Emily Mims | Writing about Wounded Warriors

Veterans in general and wounded warriors in particular have a very warm spot in my heart. I live in San Antonio, home of San Antonio Military Medical Center, site of the Army’s famous burn treatment center and one of the three stateside hospitals where wounded warriors come home to recuperate and rehabilitate from their devastating injuries. Many of the more severely injured young men and women, those whose injuries were such that they can no longer serve in the military, have settled here in San Antonio, and it is absolutely no big deal these days to see a young father on two prosthetic legs chasing a couple of children across the mall or a man with severe facial scarring paying for his groceries at the store. Nor is it unusual to work beside a colleague with a closed head injury that suffers from migraines and struggles to put names with faces. Here in San Antonio the wounded warriors aren’t just a face on a magazine cover or an abstract concept-they are our friends and neighbors and part of our community.

So why are they such compelling heroes and heroines? Why do I like to write about them? Perhaps the answer lies in the bravery I see these men and women exhibit on a routine basis in everyday life. "No, we’re not heroes," they will tell you. As far as they are concerned, they are just going about their ordinary everyday lives the same as the rest of us. Yet at the same time the scars remain. After asking a time or two if they would share their experiences with me and seeing the expressions on their faces, I decided to do my research on topics like firefights and PTSD and IED’s online rather than ask them to relive the horror. (If I did have a question, I went to my son, who saw a lot but thankfully came home without a scratch.) But, outward and inward scars or no, I do see these brave men and women as heroes of the highest order, the kind of heroes and heroines I like to bring to life in my stories.

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About Emily Mims

Writing was not San Antonio teacher Emily Mims’ first love-in fact, she wrote her first novel on a dare. “I had just finished a romance novel and it was so awful I pitched it across the floor and said I could do better. My husband Charles promptly dared me to do so.” She did and although that book didn’t sell, she sold her second book and seventeen more to Candlelight Ecstasy Romances under the name ‘Emily Elliott’. These books were translated into six languages and sold millions of copies all over the world, and Emily discovered to her delight that she had many stories to tell and that she loved telling them. But Emily never left the classroom, and when the Candlelight Ecstasy line closed in 1986 she continued with her demanding teaching career and raising two young sons and her storytelling fell by the wayside. “But the desire to write never really left,” she admits. “I would be driving down the street making up stories in my head. Now that I’m no longer in the classroom, I am ready to tell my stories again.”

Again inspired by the thought that she could do better, Emily pitched another novel across the floor and under her own name wrote Solomon’s Choice, set in the Texas Hill Country where Emily and Charles have a second home. “I love the Hill Country and hope to set several more books there,” she says. “I also enjoyed incorporating suspense into the story.” She draws inspiration from the people and places in her life and from the things she loves to do. “Sometimes my characters are loosely based on someone I know, although by the end of the first chapter they have taken on a life of their own,” she laughs. “Places aren’t that contrary.” She also loves to combine her love of writing with some of the other things she loves to do. “I play dulcimer and ukulele in a folk music group and hope to use this as a background in future work.”

Emily lives in San Antonio with her husband Charles and their five dogs but spends time both in the Hill Country and in Eastern Tennessee. She would love to hear from each and every one of her readers! Visit her online at www.emilymims.com.

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About DAUGHTER OF VALOR

When wounded war hero Holly Riley comes home to the Texas Hill Country to build a new life for herself, she has no idea that life will include sexy Congressional candidate Jimmy Adamcik!

Wounded war hero Holly Riley has come to the lakeshore community of Heaven’s Point to recover from her injuries and build a new life for herself with her band of fellow wounded warriors. Temporarily employed as a nanny be charismatic Congressional candidate and neighbor Jimmy Adamcik, Holly and Jimmy quickly began to care for one another in spite of Holly’s distrust of politics. But Jimmy finds himself sucked deeper and deeper into the seamy side of the political process, and an old enemy from Jimmy’s past targets Holly’s soldiers one by one. Will Jimmy and Holly’s love survive the double onslaught-or will they be the final target of their unknown enemy’s rage?