Jocelyn’s first fiction book, Wedded to War, released this month. Read it to follow Charlotte Waverly as she leaves a comfortable life to become a Civil War nurse. Thanks to Jocelyn for her guest post today with 5 fun facts you probably didn’t know about her!

1. I’m secretly adventurous. When I was in college, a few of my friends and I dubbed ourselves the Adventure Club in jest, because our idea of a fun Friday night was going to a coffee shop or to Barnes & Noble to play Scrabble. Ironically, after we graduated, we really did each have our own amazing adventures. The “Ultimate Adventure” was when one friend came to live with me in Homer, Alaska, for a summer while my husband was at sea with the Coast Guard. We ended up deciding to move while she was with us, and while Rob was at a conference in Florida, she helped me drive our pick-up trip five thousand miles from Homer, Alaska, to Iowa, with a pug puppy and no cell phone. We camped in the back of the pick-up truck for 17 days and stopped at seven national parks or monuments along the way. If you’ve ever driven on the Al-Can (Alaska-Canadian highway) you know this was quite the adventure. Highlights of the trip included seeing killer whales while on a ferry to Victoria Island, NOT seeing the bears in a campground in the Yukon, spending the night on a ferry loading dock, and going to a rodeo near Jackson Hole, Wyoming.   (Bonus little known fact: While living in Homer, I went grocery shopping at the same store as Jewel’s dad.)

2. I was a nanny in Mexico. It was for an American family, but I did have to use my high school Spanish skills to give instructions to the maid, the gardener, and the cab drivers. I thought I was doing SO well until I had a cabbie take three kids and me to a carnival that had closed down. He did try to tell me, but I didn’t understand, so he took me to an empty parking lot. Boo.

3. I taught piano in Vienna, Austria. I don’t know how this was arranged, but when I agreed to come live with a Viennese family to teach English to their children, I mentioned I needed to make more money than just the room and board the family was offering me. I was teaching piano to just a few students at the time, and I had won some awards for my own playing, so somehow my host lady had me take over some piano teacher’s sabbatical year at the Vienna International School. There I taught about ten students from various countries. Some of them had been playing longer than I had! And of course all the parents were shocked at how young I looked. I still have a piano in my house today, but have not played it in quite some time. Having children and being on multiple book deadlines for years on end will do that to you. J

4. I shared an apartment building with a suspect for the 9-11-01 terrorist attacks. Of course, I didn’t know this until after I moved in. I was working at my office building on Capitol Hill on Sept. 11, 2001, and saw the smoke billowing up from the Pentagon from our roof. My husband (who I hadn’t yet met) actually saw the plane fly into the Pentagon from Coast Guard headquarters. There was ash and smoke in the air around my house for at least a week (I lived less than a mile from the Pentagon). Then in February 2002, I moved into an apartment building in Falls Church, Virginia, and learned that the car found in Boston with the flight maps inside was registered to someone who lived in my building.

5. Whenever I’m serious about writing, I put on my writing pants. Literally. They may look like pajama pants, or couch pants, but if I’m going to spend more than an hour at my desk working on an article or book, I do my best work with an elastic waistband. J I have to be comfortable in order to be really productive. Everyone in my family, including my three-year-old son can tell when I’m getting ready to work when he sees the writing pants.