope, not at all.

Seriously, I had a lot of help from Jax. Jax's Alpha traits are so strong that they show through no matter what the situation. Protectiveness. Leadership. A drive to excel. Hyper-responsibility. Awareness of his worth. And self-confidence the size of an aircraft carrier.

Actually, much of his vulnerability happens because of his Alpha nature. He loves his son and wants to be a good father as any good man would. However, that SEAL drive to excel makes him constantly evaluate his performance, and judge any failure harshly. Ignorance is not an excuse. Being unprepared is even worse. He's messing up with his son, and he knows it, and it KILLS him. He doesn't cut himself one bit of slack.

Same with responsibility. It's hard to even find the words to convey how responsible SEALs feel for those in their care. When Tyler almost comes to harm because Jax is momentarily inattentive, it doesn't just give Jax a scare, it deeply shames him.

Q -- The heroine of the story is a family therapist who counsels members of the military. Pickett Sessoms knows SEALs in particular have a dismal success rate when it comes to relationships and marriage. Did you choose her career to generate greater conflict in the story?

Let's face it, the internal conflict had to come from somewhere. I knew I couldn't count on Jax. Alpha males in general, and SEALs in particular, don't experience much ambivalence. As soon as he decided Pickett was the one for him, that would be that. No obstacle or hardship would stop him. So the only character who could have a conflict was Pickett.

But I had to have a reason for her objections to Jax that didn't spring from prejudice. So who in modern society would have a view of marriage that was more rational than romantic? A family therapist. Who would a ninety-five percent divorce rate be a giant red flag to? A family therapist.

Pickett doesn't dislike military men or think all military marriages fail, but she knows way too much about the damage a military career can do to a marriage to think she wants to try it. She's frequently overcome with admiration for the quiet heroism, and true grit she sees in military families, and sadly, she also knows "love" isn't always enough.

Q -- Do you have a set schedule for writing? Do you write at a certain time of day?

Lately, going through the first move in twenty years, my schedule is shot, however what works best for me is to get up around 4.30 and write until noon. My brain seems to be most creative then.

Q -- Do you have any superstitios rituals that you do before you start writing?

[grin] I have a friend who made it through law school, she swears, because of a lucky green sweater she wore to exams. I've tried on everything in my closet. Nothing works. However, sometimes when I get stuck, it helps to switch to longhand. It won't work though, unless I use a yellow legal pad, and a yellow #2 pencil.

Q -- What are your favorite books of all time? What books have influenced you most in your writing career?

I'm a voracious reader, often with five or more books open at a time. There are so many books I've loved, I couldn't possibly choose a favorite. I'd have to say the most influential writer would be Robert A Heinlein. That man could write a story that could entertain anyone of any age, and I often think to myself, "What would Heinlein do?"

Q -- How did you decide on names for your characters?

I've already admitted a lot my writing process is a mystery to me. Take Pickett. She's the heroine in SEALed With a Kiss. She's a character who had lived in my head for years, waiting for me to find a hero for her, and her name had always been Pickett. Some people even advised me that it wasn't a "good" name for a romantic heroine, but I couldn't help it. Pickett was her name, and if I tried to change it, the character went flat. Fortunately, a lot of readers love the name, and think it makes her stand out.

I fumbled around for a good while though, to name the SEAL hero. Then one day in an airport I saw a luggage check with JAX on it. Suddenly I knew he was Jackson Graham the third, and when he was a kid, his best friend thought that name didn't fit him, so he nicknamed him Jax, because "that sounds like the name of a Jedi." And what was the name of the best friend? Corey. I knew it instantly.

Q -- What do you like most about military heroes?

Writing military heroes chose me, more than the reverse. I read a newspaper article about a soldier in Iraq who had been ordered by a judge to leave the army, or she would lose a child custody battle. I was incredibly touched by the soldier's internal and external conflict. When I started constructing a story about that, I asked myself who among the military would experience the most conflict between his job and his duty as a parent? The answer was easy. Someone in Special Operations. Those men make huge sacrifices around their personal life and relationships. I chose a SEAL.

When I began to research them, I learned what extraordinary men they are. They are already larger than life. Something one might not guess about them, is that they are funny. All the SEALs I have met have this insouciant, irreverent wit that cracks me up. I tried very hard to capture that in Jax, and I think it's a large part of his charm.

Q -- How do you think curent military conflicts will impact the military hero sub-genre?

Good question. Actually SEALed With a Kiss is a blend of sub-genres. The hero is military, but the plot is a home and hearth, feel-good romance, that totally focuses on relationships, rather than the action adventure or romantic suspense usually associated with SEALs.

Since 9/11, romantic suspense and paranormals have gotten darker and darker, and more and more cynical, reflecting the spirit of the times. We see the heroes and heroines fighting inhuman evil that has persisted for eons. I think part of their appeal is that the reader gets to experience, vicariously, at least a momentary triumph over vast and incomprehensible forces while being thoroughly entertained!

I have a theory that, now that people have absorbed 9/11 and recognize there aren't any easy answers, there will be an upsurge of demand for romances that offer not only entertainment and escape, but encouragement, and the hope that very, very human people of goodwill can face the challenges that confront our world today and prevail.

Q -- What projects are you working on next?

Jax's friend the wily MENSA-material, Caleb "Do Lord" Dulaude, demanded his own book, before I was half through 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 possibly his soul. Now, to finally fulfill a promise he made to his mother, Do Lord must depend on an absent-minded professor, rather than another SEAL, to have his back; and he must lose his heart if he's going to mend it.

Q -- Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

Learn to control your imagination. It's your greatest asset, but it can also be your inner saboteur. When you imagine what might happen to yourself, make up happy stories. You will live out whatever stories you make up about yourself.