Not long ago, a Facebook post popped up on my timeline from an author asking other authors what they believed was their best talent in writing. Some replied, they were unsure. A few were very specific. I sat with fingers poised over the keyboard. Then I curled them to my hands, and my hands slunk away from the laptop like the Wicked Witch of the East under Dorothy’s house.

I needed to ponder the question before answering. Was I good at anything? The author’s doubt began to compress around throat. I shouldn’t even answer this. I had nothing to say.

In my other life, I’m a sports reporter, and I will say I’m good at my job. I’ve won awards and even had racing legend A.J. Foyt ask for more copies of a story I’d written about him.

Fiction writing, however, is a completely different animal—even the punctuation. All you need to do is ask my editors about my comma problem. On a side note, news stories are written in A.P. Style and punctuation is often at a minimum.

I can tell a story in fifteen hundred words or less, but readers are paying for and usually want more words for their investment.

What was so important about me answering this Facebook post? Well, by forcing myself to answer, I was giving myself a little legitimacy. So, I thought over the books I’ve released, and the ones I’m currently writing, and I began to form an opinion of what aspect of writing I believe I write well.

Male point of view.

I have a comma problem. I’m way too fond of adverbs. “Just” is my absolute favorite word of all, but I can get inside a man’s head.

More than a few times, I’ve read or judged a book where I finished the man’s side of the story and ended with my own “said no man ever.” On the flip side, I can tell usually tell when a male has written a female point of view.

I come by this talent honestly.

Because of the age difference between me and my sister, my playmates growing up were the four boys who lived next door who ranged in age from two years older than me to one year younger. Every minute of our free time was spent together.

I sat in the back of the bus and threatened to beat anyone up who made fun of Paul as he sat crying because Dena Bowman had broken up with him in the sixth grade. I went to high school girlfriends and told them they needed to stop trying to keep my boys next door from talking with me. I’d been around way before them; would be around way after them and had no interest in being my boys’ girlfriend as I had my own boyfriend.

In high school, I was still their shoulder to cry on when those girls moved to another guy.

I learned how boys see their parents’ marriage and how they dealt with the divorce.

As I began my career, I learned better ways to cuss and honed my inner smart ass skills. My husband says I have far surpassed his own skills.

In reality, I’ve learned men have their own vulnerabilities and insecurities, but they express them differently than women. Men express themselves in other manners than women in most things, and that’s not a bad thing, nor a wrong thing. It’s just dissimilar.

That’s not to say I don’t shake my head at times, but I understand the roots of the source.

I have great girlfriends, but I prefer to work with men. I’ve worked in a male dominated career my whole life, and I’m comfortable there.

Now, that I’m writing romance, I fully embrace my experience because my talent evolved from my situation.

I can write a male point of view and have discovered I enjoy writing my male characters more than my females. It’s like the girls are along for the ride, but the guys are more fun for me.

For me, the men are easy. The women are soooo hard. I’ll work on my women, but first I have this idea for a guy, and he’s so great.

I write both contemporary and erotic romance. I’m currently finishing the final book of the Love Strictly Test Trilogy, and Jordan’s Trials from the Wild Rose Press will be out in 2020.

Angel’s Collar: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DYZXR9C
Sabrina’s Seduction: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RLKRZ4Y
The Heart Series:
Captured Hearts: Only $.99 on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Captured-Hearts-Unimaginable-Choices-Undeniable-ebook/dp/B01N531PT4
Missing Hearts: https://www.amazon.com/Missing-Hearts-Heart-Book-2-ebook/dp/B07FYTH5G4
Stolen Hearts: https://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Hearts-Heart-Book-3-ebook/dp/B07RNM8R2W
Contact me at: www.annahague.com

On 9/11, I worked in a large insurance company in San Antonio, Texas. I passed by a break room and saw a large group of people standing beneath the televisions mounted on the wall, watching coverage of some disaster in New York. I was on my way to a meeting, but I paused. Everyone was quiet, whispering. I heard someone say, “I think a small plane crashed into one of the trade center buildings.” As I stood there realizing a tall skyscraper was on fire, another plane entered our view, and we all watched horrified as it crashed into the second tower.

Meeting forgotten, I stood, listening as news people tried to make sense of what we’d all witnessed. When the towers leaned and began to tumble down, I knew what had happened was intentional. That something profoundly ugly and cruel had just occurred.

Over the following days, like so many others, I couldn’t look away from the coverage—the people running away, gray and covered in dust, of people leaping from windows, of the stories of the first responders who’d been inside those buildings, trying to move people to safety, of the person who’d stayed with a wheelchair-bound friend in a stairwell… So many horrible/wonderful stories.

At the time, I was still in the National Guard. During my unit’s first weekend together after the attack, we reviewed what it meant. What we had to prepare for. Another war was coming.

Today, eighteen years later, I remember all of that like it was yesterday. It’s one of those days that remains forever emblazoned on my mind—like the days JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr., Bobby Kennedy, and John Lennon were assassinated—like the day I watched the moon landing, although my feelings while watching that miracle of technology and perseverance left me feeling light and hopeful for the future rather than somber and angry. They are all seminal moments, ones you remember what you were doing, and who you were with when you first heard…

I think of the first responders who arrived to search for survivors. Of the dogs with their booties, who suffered from finding so much death that men lay down in the rubble to give those dogs a joyful “win”. So many heroes who suffer to this day.

I remember. Do you want to share your memories?