(photo credit to the Sun)

Hello and welcome to February (!)

First, I apologize for not being more visible on my blog. January is always a busy month for Les and me because he has all these trade shows and I’m in San Francisco, trying to make the most out of our break from Boston’s winter weather. In addition, I am experiencing my first real case of writer’s block.

Because of that, I have been concentrating on researching some of the areas of my book in which I have limited knowledge (such as in legal proceedings and gangs). This is as important to a book’s success as anything is because if the research is not credible, then it is impossible for readers to suspend disbelief.

So, that’s what I’m doing for The Deceived right now. My female antagonist is a true psychopath—a killer who has no problem committing multiple senseless murders. Understanding female killers is difficult for me—and many people because as a gender, we aren’t as violent or as aggressive as men are. Female killers are far rarer than men are. I have always believed this is due to both genetic and social differences (and as a biopsychologist, I know there are genetic differences that interact with the environment that help to cause paternal and maternal differences). True female psychopaths are rare; most women who kill do so out of jealousy or greed.

My research took me to the case of Aileen Wuornos, who was a highway prostitute who worked as a truck stop hooker around central Florida. In so many ways our lives are different but we share some similarities. She is perfect for the rage of my character but I was surprised at how much vulnerability I found in her story. She had a tough life–far much more so than mine but we do have similarities.

We both experienced childhood sexual abuse and incest. We both went into the sex industry, albeit in opposite directions of the industry. However, even at the bottom or top rung of this industry, we both experienced violence at the hands of clients. For Aileen, it might have been out in the woods. For me, I had a client who lived in a multimillion dollar penthouse apartment nearly kill me on a bad outcall one night (this is actually a real story in my book The Purified). By the time I ended working as a call girl, I was disillusioned, traumatized, and full of rage, that had begun in childhood and worsened into adulthood.

Aileen experienced the same I believe and turned her rage outward, to society. Unlike her, I turned my anger inward and began destroying myself with drugs. She, on the other hand, turned her anger outward and began an unconscionable and horrific killing spree. I didn’t know it at the time, but I had been experiencing PTSD for years—and no doubt, so had Aileen Wuornos.

Unlike me—and, she, being a different personality, turned her anger outward and lashed out at the tricks who abused her. And it happens all the time, at every level of the business.  I, on the other hand, started the slow crawl to suicide using heroin as a means.

I understand how she felt. I do believe her first murder was in self-defense. Her victim had a long career of sexual deviance and had spent years in prison for rape. She maintained this was the case and claimed it until her death (though, at the end, in secret—for fear of being taken off death row; she wanted to die at that point).

I was once gang raped and beat up by four men who lured me into a bad outcall. If I’d had a gun to defend myself—I don’t know if I could have used it—but when I got home that night, I raged and sobbed on the floor of my shower, so full of hate and rage for the world…and for myself.

Life turns on a dime. At the crossroads of life, I took the right direction: Aileen took the wrong one.  I stopped using heroin, went to college and graduate school, became a college professor and now a writer. Aileen Wuornos became a serial killer. But at one point, we both had a rage that nearly consumed me and did finish her off.

I wept as I researched her. I realized how society failed this woman–and many others– in so many ways. I also see how different my own life might have turned out if I hadn’t had the help I had when I was ready to seek help. I had people to help me; she did not.

And funny enough—after I have finished researching her life, I find a miraculous thing occurring, which has happened before when I have read about people whose suffering has been far greater than mine. I am less depressed and more grateful for my own life. I’m glad that I had the ability to make better choices when help was offered to me—and I am grateful that my own genetics aren’t such that predispose me to violent and aggressive behavior because that is surely part of this as well.

In peace—and in gratitude, for there for the grace of God go I.

Melinda