Guest Blogger: J L Wilson

The winner of JL's book is: Susan L! Congrats, Susan. Give me your contact info and I'll pass it along to JL. Thanks to everyone who participated.

Thanks to Lynda Hilburn for welcoming me to blog today. I'm here to talk about paranormal politics.

Euww, I hear you say. Politics? Yep. I wrote my series (The New Human Intercession) because I was so fed up with politics, governments, and social nonsense in the world today. I thought, 'hmm. What if people were on another planet, and they had paranormal talents, and they formed a government . . . How would it be structured?' What if we had a big 'do-over' and could try to get it right this time?

Oh, that had its appeal to me. Think about it -- a world full of paranormal-talented people. What could we do with that? So I took some ideas that have been rattling around in my brain and came up with the planet Delmorna, which is run by a triad of rulers, one from each of the families that settled the planet (Delaney, Moreno, and Nance). All people on the planet have a mix of paranormal talents (telepathy, telekinesis, etc.) and a rare few have the ability to Truthsense: to know when someone is lying. That eliminated a lot of social ills but as I explored further, it created new ones, intriguing ones.

I have a love of klutzy heroines, so I created Isbel, who's really sort of a nerd. She discovers a secret that puts the government at risk -- the government run by her savvy father & her devious sister, Dru. Cyrus Durant is sent in as an undercover cop to spy on her and determine if she's a traitor or not. He's assigned to be her Paid Male companion during a research holiday. The only problem is, he's a cloned human and has never slept with a woman before. Deep hypnosis training can only help so much when push comes to shove, so to speak ...

As their story evolved, the story of the planet evolved. Why were these people there? Where did they come from? Were they exiled there -- why? Cyrus is a clone, but who served as his clone 'base' -- what if it wasn't someone from that planet, but from Earth -- their original home? And what would happen if ancestral memory ('genetic memory') came into play? What if those old Earth genes somehow mutated and ...

That led me to create a history for those people, a history that ties in to a series I'm currently working on set here on Earth. I decided to elaborate on how those paranormal talents got started and how they became so well trained on Delmorna. And that led to two more books in this series, books that will address the politics of cloning, the morality of using clones for 'dirty' jobs, and what it means to be 'human'. The first book, "Human Touch", sets Isbel and Cyrus on their journey. "Living Proof" (releasing in 2010) pits Isbel's sister Dru against Jak Exo, a charismatic leader. And "Leap of Faith" (releasing in 2011) brings them all together to try to save their people from civil war.

I think this is why I love being an author. I get to take an idea that intrigues me, spin it and play with it, and finally spin out something that others want to read. And often that 'intriguing idea' is directly based on something that annoys me and how I could 'solve it' with fiction. So that's why I write about the overthrow of governments, the death of annoying people (in my mystery stories), the need for second chances (in my reincarnation series) or how to get two totally unsuited people together (in my romantic suspense books). It is SO much fun and satisfying to address that challenge and solve it...even if it's only in fiction!
****************

JL will give away a copy of her book to one commenter. The winner will be selected and posted on Tuesday evening. Stop back by to see if you won!