JM Bio
As written by JM and appearing in letters that went out to her mailing list...

While I was growing up, my father’s business interests required that we move to a different city every year. By the time I was fourteen. I had lived in 14 states, seen all the rest of them, and I knew one thing was certain: Someday, I was going to have a quiet settled life in one place.

At 22, I graduated with a degree in Business Administration from Northwestern University, my career objective clearly in mind—a serene job with no traveling, no adventure, and no “glamour.” I’d had enough of that as a child. Accordingly, I answered a blind ad in the newspaper for a personnel interviewer. The company running the ad turned out to be United Air lines. Almost immediately after I went to work for United as a Personnel interviewer, they decided they needed additional Stewardesses, and they recruited four people from the main office, one of whom was me.

It took only a few weeks for United and me to reach the conclusion that I was probably not good Stewardess material. Besides having a tendency to get airsick, I was petrified of flying; I couldn’t see anything “rapturous” about slinging food at passengers 30,000 feet in the air; and I militantly objected to being pinched and patted between Chicago and New York. With feelings of relief all round, I returned to my earth-bound job in personnel, where I subsequently overcame my need to airsick bags and pre-flight tranquilizers.

Two years later, I was relocated to St.Louis, Missouri, where I promptly met a tall, dark, handsome man whom I married and by whom I had two children. I liked being a wife and mother, and I definitely liked my children; unfortunately I did not like my husband. I gave up my husband and kept the children.

Once again I needed a job, one that would support myself and two babies; the kind of job which would permit me to lead a peaceful, serene life that I had always dreamed of, Accordingly, I answered a blind ad for an executive secretary. What could be more peaceful and serene then that?

The company turned out to be KMOX-CBS Radio. In a horrifyingly short time, I was promoted to an administrative assistant, and a year after that, to Producer, Live Programming, where it was my responsibility to choose the guests and topics for 6 live “talk” programs a day. My dreams of peace and serenity gave way to a reality of frenetic responsibility and an 18-hour work day that left little time for anything, including my children. After three wonderful, exhausting years with CBS, I decided it was time to resign and again try and find a position that would not require so much of my life.

This time, I left nothing to chance. No more “dream jobs”; no more “glamour jobs” and no more blind ads. I applied for, and got, a job as a personnel Interviewer with a large company which was also sensibly close to home. The company was in the business of planning “incentive programs” for huge conglomerates, programs which were used to make sales people more productive. Unbeknownst to most people—including me at the time—my new employer also made commercials and training films….

For six months, I interviewed and tested on applicants in the Personnel Department. At last I had found what I always wanted—a sensible, predictable, serene job. I hated it within weeks. And then one day the Vice President of the Motion Picture Division descended on the Personnel Department in a rage because he had told Personnel six months ago that he needed an Assistant Director for one of his film crews and we still hadn’t filled the position. The Personnel Director chose that moment to remember my radio background and to arbitrarily decide upon a solution for my boredom: Scurrying behind his desk to put space between himself and the enraged vice president, he pointed an accusing finger at me and said “Judy could handle that job! She was a producer at CBS.” Neither of them would listen to my protests that I worked for CBS Radio, not Television.

Which is how I, who did not know which end of the camera to look through, became an Assistant Director, traveling with an all-male film crew.

My first assignment was on a re-make of a film my company had bungled very badly for a division of General Motors, and I was warned in advance that an outraged representative of GM was flying in from Detroit to make certain that we didn’t mess it up again.

His name was Michael Mc Naught

No romance ever written will match the turbulence that ensued: In the style of true romantic fiction, Michael Mc Naught, stalked into the production meeting that first morning followed by an entourage of my company’s vice presidents. Ignoring them, he turned to those of us seated around the conference table, and his blue eyes icy, his expression grim. And then he looked at me. I will never forget the sudden warming in those piercing blue eyes of his or the alarm that screamed through my entire nervous system when he reached across the table to politely shake my hand. And that is no exaggeration—I knew exactly what that look in his eyes meant.

During the following days I worked feverishly on the film, and even harder trying to withstand the pressure my company was putting on me to accept Michael’s dinner invitations. On the sixth day, I finally gave in and agreed to have dinner with him .

I had the most wonderful evening of my life—the kind of evening that I knew would lead to more wonderful evenings, and then to involvement, deep emotional involvement. Next would come commitment. Risk, I decided immediately never to see Mike socially again.

Not only did I resolutely decline all his subsequent dinner invitations, I found a hundred ways to avoid being near him when we were working together on the set. On the day film was finished, Mike was scheduled to return to Detroit, and I was asked to drive him to the airport. Although sad that he was leaving, I was extremely proud that I had avoided him so cleverly, so smoothly, so subtly, that he couldn’t that he couldn’t have noticed what I was doing.

If I hadn’t been so distracted by my confusing feelings of relief and sadness, I would have wondered why I, instead of a vice president, was driving him to the airport. I learned the solution to that puzzle the moment we pulled out of the parking lot onto the expressway. In a low, angry voice, Mike turned to me and said, “Since you can’t leap out of a moving car to get away from me, suppose you tell me why in the hell you’ve been avoiding me for the last five days.”

While quickly considering a dozen polite lies I glanced into those penetrating blue eyes of his, and realized it would be futile to try to deceive him. I told the truth instead. I explained that I did not want to become involved with anyone, and that I had known from out one dinner date that we would get involved if we saw more of each other. Mike tried to reason with me: he volunteered to take a later plane so that we would have time to discuss it, but I told him very politely and very firmly, that my decision was final. I would not see himor talk to him again.

At 10 o’clock the next morning I was called into a meeting and informed that Mike Mcnaught had just phoned from Detroit and unexpectedly given us another film to do and that he had specified that I was to be sent to Detroit as part of the film crew. It did not require much brilliance on my part to discern why we had been chosen to do that film, or why he specifically said that I was to be part of the crew.

Ten Minutes later, in a phone conversation that would have cost me my job had anyone overheard it, I accused Mike of being everything from devious to arrogant. He agreed that he was, and then after ordering me to Detroit, he hung up on me .

During that second film, I stubbornly remained businesslike and aloof, but I went down to ignominious defeat during the third film (which following immediately thereafter), Mike proposed during the fourth and we were married by the fifth.

My first experience with marriage had been disastrous, but marriage to Michael was glorious. He filled my life with laughter, joy, and love. We had promised ourselves to keep the romance in our marriage, and we did it. We stayed up late after the children went to bed and drank brandy in front of the fireplace; we treated each other with gentleness; and when we fought, we fought fairly. And as icing on the cake, Mike had been with GM for 10 years, his traveling days were over, and he was permanently based in Detroit. No more moving around the country for me. At last, I had realized my childhood goals of peace, serenity, and total security

On our fifth anniversary, he announced his intention to resign from GM and open his own business in St Louis. I had married a closet entrepreneur. Before I could finish itemizing all my million objections, Mike had cheerfully whisked me to St. Louis and invested all out money in his new business.

I started reading romances to keep from worrying myself into asylum, then I started writing them because I felt so guilty about looking lazy. Michael, who laughingly regarded obstacles as things to overcome, never doubted for an instant that I would be published. During the next four years, while he deftly built his business into three thriving corporations, I wrote, I wrote—and I wrote—and I wrote. I could not stop writing. I had found my real goal in life; I wanted to write romances filled with humor and tenderness; romances that would make a reader smile and laugh a loud and then feel the ache of tears from the sheer joy of the story.

With Michael leaning over my shoulder to lend encouragement, I’ve finished three novels, all sold now. I leaned on his strength and borrowed from his wisdom; I endowed each hero with his warmth and humor.

He was killed in an accident on June 19, 1983.

In the months that followed, I spent my time either, dealing with the endless complexities of Mike’s corporations, or traveling—trying to escape the pain and grief of his loss. I found nothing to help me in Spain. I found no solace in Mexico. Or Canada, or England, or California. I found it a year later, right where I should have looked for it in the first place. I found it in my heart, in the memories of laughter and love that are stored there. Memories of a beautiful man who wisely believed that life is to be lived and whenever possible, enjoyed.

I began to write again and to my joy and relief, I discovered that writing is still what it always was before—a wonderful obsession. I still have stores to tell and characters clamoring for a chance to leap out of my imagination onto the paper—heroes who are capable of wisdom, strength and tenderness; heroines who are clever and assertive, but not prima donas.

Like most writers, I am a dreamer who shares my dreams with other people via the written word. When I write, I have one goal in mind: I want to make my readers feel, actually feel, the emotions of my characters—the joy, the laughter, the turmoil, the deep, profound love. There has to be conflict, but if a story is told properly, a readers loyalties should be torn between the hero and the heroine because they both have a valid reason to feel and act they way they do.

And when the story is finished, I want the memory of it to linger in my readers hearts and make them smile. Because that is the real reason I write—to make people smile.

As long as I can create the sort of story I want to create, I’ll continue to write. The day I can’t, I’ll stop. Even if its tomorrow.

~~ Judith McNaught