Why The Warrior from Monde? What motivated me to write such a story?
Well, I won’t spoil the novel by going into details, but I’ll hint at things through covering the themes I used to guide my writing. These themes inspired me to write the story in the first place, and they’re the road map for my entire astral warrior series.
Theme one – Physical strength; the joys and struggles of it:
I never played sports as a kid. Well, not for long. I was in ballet for a few months, and I did well. But for some reason, my mother took me out of the classes. That was when I was around eight years old. From then on, I did no sports. I loved physical activity, but I was too shy to perform in front of an audience. I recall going to volleyball tryouts when I was in 9th grade. As I watched the bleachers fill up with spectators, I grew nervous. At some point, before the tryouts even started, I walked out of the gymnasium and went home. I mean, who knew there’d be so many people interested in volleyball?
It turns out, a few years later, I learned that I was a pretty damn good athlete. But, by then, I was a mother.
The moment I left the hospital after having my son, I started working out. I had formulated a game plan while he was still in my womb. I would eat healthy and workout every other day. I did that. And fitness grew on me. When the idea came to me to join the military, I decided that I wanted to be part of The Few and The Proud, The Marines. So, I looked into their fitness standards, binged on military basic training videos, Navy Seal training footage, war movies and books, and I trained hard. I figured that I might as well torture myself at home, so the training instructors wouldn’t have to torture me too much during basic training (BMT). I was right. But it took time for me to reap the benefits.
In 2004, I joined the Air Force. I ditched the idea of the Marines, because as a mother, it was a selfish dream. When I first stepped foot on the concrete training block of one of Lackland’s training squadron buildings, I was singled out. I was nerdy-looking with my black, plastic-framed glasses, and corn-rolled hair. I’m five foot nothing as well. My training instructor loved to pick on me, “Petro, Petro”. Yeah, well, that did not last. Cause I kicked ass on the training field. I beat all the women within the first minute of every run. And I passed more than half of the men. This was standard for me each training day. I did more push ups than the other girls, the same with pull ups. Here I was, a new mom, and I was beating girls who never had a child, and were in sports for years; girls who I expected to surpass me athletically. By week three, my training instructor held off on picking on me. And by week four, the fittest male and I, were separated from our peers. We were placed on a platform with the training instructors, where we performed exercises for the trainees on the cold, concrete below. At the mess hall, training instructors offered me cake and extra food. In the end, I was awarded Top Physical Readiness Female and Warhawk. Yeah, I looked nerdy, but among those in the military, physical strength was well-respected.
