Flora is the author of the "How-To" devotional Where Your Heart Meets God's and the Christian-inspired romantic thriller Love's Sweetest Revenge. This thriller is the first book in her Castle in the Sun series. She is currently at work putting the finishing touches on book two.
In Flora's guest post, Meet a Hero, she reveals her unusual writing habit is that her characters come to life for her and that leads to interesting situations. Check out this one:
Sometimes I talk about the characters in my books as if they were real. I never knew how real, until the day my husband, Dan and I went to the local (VFW) Veterans of Foreign Wars post.
As a reporter/photographer team for Senior Life newspaper in Brevard County, Florida, we were gathering information for a story about Memorial Day events. I couldn't resist telling the VFW members about Jack Martin, a fellow veteran. Jack exists, for me, in the pages of my book. He is one of the four central characters I brought to life.
Others include Liz, an accomplished artist and Carlos, Jack's brother, an international linguist and Presidential aide. There is also Rosa. Don't let her pretty face and small size fool you. She's an expert markswoman. She is also Jack's love interest, as Liz is Carlos'.
The guys at the VFW listened as I rambled on about Jack. Enlisting in the United States Army after high school, he served fifteen years and had risen to the rank of Master Sergeant. Now a civilian in his mid-thirties, he had served several tours of duty in Middle East hot spots. That's where the vehicle he was driving with fellow service members struck an IED. (Improvised Explosive Device) As the senior enlisted man and trained in first aid, Jack tended to the others' wounds. Securing a tourniquet around what was left of a young soldier's leg, he saved his life. In the aftermath of a suicide bombing, Jack had also comforted a 20 year-old soldier who bled out in his arms. But Jack had been in kill or be killed situations and he had prevailed.
Rosa is just tough enough for Jack, but tender enough too. She holds him when he awakens from nightmares about his troops being ambushed and blood on his hands.
In addition to being a tall, handsome much-decorated veteran, Jack is a motorcycle enthusiast, a hardworking bartender and the fiercely protective father of a teenage daughter. He can fix or build just about anything.
"We want to meet him," the VFW members told me. "Tell him to come here. We'll help him with his (PTSD) Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We understand."
My eyes widened in surprise. Without intending to do so, I had convinced them Jack was real.
But in a sense, he is. More than in my story, we can see him in the faces of 540,000+ veterans whom Wounded Warrior Homes said have been diagnosed with PTSD.
"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can be described as a mental health condition that's triggered by a trauma, whether experiencing or seeing it. The symptoms include flashbacks, nightmares, severe anxiety, depression and confusion," the organization states on their website.
The soldiers at the VFW wanted to meet Jack and I hope you will too—and the other characters as well, in the pages of Love's Sweetest Revenge.
Wounded Warrior Homes: http://www.woundedwarriorhomes.org/
Veterans & PTSD Crisis Hotline: 866-382-2287
Love's Sweetest Revenge is available in all major eBook formats and paperback from MillerWords.
Get the Kindle version here - MWbooks.me/revenge
Paperback here (ISBN: 978-0998298689) - MWbooks.me/RevengePaper
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