Libby Malin -Fire Me - Guest Post

I'm thrilled to have Libby Malin, author of Fire Me stopping by to guest post today!

The Flawed Heroine….and Her Transformation

Fire Me’s story follows Anne Wyatt as she makes her way through one insane day at the office. The lunacy of the day, however, is her own doing—after learning her business guru boss will be laying off an employee by the end of the day, Anne discards her letter of resignation and decides to go for the pink slip instead, along with its generous severance package. She engages in a series of wild pranks in order to grab her boss’ negative attention, her antics growing crazier as the day progresses. Along the way, she gets more than she bargained for—lessons in love and life and the choices she’s made and is about to make.

Writing Fire Me was a fun challenge, and it’s been really gratifying to hear readers and reviewers say it’s laugh-out-loud funny. Just as rewarding has been readers’ observations about Anne and the deeper story that plays out in her life as she discovers what’s important and how to move toward a brighter future. Anne, in fact, is a flawed heroine who’s made a bunch of bad choices in life.

I have to admit that I have a special sympathy for the flawed heroine, the woman who knows she needs to make changes, thinks she’s mapped out a path to those changes, and then is walloped with the realization that the road to change might be different than the one she’d imagined. In other words, life smacks her upside the head! LOL! I think many people have been in that position, suddenly discovering they made mistakes and wanting to make things right again.

This is what happens to Anne over the course of this one twenty-four hour period. Yes, she knows she’s been less than wise or loving in the past, but she’s going to change all that, by golly, by handing in her resignation, taking a new job, and showing her friends and family just how responsible she can be.

Then along comes….opportunity. She just can’t pass up the chance to win some money, and she certainly doesn’t see anything wrong with sticking it to a boss who is treating his employees like contestants on Survivor, with the weakest being voted off by the end of the day.

But as she turns on the switch for this “opposite” day (doing everything opposite the way she’d normally handle it), another switch is flicked to life. She starts reevaluating everything, from how she’s treated her supportive family to how she’s handled love. She starts noticing her co-workers more, especially good-hearted and good-looking Ken, who is concerned about Anne’s sudden shift into Bad Employee of the Year. She even starts rethinking whether her move to the new job is an admirable fresh start…or a cowardly running away from her past.

By the time the day ends, she’s gone through a transformation, feeling remorse for all those stupid decisions she made in the past, wanting to make them right, and seeing her future with clearer eyes.

It was a fun challenge, as I said, to write this book, and not just because looking for the right comedic moments was sometimes difficult. I also wanted to tell this deeper story of a less-than-perfect woman who stands at a crossroads, wondering which choice will now be the right one when she’s made so many bad choices in the past.

Thanks for having me as a guest on A Bookworm's World. If readers would like to learn more about Fire Me and my other books, they can visit my website at http://www.libbysbooks.com/.

Thanks so much for stopping by Libby! - Luanne