They do as they do, not as I say.

I wish I could say that I’m the creator of my characters. Sadly, I am not.
To describe how my characters come to me in one word is easy.

Possession.

Yep, full blown exorcist-style. They knock politely asking to be let in, and once I crack that door, they burst in, blazing full-color and yap in my head until my ears bleed.

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been writing a character who said something that I wasn’t on board with or did something I had planned for later, I’d be rich!

Example. For those of you who read Fighting for Flight, Jonah and Raven got busy way earlier than I had planned. My fingers were flying on the keys trying to keep up with all that they were giving me, and I’ll never forget talking out loud to my computer screen.

“No. Don’t say that, Jonah! It’s too early! I had this planned for the night before the fight! Stop being so sweet to her. Wait…no! Raven what are you doing? Put your clothes back on right now! You guys are ruining all the plans I had for this BIG moment! Stop, just…listen to me. Don’t do this! Wait! Well there it is. You’ve done it. Jerks.”
And there was a very specific line delivered by Blake at the end of Fighting for Flight. We argued back and forth about that line throughout the entire editing process.

“Blake, you can’t say that! It’s gross.”
He’s laughing. Hard. “But it’s funny!”
“Yeah, it’s funny if you’re in the locker room talking to a bunch of dudes! But I write for women. They’re going to think it’s crude.”
“I’m crude. And they’ll love me. So get over it.”

I deleted that damn piece of dialogue and added it back several times.

Then I read Stephen Kings book On Writing where he said, “If you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects. If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway.”
― Stephen King, On Writing

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

I’ve let go of the reins and allowed my characters the freedom to be. They surprise me every single day. You’ll see in Fighting to Forgive that Blake ended up to be nothing like we all thought he’d be. He was full of surprises, and as much as I’m glad to have his story told, I’ll miss him and his dirty mouth dearly.

So if you come across anything in my books that offends or walks the fine line of your comfort zone, it’s not my fault. They made me do it.

Fighting to Forgive

by JB Salsbury

What do you do when everything you avoid, turns out to be exactly what you need?

Easy and predictable, just the way he likes it, Blake Daniels flies through life the way he burns through women: on his terms, no regrets.

With his fighting career in full swing, he’s on the threshold of title contention. But when his training is compromised by injury, the stakes grow impossibly higher. The rage that fuels his punches also chips away at his focus, and he risks losing everything he cares about.

He won’t let that happen. Not again.

Layla’s through with men. After a marriage that never should’ve happened, she hopes to reclaim the pieces of the woman she lost years ago.

Emotional abuse has left her insecure and terrified. A master at faking what she’s not feeling, she masks her self-doubt in false confidence.

She’ll never let another man hurt her. Not again.

Chased by shadows of the past, Blake and Layla know what they don’t want, but their hearts have a different plan. As a web of lies and betrayal threatens to destroy them, they’re forced to make a choice.

Is love enough to heal even the deepest wounds?

Purchase:

Fighting For Flight (Book 1) on Amazon