Jolene talks about...writing from a male POV and also creating a Native American character

I was asked to write about writing a teen, male, POV, when I'm neither of those things, and also a little about writing a Native Alaskan character. I'm going to try and do both without being too long-winded.

I love reading guy POV books, and had wanted to write one for a while. I grew up playing with the boys on four-wheelers, and out fishing. I was also the only girl in a sea of boy cousins. I patterned Jameson a bit after my husband, and he was a really good sounding board - but after a while I told him - Jameson can't notice boobs ALL the time, even if you do, lol. Jameson's voice was so clear in my head, that the book actually went really fast.

Writing Sky, even though I've spent a lot of time living with and around the Native population in Alaska, was more difficult. I'm much louder than she is, and more forward in some ways, but less forward in other ways. I'm not sure I would have climbed in a guy's car and gone swimming with him that same night. Sky explains why she did it later in the book, but it took me a while to be okay with that decision of hers.

I'd love to write a TON of books using some of the Native Alaskan groups I've been around. The Tlingit's live in what I think is the coolest part of Alaska, so I made her from there, but I have an Inuit character in another book I'm putting finishing touches on now. He's not a huge character, but I was able to use the setting more clearly.

It almost felt like cheating to make Sky part of a group I was so familiar with, but it made her real to me much faster than she would have been otherwise. I love the totems in Southeast Alaska. I love Tlingit artwork, and their drumming and dancing is just incredible. I'm fortunate in that even though I don't live in that part of Alaska, the dancers from a lot of different Native tribes seem to make the rounds pretty often. We also have a fair Tlingit population in Wasilla, where I live.

(I attached a picture of a Tlingit meeting house that's still in use. When I was a kid I remember going there and listening to the drums and just being amazed)