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.

GIVEAWAY

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.

About DAUGHTER OF VALOR