Miracles and Real Life in My Books @Melissa_Keir #RB4U

Miracles and Real Life in My Books

Hello everyone, it must be the ninth, if I'm showing up to share a little bit about my writing with you. This month, December is a challenging one for me as it's the month my mom passed away. Her passing was sudden two days before Christmas almost twenty years ago, but we were fortunate for a real life miracle had given her ten extra years with us.

My miracle begins during the summer, not the brisk winter season. As the only of her daughters not living in my childhood hometown, I often called my mom and spoke with her, chatting about recipes or my anger with my husband. We had a tumultuous relationship, typical for many teenage girls and their moms, yet it had become a close friendship upon my marriage and subsequent move to Michigan. My mom was my best friend and the one person I knew I could count on.

I received a phone call from my sister. My mom had been rushed to the hospital. She'd stopped breathing. Dad had done CPR but it was serious. Could I come home? In the mean time, a nurse who was at the hospital where my mom was brought in was friends with my in-laws and called them to say...get me home immediately. It didn't look good.

There is very little I remember about the drive or my arrival at the hospital. The white doors of the ICU was scored on my soul. They made the most unusual 'whoosh' when they opened and you needed to be admitted by a nurse. My walk into my mom's room was slow and filled with fear. She was on a breathing tube, hooked up to a variety of machines. Her body had gone into a coma and wasn't responding to any stimuli. No one knew for sure why or if she'd come out of it.

My mom's high school photo

The nurses' desk filled the center of the area. Each patient had a personal room surrounding the desk so that the nurses could see each bed. During the next seven days, I became intimately familiar with the layout of the room and the lack of comfort in the family waiting area. We tried everything we could think of to bring Mom out of the coma, singing, talking, touching, even jangling the dog's collar. We begged and pleaded for more time. Mom was only 45, still so young.

One night my dad's priest was brought into the ICU. He'd had a heart attack. He was in his 80's and had been well loved by his parishioners. His family surrounded him in the ICU. They knew he wasn't going to make it. They made one request of him... let us know when you get to heaven.

He passed and my mom woke up. A real miracle and one which I had to include in my Holiday story- A Christmas Accident. While I changed the character from a mom to a husband, many of the feelings and events were based on this real-life incident. I always tell my readers that I include a real piece of something in each story...whether it's a name, location, or incident... one piece actually happened. 

A Christmas Accident is a part of the Lovin' Christmas box set with six other stories sure to warm your heart and remind you about the miracles of the holidays. For only $0.99~ it's a present to yourself!

Buy Link: Amazon

Thanks for visiting... if you are a reader, do you enjoy real-life in your books? As a writer...do you include real-life in your stories?

Melissa Keir

www.melissakeir.com

Oh No!! The Fact Police are at it again!

When I wrote my first SEAL book, back in 2011, I was afraid of getting things wrong. My relative, who was an active duty SEAL at the time, actually stopped calling me back, I had so many questions. But I wanted to be as accurate as possible.

I've since learned to trust my research, and if I can't find reference to things, then they are obscure enough not to make a difference. Getting the characters right, IMHO, is what it's all about, and makes for a compelling story. The details can sometimes take a reader out of a book if they are grossly wrong, like SEALs flying their own Helo on missions with the Team, or having a Navy SEAL own a whorehouse for secondary income. Yes, I've actually read those SEAL books.


It's an interesting discussion. My SEAL relative sat me down and we went frame by frame though Act of Valor, which was the documentary they were shooting as a recruiting tool for SEALs, and later decided it was too good for that and turned it into a full length feature film. "Yes, we do that on a mission," or "Well, they did that, but we do it this way." Truth is, every squad has their way of doing certain things a certain way. And depending on the expert, their combat experience and when he was on active duty, the answers to our questions for accuracy could be vastly different.

I corrected an expert this weekend, who had many more years in the SEAL community than I. But his experience was from nearly 30 years ago. Things have changed.

When the SEALs were first created in 1962, there was a need for medics in the field because they were losing too many men before they could get evacuated to a hospital. The SEALs training didn't include medical or paramedic training like it does today. So, medics were brought up through the Navy to play support to active duty SEALs, and these men didn't go through the BUD/S training like the other SEALs. But they got to retire as SEALs.

Today, medics are chosen out of the SEAL class, not chosen to accompany them in a support role. They can do one or two other disciplines as well in case their squad expert is incapacitated. Everyone is cross-trained today.

I spoke with an author who was being edited by a New York house, and the editor was actually giving wrong information, requesting her manuscript be changed.

We all have to remember that our romance novels are a work of fiction. Just about everything I write about never happened although parts of it might have happened in a different context. Some of my characters are based on real people I know, but never on a real SEAL or other character. I once had someone question my use of the term medic, instead of corpsman, which used to be the standard label for a Navy Medic. But in time, these terms have morphed in the SEAL community, and they more commonly use the term Medic or Corpsman interchangeably.

In otherwords, you have to pick your battles carefully. As an author, do as much research as prudent but don't copy. And remember, it's your story, afterall. I do a lot of "what-if's" with my sources, and learn tons from non-fiction readings, especially biographies.

But at the end of the day, it is still your story. My story. Our story. Just do the best you can and don't worry about the Fact Police. Most readers will never know the difference. They're looking for a story, after all. If they wanted reality, they could read a dictionary.