Hitting A Wall

I'm scheduled to being edits on Tactical Strike (Ace and Ryan's book) next week, and have frantically been trying to verify little details about things in the story before I receive the manuscript back from my editor.

I have a couple of trusted sources I always turn to, including a retired PJ who has been incredibly sweet and patient with me regarding all the copious questions I send him. He's never condescending or disrespectful even though he knows that all this info is for a romance novel. I love that guy.

Because my characters belong to AFSOC, certain details are murky or unknown for security's sake, and I can't seem to find the information I'm looking for. And there's a reason for that.

Well. In my desperation to tease out last little bits and pieces, I tracked down a gunship crew chief group on Facebook and posted a couple of questions. Turns out that wasn't my brightest idea ever.

In hindsight the questions I asked were of a sensitive nature, and I never should have posted them in such a public forum. Long story short, I was shot down in short order. Hard. In trying to make my story as accurate as I possibly can, I inadvertently offended and pissed off the very people I admire so much and want to spotlight in my books.

I posted an apology (don't you just love Canadians?) and most of them seemed to accept it, but told me not to post any more retarded questions.

Yeah. Lesson learned.

So, in the end my books will be as accurate as I can make them, but please know they won't be perfect in their detail. Hope you'll still get a good sense of what these AFSOC folks do out there in harm's way.