Yeah.

so I am thinking very much about my FMCs as where they start and where they finish.

And, uh, much as I do with like a romance trajectory, I want my characters have an arc where there's something meaningful and important to the plot that is changing about them through the series.

So I think about them in the beginning of what are their, uh, Flaws isn't necessarily always the right word, but what is it about their lives, who they are, and the situation going around them that is challenging them? And how is the plot going to help them to grow into their end self in the story? I don't like stories where the FMC starts out perfect.

She knows everything.

She, you know, is, you know, just...

A Mary Sue is how we used to describe them.

I have some need.

When you are about to push send on that manuscript, what are you feeling, knowing that that audience is there, and they're hungry, and they love you?

You know, it's, like, a good and bad ugly because you want to be able to please everyone, and part of being in this business for a long time is you understand you, you can't please everyone, and that people are going to give you five stars and one stars and everywhere in between.

I write for myself first and foremost, so I look at a manuscript and the story, and does it make me happy? And it comes back to the whole passion of the business.

Do I love the story that I've told? And if I do love that story, then that is the most important thing.

And then I hope that for the best because, uh, Royal Bank does want me to pay my mortgage payments.

[laughs]

Yeah.

I think that lots of times people ask me, you know, "What meaning do you want to take from my books?" And, you know, there are lots of little hidden things, and there's references to politics, and there's all that sort of stuff.