And I was one of them.

Welcome to Boot Camp, a workout where 30 men and women pay to have someone make them do spider walks and dive-bomber pushups. The class, which meets at 5:30 in the morning (another form of torture), is primarily women, most of whom saw a more slender form many years ago. Our goals must be similar: we want to lose weight/get in shape/build muscles–and we need someone else to help us do it.

There is the romance writer side in taking the class too: an opportunity to watch two truly ripped guys show us less athletically inclined individuals the path to thin and toned. My romantic suspense protagonists are like most romance novels’ main characters: psychologically or historically flawed, but not physically. So I can’t help but wonder, how do people get that athletic build?

After a week of this physically demanding class, I’ve determined they aren’t getting fit through the running we writers often have our characters do. There is no running in this class. Unless you count the semblance of a run for a water bottle after 15 minutes of torture stations.

And weights don’t make our heroes and heroines sexy. Sure, my class used a weight during our last session. We looked like shot-putters who couldn’t get the shot over the shoulder. I was certainly capable of throwing mine, if only because the sweat running off my body was all over my palms. Not quite the racy scene authors usually describe.

(A side note: How would anyone think sweat dripping between a woman’s breasts is sexy? Kill that response by smelling her. Eww!)

Then there are the ropes. Don’t get excited, folks. One set hung from the ceiling, which might have potential, but it involved pulling the ropes from a squat with arm curls. These weren’t particularly difficult, as I was too uncoordinated to manage moving that many muscles at one time, so I faked it. The other ropes were Terminator-thick jump ropes, which we were supposed to keep moving up and down till our arms resembled the ropes in flexibility. Or they fell off (arms, not ropes).

At this point I’m still wondering how cops who never get any sleep because of the latest investigation, or shape-shifting griffins being chased by the entire evil underworld, or dukes without access to a Gold’s Gym, manage to keep their trim shapes. The answer might be found in the next five weeks of workouts. We’ll see.

My husband thinks I’m crazy, first for getting up at 5 a.m., and second, for paying someone to lead me in this torture. But I pointed out he should be looking forward to the potential of “abs of steel” when my “flabs of meals” are all nicely toned.

Any readers or writers out there who try to live the lives of their heroes or heroines? Or are you living vicariously through the books you read and write, prepared to forego the experience for various safety reasons, such as killing your instructor, needing sleep, or wanting to use your muscles on a daily basis?

I’m an Air Force reservist, 26 years of active service. It doesn’t take much to add up the numbers to know I’m on the high side of 40 years of age. When the Air Force implemented our current test five years ago, I actually had to start working out. I’d be the first to admit that our previous test—riding a stationary cycle and measuring heart rate—might have been a bit shy of demonstrating our fitness. So we added pushups and situps to the regimen and brought back the 1.5-mile run.

To get in shape, I started with the treadmill, even sought out a personal trainer for a short while. My office had a challenge that if anyone cursed, the guilty party had to do 20 pushups and the rest had to do 10. Fortunately, I don’t generally curse, so I got the smaller number. Not that it mattered. The first time I did pushups, I did one. Sort of. By the end of the first day (there was a lot of cursing going on), I’d resorted to “girly” pushups, and was still well below five. The next day I couldn’t lift my arms to type at my strenuous desk job.

So I added weights to my fitness program. Now I lift weights twice a week and spend 40 minutes on an elliptical three to four times a week. The good news is after three years of this program, most of the chicken flaps under my arms are gone and I am moderately more toned than I was when I started.

The bad news is it’s not going to be enough to excel at the new test. Someone who obviously is not a woman past middle age, decided for this new test all women from 40-49 should be able to do the same scores. To pass the test with a minimum score of 75 percent, I have to do 11 pushups and 24 situps in a minute. A “good” pushup, by the way, is achieved with a 90-degree angle on the arms, no girly ones allowed! My fitness program has made it so I can pass the minimum—barely. My biggest problem will be the run: I will just skim the passing score for running.

My only option appears to be to work out harder. Needless to say, I’m a bit panicked. I’m already taking an hour nearly every day to work out. But I’m not the only one. Air Force units all over the world have started pushup challenges, group training, and checking out hard-core workout videos guaranteed to give you stellar abs in weeks. A recent Air Force Times estimated that one in four of us will fail when the program begins in June.

Me? I’m going the next step. Bring out the hard core videos! I’m going to show up at RWA National with muscles everywhere and I’ll challenge my fellow writers to pushup contests, wherein I will be an amazing example of the superior fitness of Airmen everywhere.

If not, I hope my arm muscles don’t flap while I’m lifting my wine glass.

Everyone writes books about how to write. You can find books on characters, plotting, grammar, and even how to murder. So there’s no point in me telling you about that stuff. So here’s what I’ve learned to avoid in order to write efficiently. Follow these important “do not’s” and you will be on your way to finishing that manuscript!

1. Do not let your cat sit on your keyboard. I can’t speak for all cats, but I can tell you that mine cannot write. She’s great at abstract poetry though. She once wrote “qwsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.” Doesn’t that speak to you? However, she also removes the keys from my keyboard. I can still type without the keys, as long as I remember what they were. Who remembers where that squiggly line used in Spanish words is without looking? I might need that, and the cat probably stole it.

2. Do not become an aerospace engineer. I mean this in the kindest way because I have engineers in my family. I tried AeroE, as we called it, in college. But let’s face it: anyone who would be interested in the gear ratio of an ultralight airplane is unlikely to write the next bestseller. Especially if you write romantic suspense like I do. This does not sound like a scene I’d want to read:

“Check out the gear ratio on my ultralight,” says Steve, the hero, flexing his gears.

Jane, the heroine replies, “Ooo. Your gear ratio is so sexy.”

3. Do not have a paying job. Fine, you may have one if you are Nora Roberts. She has made writing a profitable career choice. But you? You are an artiste, a creative soul, yet unpaid. Working sucks the soul out of you. Who needs money? When you work, you are too tired to write. After a day on the job, my energy level is only high enough to let my fingers crawl over the remote keys, or find the pizza delivery guy’s phone number. Let’s not get into staring at a screen for another three or four hours, when that’s what you did all day (unless it was trying to keep your eyes open during a marathon PowerPoint meeting).

4. Do not celebrate holidays. Right around Halloween, when the Christmas carols start playing in the department stores, you must be strong and resist the urge to shop, write cards, and make seasonal treats. It takes hours, days and weeks to do all these things. It’s like having another job, and you already have one: writing. Short holidays, like St. Patrick’s Day are okay, because it doesn’t take long to recover from a hangover.

5. Do not have children. I love children, I have two myself. But if you sit down to write and they’re home, it’s as if you made cookies. They instantly gather around. “When’s dinner?” or “Can my ‘screamo’ band practice here tonight?” is slightly better than one of them flipping on the TV, which happens to be showing your favorite romantic comedy, Pretty Woman. So, of course, I—I mean, you—must watch it. There went two hours of writing time down the drain. So maybe you should not have children or a TV.

6. The corollary to number 9: Do not have a husband. Okay, you can have a husband, but he can’t be at home anytime you’re writing. He’ll have to work opposite hours. Because as soon as you start writing, he will need to discuss some very important household thing. “Do you think we need more of that carpet cleaning stuff? You know, the kind that cleans up dog barf?” And whatever you do, don’t let him ask you to help with outdoor work. There is no such thing as a “15 minute” job when your husband is involved. Eight hours later, sunburned and exhausted, you will collapse in front of the TV. (Hopefully Pretty Woman will be on and you’ll kill two wasting events at once.) I’m sure there’s an equivalent to this for guys. It likely involves shoe shopping.

7. Do not eat or work out. These two things are paired because if you eat, you need to work out; and if you work out, you need to eat. Eliminate them both. Working out requires going to a gym and sweating. Eating involves shopping, preparing and sitting around the table with family, who do not want to talk about your latest romantic scene. In fact, if one of the family members is your college-age daughter, she doesn’t even want to read your books because she wants to maintain the illusion that she was created in a vacuum, not by her parents doing…well, you know.

Having friends is also another thing that interrupts writers. But, good grief, giving up friends crosses the fine line between being professional, and just being plain crazy.

I’m sure other writers can add to these important rules. What advice do you have?

Why are you going? This basic question is your objective, what you hope to achieve by hanging out with 3,000 other authors. Are you going because you’re having trouble writing and need advice? Do you want to meet agents to see if there’s one out there for you? Or are you there to pick up free signed books? I think of RWA in terms of three levels: improving your writing (novice), getting your book published (intermediate), or becoming a business professional (professional). You can target more than one area, but focus will help you get the most out of RWA.

Who do you want to meet? Networking is an essential part of national. Whether you’re meeting with your local chapter, meeting your editor for the first time, or trying to find out what the key to Nora Roberts’ success is, you should have a mental list of people you want to contact. Plan or arrange to meet them at the workshops they’re presenting, at one of the meals that comes in your package price, or during book signings. However, no stalking or gawking please! You won’t look professional, and this is, foremost, a business conference.

What do you want to take away? Takeaways are both physical and mental. Free books, pens, bookmarkers, and notepads are some of the physical items you can pick up in the Goody Room. Use these for ideas of how you can market your book, or to give away to readers and other authors back home. Many workshop presenters will have handouts. Take copious notes on those that benefit you most. The major publishers will have signings, their authors autographing free books for all who wait in the lines. Besides the obvious books for reading, you can also give these away for personal or chapter promotion. As for your mental takeaways, the workshops will give you much to think about and help your writing business, and the inspirational and humbling speeches given by the speakers may give you that psychological boost to get your writing to the next step.

Using the answers you’ve given to the questions above, you’re ready for what we military types call a course of action (COA). You may have more than one COA, which is fine. You’ll need to refine your plan on arrival. Get on the RWA website early. You can start downloading handouts off the conference page to see which workshops you’ll want to attend. They fall into several categories: career, craft, research, chat, special (tends toward the philosophical/insprirational), publishing, writer’s life, and Publisher’s Spotlights. Shortly before the conference, RWA will upload the entire schedule. This is when the real work begins.

I used the Outlook calendar feature next, but you can simply write on a day planner if that’s your preference. Write down all the workshops and events you’re interested in and when they are. Why? Because you will change your mind about which ones you want to attend as the day goes by. Maybe one workshop gave you what you wanted and going to another similar one would be a waste of time. Or maybe you met someone who is attending a different workshop, but is turning out to be your best resource (or just fun to hang with). But since you have a backup plan, no need to read the entire catalog you’re given at registration.

If you’re directionally challenged, you’ll want to study the hotel map as well. Though there’s plenty of time between workshops, you don’t want to get lost trying to get to one that is standing-room only and end up trying to listen over the crowd squeezing in at the door.

If your goal is to snag an agent or editor, don’t miss your opportunity to sign up for appointments. Last year RWA posted a table of editors and agents and what they were looking for. Print this out—because they don’t have copies at the conference. Although you’ll only be given one agent/editor appointment, be prepared to hit up all agents and editors you’re interested in. You are allowed to sit in the waiting area for appointments, and if someone doesn’t show up, you can step into their slot. But do your research. It does little good to pitch your 150,000-word paranormal romantic saga to Harlequin.

Because you’re a first-timer, be sure to mark that on your registration. You’ll get a sticker for your badge saying “Newcomer.” This is an open invitation for agents, editors, authors and veteran attendees to strike up a conversation with you. Be prepared to talk about what you write and be proud of your status!

A good attack plan will help you reach your objective, and of course, result in that happily-ever-after ending we all strive for!

Then there’s Chuck, where agents from the CIA and NSC take commands from an Air Force brigadier general. That’s a bit off—the military directing spies. But what really gets my knickers in a bunch is the uniform the general wears. Seriously? Service dress to talk to underlings? Not going to happen. We’re at war, folks. Try a battle-dress uniform.

Authors tend to stick to the facts a bit better, maybe because readers have more time to nitpick over the details. That means it’s even more important to get your facts straight. After all, you don’t want some blogger blasting your lack of research.

So if you’re going to include military facts in your efforts, do a little research. And to make it easier for you, I’ve found the places you need to go to.

Start locally. Your nearest large military facility, whether it’s Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines or Coast Guard, will have a public affairs office. If it’s a small unit, someone will be designated as the public affairs representative. Call the installation operator and ask for public affairs or whoever answers requests from the public. If they can’t answer a list of questions, try asking for a base tour or a speaker to talk to your group.

The National Guard, aligned with the Army and the Air Force, are similar, but under the command of the state government. Though the units can be mobilized and fall under active-duty forces, they tend to be more available then the active forces and more open to community interaction. After all, these folks live around you and many have jobs in your town. They also have public affairs offices, but they aren’t always manned. You may be talking to whoever is on duty. Explain what you’re looking for and the Guard may be able to help.

Another place you can go for information is your local recruiting office. Recruiters generally take the assignment as a career-broadening experience. Since these military members often operate from one-deep offices, they are very accessible and would be able to answer general questions. They will also have access to demographic information, and career fields and what they do.

Below is contact information for each of the Armed Forces. All the armed services fall under the Department of Defense, except the Coast Guard, which comes under the Department of Homeland Security.

Army: Most willing Defense Department agency to work with uncontracted authors. New York Army Public Affairs director: Harry Sarles, Harrison.sarles <at> us.army.mil, 212-784-0111.

Air Force: New York Public Affairs Office handles author requests, though you must be contracted. Main number is 212-784-0147; email requests to bookrequest <at> mcguire.af.mil. Explain what you’re looking for and they will send a book request form. You’ll need to return it with a contract or letter of commitment.

Navy: Call the Navy’s New York office only if you have a contract. Fill out the online request form. Main phone: 212-784-0130. Current director is Lt. Cmdr. Suzanna Brugler, 212-784-0131. For base tours or general public requests, use the list of Navy Public Affairs Offices at: http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/paodir/address.txt.

Marine Corps: No central office. For Recruiting and Public Affairs Offices, go to: http://www.marines.mil/usmc/Pages/Contact.aspx. If desperate, email ontherecord <at> usmc.mil. This address is normally for credentialed media, but they may be able to refer you to another number.

Coast Guard: Requires a letter of intent or at least a letter of interest from a publisher. However, in some instances they do arrange interviews or other limited research support for authors who are earlier in the process. The support they provide will vary based on operational demands and what kind of access/support the author is seeking. Contact Angela Hirsch, Co-Chief, Community Relations Division, U.S. Coast Guard Office of Public Affairs, 202-372-4642 or angela.h.hirsch <at> uscg.mil.

This is about making friends during all those freakin’ moves.

Settling down is a lot harder work than I thought. In the military, your friends are your co-workers. But if you’re the spouse who follows or the kids who change schools, you don’t have co-workers. You have to make friends. Fortunately, most learn how to do this, and it’s a skill you use for the rest of your life.

I’m on the other side of the fence now. I don’t have to make new friends because I’ve lived in the same place for—wait for it!—four whole years! I’m the person who the military has to make friends with. Yay!

I’m going to tell you a dirty little secret now: Some civilians are wary of making friends with military families. Why? Because they move! As hard as it is for military families to pick up and move every two or three years, it’s just as hard to watch your friends leave. One of my civilian friends confessed that when her then-first grade daughter’s best friend moved away, it devastated her child, to the point she was wary of close friendships with military families after that.

There is a key word in that last sentence: close. In my adult life, I can count best friends on one hand, and two of those friends are where I live now. I would be willing to bet that even full-time civilians don’t have more than a couple of best friends, but loads of just friends.

As any military person will tell you, we have loads of friends too. We exchange cards with them every year; sometimes we track them on Facebook; and sometimes we move to the same location again. Even if we lose touch, we’re still friends. These are the friends that come over in the middle of the night to sleep on your couch while you run your sick dog to an emergency vet. They tell you about people they know in the area you’re moving to, so you’ll know someone when you get there. They offer to watch your newborn because your maternity leave is up and your baby is too young for childcare.

So maybe I am on the other side of the fence now, and maybe we’ll never be best friends. But if you come to my hometown, I got your back. Because military people aren’t just friends, they’re family. And I’ll do whatever I have to for my family.

Call me. I’m here for you. ~ AJ

www.AJBrower.com

I’ve been in public affairs for 25 years. I know special ops career fields tend to be a favorite of authors, but really, what do those guys do? Rescue a few people? Secret squirrel stuff we never hear about? But in PA, our affairs are all public. Seriously public, but in a funny way.

When I was a young 23-year-old Air Force second lieutenant, I got my first hint of what this career would be like. I had to write a fact sheet on a space mission that was to fly on the first polar shuttle launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. (This isn’t secret squirrel stuff. It never happened because Challenger blew up into a billion tiny pieces and NASA needed to focus on getting the shuttle back in the air.) I opened Aviation Week and Space Technology and read an article they’d written on the program, which was called Teal Ruby. With help from the program office, I crafted a brilliant, two-page fact sheet on this stationary system that would sit in the shuttle’s bay and monitor the aurora borealis, among other things. Then I got approval from the project office, and sent the information off for security review from our higher headquarters.

The fact sheet came back classified.

That’s when I learned many engineers call my magazine source for information Aviation Leak and Spy Technology. Oh, and that you shouldn’t believe everything in print. Give me a break! I was 23.

I write romantic suspense, and I admit, I like to leave a few bodies lying around in my novels. Not serial killer type, I can’t think like that. More, how the he** did that happen? This may have been influenced during a court-martial for the death penalty in Britain. A technical sergeant had stabbed a master sergeant several times over the senior ranking man’s flirtation with the other man’s wife. For those internationally savvy folks out there, the U.K. doesn’t have the death penalty, so the media were all over us. And as the ranking PA officer on base (by now I was a first lieutenant), it was my job to keep things orderly.

The court room sat 12 audience members, outside the legal teams, the judge and the jury. No room for reporters, so we’d take them into the courtroom before and after sessions and let them film it empty. I took a television crew in one day and the sound man picked up a photo off the prosecutor’s desk to do a camera lighting check. The white on the back of the photo was perfect for this task. But as he held up the photo, I saw what was on the other side: the bloody body of the master sergeant.

“Please don’t turn the photo over,” I tried to say as off-handedly as possible. “If you do, I’ll have to confiscate your film.” The sound man raised his eyebrows when he saw the photo and fortunately did not turn the picture over. I haven’t a clue how to confiscate film. But I imagine it would involve calling in armed security forces and really big headlines in the news.

Then there was the time I was offered black market goods in Moscow. Operation PROVIDE HOPE was public relations move to get European nations to help send food and medicine to agencies that lost their government support when the Soviet Union broke up. We PA folks were supposed to be taking media on flights with our humanitarian cargo. My AP reporter backed out on me while we were on a stop in Moscow, on our way to Ulan Ude, Siberia. In February. It was snowing in Moscow and as I turned around from the pay phone I’d just used, a man approached me, his hand holding his coat closed. He said in English as he opened his coat, “Would you like to buy a ham?”

Yes. In a large pocket inside his coat was the highly coveted canned ham of Moscow. I fought off laughing, even as I realized how desperate things must have been there at the time.

The life of public affairs officer is filled with unique experiences that many special ops men would question participating in. I fought off dozens of international media when the Yugoslavs got lucky and took out an F-117 stealth fighter jet during the Kosovo war. It was my job to keep the information out of the news while those search and rescue guys (yes, special ops) did their job of rescuing the pilot. For six hours we answered, “I have no information I can give you on that.” (That’s secret PA code for “I have information on that, but I can’t give it to you.” Not a lie, but also not what the media wants to hear.) More recently, it was reporters trying to find out information after CNN reported a C-17 cargo jet had crashed in Texas. It hadn’t, and it takes a while to find the whereabouts of nearly 200 planes to make sure we weren’t missing one.

There’s also the time the water in India attacked me. Believe me, when the flight surgeon says don’t drink the water, don’t even brush your teeth in it! I’d like to see anyone do their job horizontal on KC-10 flying over the Burma Hump. (Okay, so even PA can’t work with dysentery.) And then there was the community group we took to Berlin to see U.S. operations there. Five hours after we left, the Berlin Wall came down. We’re good. Real good.

I’d like to see those special ops guys do that. Or better: let’s make them talk to a reporter. You know, that secret squirrel stuff makes it hard for them to answer questions. Yes, that’s right. You would need a public affairs trained professional to do that.