I wrote the title of this blog post, and started feeling like I was in a philosophy class! I’ll keep it real, though – nothing philosophical about it. Promise.
I was born to a US Navy family. My mother was an NCIS agent, who left the service when she married my father; my father was a US Navy officer. We moved around the country and the world throughout my childhood. Eventually, my two younger brothers, John and Josiah (who incidentally is my beta reader), were born.
I defected to the Army – and doesn’t THAT get uncomfortable on Army/Navy football games! – and went to University of Virginia on an Army ROTC scholarship. There, I majored in anthropology and religious studies, and eventually commissioned as an officer. I served four years, was medically retired with PTSD and severe migraines, and became a Sexual Assault Specialist at a local nonprofit. I worked there for nine months before becoming severely ill – at which point, after hospitalization, I became a substitute teacher while recovering.
(Let me just say – my hat is off to all the teachers out there. My mother now works as a teacher, and I have immense respect for everything you do. Substitute teaching was bad enough. I can’t even imagine working at a school full-time).
At that point… I felt lost. I didn’t know what to do with my life. I was writing, feverishly, obsessively, and one day my mother, who is a great deal smarter than me, rolled her eyes and pointed out that I was already doing something with my life. Why didn’t I move ahead with my story?
So I did. And the Revolution series was born.
