Or Proof # 2?
Author, Judy Howard’s mailing address is Sun City, California, but you will rarely find her there. Instead, you might find the top ranking Amazon author strapped in at the race track ready to check out the Mario Andretti Racing Experience or cruising down Route 66. Of one thing, you can be sure she is living up to a quote by Henry Thoreau, Howard questions, “How vain is it to sit down and write, when you have not stood up to live?”
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Saturday, April 5, 2014
What Happens When An Author Writes?
Before I wrote MASADA’S MARINE, I, like most Americans,
never gave much thought to our American service men and women who serve and sacrifice their lives so that I can
bask in the California sunshine, sip a $4.00 Carmel Frappuccino from Starbucks
and discuss the latest episode of Biggest
Loser or Dancing With The Stars.
When the subject of our military arose, I proudly stated my
patriotic views and gave a blanket, but silent, thank you to all who lost their
lives. My heart twisted in sadness every Veterans Day and Memorial Day. I
consider myself an average American.
When I decided to write Masada’s Marine, I imagined it as a
nice story about a puppy named Masada, who grows up to become a service dog and
changes the lives of two men. The first man began his life as a patriotic boy
who grows up, starts his own family and
becomes a Marine. The young man has everything to live for until he comes home
with PTSD and loses it all, even his will to live.
The second man began his life as the son of a drug addicted
mother and only knew how to struggle for
survival and exist inside a life of crime.
The young man ends up in prison with
nothing to live for.
Like many authors, as they pen their story, the characters
they create take on a life of their own.
At some point during their hours of research and interviews the story became
electric with emotions, alive like a beautiful sunrise and terrifying like the firefight
that promises only one victor. As I
learned more about the invisible disease, PTSD, the heartbeat of the story
began to pulse with emotions out of my control.
Masada, the service
dog in this story, changed not only the
characters’ lives, but my life as well. I
am no longer the silent American. I hope Masada will change your life, too.
Every hour a veteran takes his own life.
COMING IN JULY 2014
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