J. L. Odom

Wounds and Water: Regarding Personal Experience

So I had to have emergency surgery two days ago, which I am grateful for (you know for the life-saving aspect, and all the fine methods of modern medicine which keep residual effects to a minimum), but which is frustrating for a variety of reasons. I was supposed to do a long obstacle race in two weeks and that’s not happening, plus I am not allowed to pick up anything over 10 Lb for two weeks, in other words, my six-month-old. I cannot pick up my own child. I have to have my husband gently settle him onto me simply so I can feed him.

I texted my dear friend and crit partner to let her know I had surgery and she said what only a writer would say in response: essentially, “hey, now you know what it feels like to get stabbed!” Obviously, very useful, although I hope I don’t have to experience all, or even most of my characters injuries in order to properly empathize. I would like to use my imagination to cover some of that ground, thank you very much.

But the real-world experience is invaluable, just like knowing about physics is invaluable if you’re doing CGI for an action scene in a movie. If you ignore physics, it looks very, very stupid. If you ignore physiology, same spiel.

Several of my characters suffer some serious wounds and I really try to get this right. I confess that my eyes glaze if I read about “searing pain” and “gushing blood” without being able to connect that to something real. I want to be able to make it real. A vivid description of a paper-cut can make me wince more effectively than a video-game inspired scene of gore, amputation, and gut-spilling–firstly, because I’ve actually had a paper-cut, and secondly because you can tell the difference between a description drawing on experience, and one drawing on media imagery.

I mentioned a while back that labor and delivery is another good school for learning about gore and pain first-hand. Also, Marine Corps boot camp and the first two/three months of being a mom? Those work really well for teaching you about sheer exhaustion and the bizarre ability to fall asleep on your feet for a few seconds at a time.

So now, post-op, as I try to strategize about how to get up off the couch without ripping anything open, I am strategizing about how to realistically apply this experience to my characters so that the things that happen to them matter and resonate…so that it reads truthfully.

Which brings me to (seemingly unrelated) topic two: water.

For a while I’ve wanted to write a post about water scarcity and how its something Westerners don’t often think about because it’s pumped into houses and comes out of the faucet drinkable. Water is life or death in some places. Water is hard work. So I’m tacking it onto this discussion on personal experiences, water is such an integral facet of everyday life, everywhere in the world. But how often do you think about it?

Personally, I think about it all the time, especially when I take a hot shower. Hot showers are like miniature miracles. You turn a knob and, a few minutes later, there is hot water and unless you’re taking what a surgeon I recently met referred to as a “16-year-old-girl” shower (which, hey, sometimes I do), you probably have enough hot water to go for a while. You can still do dishes and give the baby a warm bath in the sink. It’s amazing. I think it’s good not to forget how amazing that is, and to be grateful if you have it. Such amenities are by no means universal.

We didn’t have water problems growing up, but when I worked at a clinic in Mexico for two months (when I was fourteen/fifteen) we had to buy drinking water and there were no hot showers. Some people we knew could not afford to buy water, and their kids were constantly ill as a result. It was a huge problem.

When I was deployed to Iraq, we had these giant pallets of drinking water–usually hot from sitting out in the sun–strewn about the area and you had to be conscious of carrying water with you and knowing how you could get water wherever you went. Also, navy showers, obviously. Or “sink showers” if needs be.

I had to purchase drinking water when in Egypt as well and it particularly bothered me that a lot of the kids there would buy soda/pop when they were thirsty instead of water because supposedly it was cheaper and because if you’re a kid, which would you buy? Be honest.

People who have electric well pumps, like my oldest sister, have to store water in tubs during storms in case the electricity goes out and water cannot be manually pumped into the faucets.

My second sister lives in Tanzania and all her water has to go through a single or double filtration system (locals usually boil or use a single method of filtration, foreigners/westerners, being less accustomed and more cautious, usually have a second level of filtration). She actually wrote a quick, fun explanation of the process here.

Okay, okay, this is probably getting tedious to read about, but water is so important, and so easy to take for granted. My story is set in the desert, so I have to think very thoroughly about the effect of water (or lack thereof) in such a setting. My story has whole armies that have to drink. I don’t have to write (and probably shouldn’t write) in great detail about aqueducts, well-depth, drought, water-borne disease, but I do have to write with all that in mind, because otherwise the story isn’t just fantasy…it’s nonsense. Unless, of course, you invent a world where water is not one of the most basic and essential features of our lives.

Last example? My husband and I, on our honeymoon, backpacking through the wilderness. We had to cache water several miles into the hike (ahead of time) so we could unearth it when we reached that point because it was summer and only a few of the natural springs were flowing. Later we had to hike an arduous side trail, because we were essentially out of water, not sure if the spring would be flowing high enough to draw from when we got there! Luckily it was, but we had to work hard to get it and bring it all back to our campsite.

And that was just two people in a semi-desert filled with numerous natural springs, and a map with all of them conveniently marked in location. Many people have to work hard for their water every day, or else risk illness every day. Just something to think about.

P.S. And if you want to look into an organization to this effect: This is Charity: Water’s mission statement.

Back into the World: Part 2

So, apparently I’m a stereotypical new mom and I was mistaken when I thought I’d “settled into a routine”…it would seem there is no such thing. I thought I’d be writing blog posts willy-nilly, and finish the revisions for my agent by the end of August (aka, in three days).

Well. You live, you learn. I am about 65% through revisions (wait…lemme check)…yup, 65%. And that’s not including the fact that I already know I’m going to have to go back and fix a few more things, do some pruning of the hedges, some mulching and watering, make sure characters and plots are flourishing and what-not.

There has been, over the past six months, a lot of moving, traveling, packing, unpacking, repacking, flying, driving, and living out of duffle bags (or a giant MARPAT kit bag, in my case) and trying to get our son to sleep just a little past 5:00 a.m. Someday we’ll get there. Someday.

Plus there’s been writing and revising, as mentioned above. And I’ve been training for four upcoming races, three of which are obstacle races varying in length from as little as 3 miles to as many as 14.

So here is attempt number two to establish blogging consistency. Enjoyable developments include:

Babies want what you have in your hand…phone, remote, watch, whatever. I have been reading G.K. Chesterton’s In Defense of Sanity while nursing and, apparently, this has convinced my son that this book (despite its entirely prosaic cover) is the coolest thing ever. I let him have it briefly and I might as well have given him the moon. I think this is good. He already thinks books are awesome.
Crawling has commenced, albeit of the low-crawl variety. Due to ever-shedding wolf, the floor has to be vacuumed every day, lest the little Mousekewitz (that my son’s current nickname because he likes it when we say that) eat more wolf hair than is good for him.
If you carry the Mousekewitz around the house and zoom him toward the wolf he giggles insanely, and the wolf runs away. I think the wolf thinks its mildly unfair that the Mousekewitz is allowed to chase and grab him, but the wolf isn’t allowed to do anything but lick the Mousekewitz, and that only gently.
Writing revisions is going well, if more slowly than I’d hoped, and it is also stirring in my mind all the OTHER stories I want to write, so I’m always opening up obscure word documents to write down a random line so that I’ll hopefully remember all that stuff when I finish this round of revisions.
I’m up to 9 miles in my running, and I’m starting to regain speed too.
I got to spend a ton of time with family over the past few months.

So, that’s a little round-up. I have lots of other things I want to blog about, but one thing at a time!

The Everlasting Trope: Cinderella

Until the movie Mulan came out—whereupon I collected all my babysitting monies, got a ride from sisters or cousins or whoever and saw it FOUR times in theaters—Cinderella was my favorite Disney movie. On the surface, it’s hard to say why. I am not big on cutesy talking animals, the prince is generic to the extreme, and I was far more Peter Pan than princess. I lived in my imagination, crowed (literally) at the top of my lungs, and repeatedly jumped off the old wooden swing-set, convinced to my very bones that if I did it just right, I would fly.

So why Cinderella? Recently I read two blog posts reviewing the new live-action Cinderella. At first I wasn’t sure I’d like it—figured it’d be too sugary for me—but these two blog posts reminded me why I love the story and convinced me that I desperately want to see it. I have not had a chance yet, because two-month-old babies don’t easily allow for things like theater-going.* But I will see it as soon as I can, just like I saw Ever After in theaters (and about fourteen times since then) and despite the fact that the whole “gussying-up-going-to-the-ball-charming-the-prince” thing doesn’t really appeal to me at all.

What I love about Cinderella is that it is the distillation of almost every other classic story that I love: a hero who honorably endures unkindness, abuse, cruelty, etc. Maybe they can’t fight it—maybe they’ve tried and failed—but they do not let it make them cruel and bitter either. That, to me, will always, always be a powerful story. I don’t care about dresses, or dances, or princes of the charming variety. I don’t care about magic, or mice, or godmothers of the fairy variety. I like heroes that tough it out, and don’t lash out against humiliation with compensatory pride, but with honor and endurance. Heroes that experience injustice but don’t let it destroy their moral compass.

Perhaps I admire quiet, calm strength because it is not the kind I possess. I was not a shy kid. I was not calm. I was not quiet. I never had trouble speaking my mind and I wasn’t ever very gracious in the way I expressed it. When I didn’t agree, I fought—verbally or physically—and “quiet, noble endurance” is not something that one could ever put in the same sentence as my name. (My siblings and cousins with whom I have had some fisticuffs can attest to this. As can that one kid, so many years ago, who thought that I was kidding when I said I don’t like to be tickled.)

This is going to seem an odd dot-connect, but I remember watching Roots for the first time when I was eight or nine years old. I became obsessed with Kunta Kinte, (who my PBS-watching brain couldn’t entirely separate from the already loved Reading Rainbow host.) I wanted to either be him or marry him or travel back in time and work on the underground railroad or something. I had to do something. My guts were stirred in a deep, inexplicable way by all he had to endure, and by the way he endured it. I was young and didn’t know much more than an eight-year-old can about the havoc wrought on our history beyond the confines of that particular story, but I knew that I wanted to be strong in the face of terrible injustice. Also I wanted to stop that injustice, but that is a different aspect of the story.

I don’t think Cinderella connects with people because of dresses and balls, or even because of romance—although that’s all fine and good—I think it connects with people because of REAL times in REAL history where people were courageous (isn’t the line “have courage and be kind”?) and perseverant and honorable in the face of brutality, injustice, and simple meanness. People who didn’t lose their soul—or their history, or the wise words told to them—to the horror that was visited upon them.

It’s the simple, fairytale version of a real story, and the kind of person I hope and pray I will be in that story. Not vicious or vindictive. Courageous and kind.

Man, I hope this thing comes out for rent soon. In good spirits, feel free to make fun of me all you want : ) **

*Other movies that come out this year and will have to wait for home theater viewing: Jurassic World, the new Terminator, the new Avengers, the new Star Wars…sigh.

**I would do a GIF here but I don’t know how to yet.

Back into the World

A lot has happened since I last posted here. My husband and I have had quite a spring!

-We had a baby, a very happy, beautiful, wonderful little boy!

-We had all manner of family come to visit us, during and following the birth

-We moved to a new state within less than a month of our son being born

and…I now have a literary agent! Yes, believe it or not, that contest I entered was a godsend, because the agent who won my manuscript through that contest offered representation and I accepted!!! We had a wonderful conversation and I am so excited to work with her!

I am starting (keyword: starting) to shake off the fog of new-mom-ness and feel (probably rather foolishly) that I am an old hand at all this and will be the most organized and disciplined creature when it comes to parenting, book revisions, house-y things, language study, etc.

I have just started running again, and have to start almost from scratch because my body has forgotten so much speed and strength. I am trying to remind my arms that they know how to do pull-ups, but my abdominal muscles seem to doubt that that was ever possible.

In my stories–the second and third books–some characters get badly wounded, (as characters often do in battle) and I feel like I have a whole new perspective on pain and gore and wounds and physical recovery. Imagine your body having to re-learn all it’s old movement and strength? I am just now, for the first time, having a glimpse of what that’s like for those who have experienced serious injury. Only a glimpse, but still, I have learned a lot.

Goals for this month:

1. Start revisions as soon as I receive the annotated manuscript from my agent (I get to say “my agent” now??!?!)

2. Get my run length up to three miles

3. Learn how to use GIFs…and other internet-y things (I am the sort of person who refused to get a cell-phone until I was eighteen because I thought they were stupid, and who had a very, very basic flip-phone until about a year ago. I take to technology sloooowly).

4. Write thank-you letters to friends and family who helped/sent gifts/sent encouragement during those first few weeks after having a baby

5. Get back in the swing of writing blog-posts, and hopefully ones a little more coherent and writing-related than this one : )

Writer Playlist

I can’t really write while listening to music. Music is an intense, involved activity. So is writing. Normally, I can only do one at a time. Nevertheless, I still have a writing playlist which I listen to while doing dishes, or driving somewhere, and these songs serve the same purpose as they do for those writers who can listen to music while they write. They bring a certain emotion or imagery to the fore, and help clarify subtleties of character and atmosphere.

So here is one song from my playlist:

This song is unusual in that it actually represents a scene that is not in any of the books, but which embodies who, what, and where a certain character is at the beginning of the story. This character has nowhere to go. They have been shunned by their own, and by everyone else they’ve encountered. They know themselves to be rejected by both the human and (their version of) the divine. They want to go home, but that is not an option, and not the solution. They want to ignore the problem, but there it is staring them in the face whenever they are quiet and still for even one moment.

And then (when the song breaks into its more modern, rocky tone) they are presented with a violent distraction to their conundrum, which enables the character to put off looking the problem in the face…if only just for a little longer. Of course the so-called distraction eventually serves to force that character to face the same problem again and again and again, until that character makes a choice, until they can change, and (perhaps) find resolution.

This particular character is also a somewhat violent and untrustworthy character, so the first half of the song indicates a sliver of vulnerability and uncertainty which does not actually manifest in the story for a long, long time.

Note: the main line in the first and middle part of the song translates to “My lover speaks a foreign tongue, and lisps in Arabic.” This is outrageously applicable to this character, but it would take an age and all kinds of spoilers to explain why. However, when I first tried to understand that line, I thought it said “My lover speaks a foreign tongue and bites in Arabic.” That may not make any sense, and I surely don’t think that is the proper translation, but I kinda wished that was the actual line, because that was likewise unbelievably applicable.

No one in the story speaks Arabic, by the way–it is a fantasy world with made up languages–but languages and dialects are very, very important. To me. And to the story.

Enjoy the song!

Waiting on all Fronts

Patience and peacefulness are not my strong suit. I know patience ’tis a virtue, but I have my little modified saying of the old phrase: “persistence is a virtue.” Both are true, but they can often seem contradictory. Do you wait to see what fruits or flowers in due time, or do you bully your way through (as I am wont to do) and make things happen now.

Example? When my mom and I met up in a NY airport for our flight to Tel Aviv (she had a Biblical Hebrew training course, and I took leave to tag along and spend time with her and old friends), she refused to pester the fellow to the outside of us in order to get up and use the restroom. She would just wait uncomfortably so as not to have to bother anyone during their precious in-flight half-rest. I do not hold this conviction. I would very happily disturb someone just as I would happily have them disturb me. I see no reason to wait or be coy. They’ll understand right?

And the above is an exceedingly mild example of what I’m talking about. I have infuriated school coordinators and frustrated Master Sergeants of the Marines through my principle of “persistence is a virtue.”

Certainly there is a time for that. I still hold that it is valuable. But so is patience. And I am having to learn it now from more than one angle.

First and foremost? I am 8 months pregnant. With a due date less that four weeks away and a fierce variety of related worries (about the baby, about myself, about my husband, about motherhood, about health, etc.) clamoring for my attention, I am somewhat anxious to ‘get the show on the road.’ (But not ’til my mom gets here, please Lord! She has already booked the flight and cannot change the dates). Chances are, I’ll go the full number of days and perhaps beyond, as first-time moms often do.

So I have to wait…and for the first time in my adult life, time is slowing down rather than speeding up. The first part of pregnancy flew by. This part? Not so much.

Secondly? Aside from the good handful of queries I have yet to hear back on, I have three full manuscripts out with three agents as a result of a contest I entered back in November/December. One of these agents is even at the tip-top of my list. It has been nearly two months that these agents have had my manuscript which, as I understand the time-frames, is very…medium. Some agents take two or three times that long. Sometimes they get back to you the very week you send it to them. I want so badly to hear back from them, but I also want to be respectful and patient.

This mostly results in me checking my e-mail way, way too many times a day. It also results in me squinting whenever I see a new e-mail in my in-box, so that I cant see what’s written there and so that I can mentally prepare. It’s silly, but there you have it.

So I have to wait, and try to be productive in the meantime. This is no easy task. The truth is, even if I were to give the old ‘nudge’ to the agents (or engage in every last old wives tactic to induce labor) it wouldn’t change the nature of the thing. The agents will feel the way they feel about the manuscript whether it’s today, or a month from now. My baby will be whoever my baby already is, whether we first see each other five days before the due date, or five days after.

I’m not saying I’ll sit idly by no matter what. But, sometimes, patience really is a virtue. It’s one I obviously need to learn.

Eras of Books

The title is more dramatic than it should be; this is just a list of favorite books, divided into groups. It is not fancy, but since the first thing I do when I go into someone’s house is give their bookshelf a cursory glance (if I cannot find it, I am confused) and I love it when bloggers and authors and agents give lists of their favorites, I imagine I can give as good as I get.

Childhood Favorites, AKA, books that I love forever because they imprinted on me as a child and teen:

The Blue Sword (Robin McKinley)

Till we Have Faces (C.S. Lewis)

Abolition of Man (C.S. Lewis)

Mara Daughter of the Nile (Eloise Jarvis McGraw)

Anne of Green Gables (but mostly Anne of the Island, because I’m a romantic, and the whole Anne/Gilbert thing finally gets resolved!) (L.M. Montgomery)

The Horse and His boy (C.S. Lewis)

The Bronze Bow (Elizabeth George Speare)

The Witch of Blackbird Pond (Elizabeth George Speare)

The Westing Game (Ellen Raskin)

Teens and early Adulthood books:

C.S. Lewis’ space trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength)

Ivanhoe (Sir Walter Scott)

Girl Meets God (Lauren Winner)

The Harry Potter books (J.K. Rowling) (note: the 7th book came out when I turned 21…did I go to bar? No. I went to the midnight release party at the bookstore. Yes Ma’am)

Exodus (Leon Uris)

More Recently:

The Wall (John Hersey)

Jephte’s Daughter (Naomi Ragen)

Heretics (G.K. Chesterton)

Orthodoxy (G.K. Chesterton)

Mind of the Maker (Dorothy L. Sayers)

Seraphina (Rachel Hartman)

The Scorpio Races (Maggie Stiefvater)

Pilgrim’s Regress (C.S. Lewis)

Persuasion (Jane Austen) (this is my favorite Austen, by the by)

There are quite a few missing from these lists, but those are a few highlights off the top of my head. Just for fun.

The Why of the Thing: Part 2

I wrote in my last post about all the factors the led to me writing my book. But the truth is, those factors would not a good story make. They were the reasons to start…not the reasons to finish. If all I had was desire and ideas, it wouldn’t have been enough. Flesh and blood has to cover those bones. Here are the things that influence the actual story itself, making it into something much more meaningful (if only to me) than anything I would have intended on my own:

1. When I was 17, I had already decided to join the Marine Corps. My parents are wonderfully supportive, but I do think that my Mom was ever-so-slightly nervous about my plan. She suggested I go do some other work for a handful of months and make sure that I was sure about joining the Marines. A Israeli friend of ours, who grew up on a Moshav (collective town), was passing through the city around that time and the suggestion was born: I would go volunteer at her Moshav for six months, work hard, gain some experience, and then come back and join the Marine Corps.

Consequently, for six months, I worked in the kitchen, cleaned ever-so-many things, hiked all around the country, walked hither and yon near Abu Ghosh and in Jerusalem, visited old family friends, lived sparsely, made friends from all over the world, and learned a good bit of Hebrew while I was at it. Israeli and Jewish history had always been on my radar, but now I enjoyed and appreciated it even more.

2. Nevertheless, when I came home, I still joined the Marine Corps. That’s how I knew it was the right thing to do. No matter the circumstance, the notion wouldn’t die, and I think God meant it that way. I trained, prepared, and shipped off to boot camp. Boot camp is its own post, not this one, although it’s influence on me cannot be denied. Military life influenced me. Deployment influenced me. Camaraderie and barracks life influenced me. Rank, hierarchy, and the unique military and Marine Corps culture fascinated me, even while I was a part of it.

3. My job in the Marine Corps was as an Arabic translator. I learned so much about the Middle East, about Arab culture, Iraqi Culture specifically, and tribes, and history, and I lived and breathed it…because it was my job and I cared about my job. It seeped into everything I did…including my writing, naturally.

4. My degree, which I acquired after my service, is in International Affairs. I studied politics, cultural conflict, war, languages, histories, etc. I love studying these things, I love being immersed in these things, and I love working on and with these things.

4. My family: I have a big family. We are loud (think “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” although we are not Greek) and close and wild. This is my culture.

5. More than any of the above: God. My faith. Now my book is not written for religious audiences. It is not “Religious” or “Christian” fiction by any stretch, especially since those categories seem to have very particular requirements and I sometimes wonder if C.S. Lewis’ fiction would have been rejected by Christian publishing houses for not being religious enough. But I am a Christian. And I was raised steeped in Jewish and Israeli history, culture, and traditions (long story, that). And I do think that diversity in literature should also include diversity of opinion, belief, thought, and faith. To keep my faith from influencing my writing would be to keep my breaths from influencing my lungs. Not gonna happen.

To put it a little fancy, these are the winds and rains and temperatures–the native climate–that shaped the geography of my writing and give it is character and soul.

That’s not to say there isn’t a lot more shaping yet to be done, because I’m quite sure there is.

The Why of the Thing: Part 1

Back of the Book Blurb [Cover and Links coming soon!]

When the enemy of your enemy is your only friend, in the end you stand alone

Azetla has served the Maurowan Army for fourteen years. There are six left to pay. A pariah and a debt soldier, he is a commander with no rank, a soldier without citizenship, and wears a sword that it is unlawful for him to either own or use. He has learned to hold his tongue or risk losing everything.

When Azetla’s battalion is sent into desert to catch a Sahr devil—one of the famously brutal inhabitants of the region—his tenuous position is threatened. He discovers that there is far more to this mission than catching a fiend. For the Emperor of Maurow, it is a way to prove that he fears nothing, not even devils. For the Emperor’s brother, it is a stepping-stone to rebellion. For Azetla it could be deadly either way, as he is cornered into choosing a side in the coming coup.

But the devil that Azetla finds in the desert is not what anyone expects or wants. As the conspiracy against the Emperor becomes entangled with the simmering ambitions of the desert tribes, Azetla must decide if he’s willing to strike a bargain with a devil in order to survive.

Naturally, she is not to be trusted. But then again, neither is he.

So here did this book come from?

I saw an interview on the Colbert Report in which Toni Morrison said that she recently looked through her novel “Beloved” in order to find something, and got caught up reading it, and read the whole thing. She said she loved it. “It’s a good book!”

She didn’t say it with arrogance. She said it like a reader would. She enjoyed the prose and the stories. She went on to say that the reason she wrote her books in the first place was because they were the kinds of things she wanted to read, but that didn’t seem to be anywhere on the shelves.

Now I would never be so silly or foolish as to compare myself, in skill or maturity, to a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. But what she said resonated deeply with me. I started writing the scraps of story–the ones that became different scraps of story, that became an attempted manuscript that eventually became a real manuscript, that eventually got heavily, heavily revised–because it was a story I wanted to read, and I couldn’t find it on the shelves.

It started with a few separate events, that all came together without my realizing it:

1. I was always making up stories anyway, although the idea of being a writer never entered my mind and did not seem at all relevant to me.

2. I had an excellent history teacher with whom my 9th grade class read “The Killer Angels.” It was during this phase of my life that I became obsessed with politics and war history, and tried to find a Narnia-like door into the Civil War era so that I could fight for the North, or work on the underground railroad. When our class took a trip to the DC area, I insisted that we reenact the Battle of Little Roundtop and Pickett’s (ill-fated) charge at Gettysburg. I wanted to be in battle. I wanted to save lives. I wanted to fight for justice.

3. I had an excellent literature teacher who loved fantasy and assigned one of my all-time favorite books “The Blue Sword” by Robin McKinley, or maybe it was “The Hero and the Crown”–either way I read both–and then gave us all an assignment of writing a fairytale. Mine was atrocious, one of the worst in the class, if not the worst…but my teacher said “I think you’ve got a bigger story here. Just keep writing on it.” And I did. I think it would be very difficult for even an anthropologist or a historian to trace that absurd story to the one I eventually did write, but, hey, an acorn looks nothing like an oak.

4. Around this time I decided I would join the military after high school. Not long after, I decided on the Marine Corps because Marine Corps boot camp was the longest in all the services, because my brother-in-law was a gung-ho, fresh-out-of-training-school Marine, and he unintentionally convinced me that the Marines were the best. (No really: He made us watch Full Metal Jacket, which you think would deter someone from wanting to join the Marine Corps…but it just made me even more excited. When I said “well, that’s it, the Marines for me!” his older brother, who had also been in the Marines, called me up on the phone and tried very hard to convince me NOT to join. It didn’t work.)

5. After reading lots of McKinley, and a little Tamora Pierce, I wanted more stuff like that. Complex cultures, battle scenes, adventure. Ironically, if this had happened today instead of a decade and a half ago, I wouldn’t have to search hard for epic battle books with female protagonists. That’s almost all there is now, it seems, and I could take my pick. But I’m very grateful this was not true then because, not only did it enable and encourage me to read many things that didn’t simply cater to my age and interests, (I think this is very important), it also encouraged me to write in order to satisfy my desire for that kind of story.

So that is why I wrote. The idea of ‘being a writer’? No. To get published? No. (I mean, now, I would obviously LOVE to get published, and I am working on it as we speak. But that was far and away not how it all started). To write a story that I could read and love deeply? Yes. That has matured into a desire to share it, to share something meaningful with others, but even if I never quite get to do that, I am still so very glad I wrote the story.