{"id":3655,"date":"2014-07-15T10:16:55","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T17:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/?p=3655"},"modified":"2014-07-15T10:31:14","modified_gmt":"2014-07-15T17:31:14","slug":"unconditional-surrender-untrodden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/unconditional-surrender-untrodden\/","title":{"rendered":"Unconditional Surrender: Starting Down an Untrodden Path"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all got places in our lives where we feel comfortable. Maybe because it\u2019s familiar or because we have some kind of aptitude or control. It could be a place, such as your home or even your favorite room in the house. For some it\u2019s their work environment or while playing a sport. We also have neutral places where we\u2019re not comfortable, but not uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

And then there are those places where we\u2019re a little unsure of how things will turn out. This definitely happens when trying something new, whether it\u2019s a new job, a date with someone new, or even trying a new restaurant.<\/p>\n

So, back in May when Cat Grant invited me to be part of her military anthology Unconditional Surrender, I was very excited. Of course\u00a0I wanted to be in an anthology with Cat and L.A. Witt! I didn\u2019t think much about precisely what that would entail until I started planning my story.<\/p>\n

Then panic set in. I was in one of those unknown zones.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t
Who out there likes to read military stories? Is it because you\u2019re connected to the military? I\u2019m really curious. Since this is something new for me, I have no clue how many of my readers will want to read Unconditional Surrender<\/em>.<\/div><\/div>\n
\"Our<\/a>

Our gorgeous cover by LC Chase.<\/p><\/div>\n

I realized I\u2019d never written a military story before and that it wasn\u2019t going to be as easy as my contemporaries or even my Precious Gems mystery\/suspense. Military writing is a whole new world for me. I had to do research before I could choose a story line. It’s easy to think of photos of sexy soldiers, but I wanted to write something more authentic.<\/p>\n

While my Precious Gems character Reed Acton is a former Army Ranger, I really didn\u2019t know very much about what that entailed beyond some basic reading, because it hadn\u2019t been necessary for his stories. But since I had some small familiarity with that, I settled on writing about a Ranger.<\/p>\n

That was the easy part.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To find a reasonable story line I would need to know more about the active duty military, deployment, and the war in Afghanistan. Not to mention becoming familiar with military slang.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My family includes many people who have served in the military. My mom was in the Army, as was my uncle, my grandfather, and most of my great-uncles. None of these people told stories about their wars, at least not to me, and most of them have passed. The one story I recall is that one of my great-aunts worked in the same building as General MacArthur in Tokyo, and she smashed her car into his jeep one day\u2014her first day on the job. And yes, he was in it at the time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So I had to do this myself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Army<\/a>

Army Ranger School<\/p><\/div>\n

I started by watching films like Black Hawk Down<\/em> and Restrepo<\/em>, and the Generation Kill<\/em> series. (I really love Netflix streaming and Amazon Prime). I\u2019ve also been reading books written by Marines, SEALs, and soldiers, to get an idea of day-to-day situations. So far, I haven\u2019t found a book by an Army Ranger about Afghanistan. I guess they don\u2019t feel the need to tell their stories.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s been incredibly eye-opening. Since I don\u2019t personally know anyone who\u2019s been deployed I had been very insulated from the wars our troops have been fighting for the past 13 years. Until now I didn\u2019t have much idea of what it was like to go through boot camp, Army Ranger School, get deployed, or be shot at. I can\u2019t say I know how these men feel beyond what they\u2019ve said in books, but mostly what I\u2019ve discovered is that people sitting at home watching TV don\u2019t have a clue what these guys (and women) are going through.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Rangers<\/a>

Rangers in Afghanistan<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019m kind of embarrassed that without needing to do research for a story I would never have learned what I have about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ll share more of my observations and tell a little about my story \u201cIrresistible Forces\u201d later on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in May when Cat Grant invited me to be part of her military anthology Unconditional Surrender, I was very excited. Of course I wanted to be in an anthology with Cat and L.A. Witt! I didn\u2019t think much about precisely what that would entail until I started planning my story.<\/p>\n

Then panic set in. I was in one of those unknown zones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":3656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[625,587,17],"tags":[298,811,222,813,315,812],"class_list":["post-3655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coming-soon","category-feature-article","category-writing","tag-anthology","tag-army-rangers","tag-cat-grant","tag-military","tag-reed-acton","tag-unconditional-surrender"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/10458124_10204480822406167_2427390757839468702_n.jpg?fit=500%2C750","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pzLgx-WX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3660,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3655\/revisions\/3660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}