Why Vanguardian?

Why Vanguardian? What motivated me to write this story?

NOTE: After completing the first draft in 2014, I named the book The Warrior from Monde. Since then, the title has gone through a few changes (The Warrior’s Seed, circa 2016). I finally settled on Vanguardian around 2020. Available online and at bookstores.

For this post, I won’t spoil the novel by going into many details. Instead, I’ll hint at my motivations for writing Vanguardian 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 roadmap for my entire Astral Warrior series, which will continue beyond Vanguardian, my debut novel.

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 never played sports again. 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 9^th 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 embarked on an exercise regimen. I had formulated a game plan while he was still in my womb. I would eat healthy and work out every other day. I did that. And fitness grew on me. When the idea to join the military came to me, 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 looked nerdy with my black, plastic-framed glasses and cornrowed hair. I’m five foot nothing, too. My training instructor loved to pick on me: “Petro, Petro.” Yeah, well, that did not last. Because I kicked ass on the training field. I ran past all the women within the first minute of every run and passed more than half of the men. This was standard for me each training day. I did more push-ups than the other girls, and the same with pull-ups. Here I was, a new mom, beating girls who had never had a child and had been in sports for years—girls I expected to surpass me athletically. By week three, my training instructor had stopped picking on me. By week four, the fittest male and I were separated from our peers. We were placed on a platform alongside the training instructors, where we demonstrated exercises for the trainees below who were on the cold concrete. At the mess hall, the instructors offered me cake and extra food, as a perk for my pending Top Physical Readiness Trainee (PRT) award. At the conclusion of basic, I was awarded Top PRT Female and Warhawk. I may have arrived appearing to be a mousy nerd, but among those in the military, physical strength was well-respected—and to my surprise, I had that at an elite level.

I believe discipline was key to my success, as well as the principles that let me to join: I wanted to be more than the family I came from. Instead of languishing in front of TVs like how I was raised, I wanted to see how far I could push my body and mind while seeing the world at the same time. And my son would benefit from growing up in a completely different world than I grew up in—one full of opportunities, surrounded by people who go after their dreams and have the discipline to do so.

What does my life experience have to do with my novel?

My beta readers would know exactly what it has to do with it. Lucian (The Warrior from Monde the initial title of the book), has similar experiences. I have a connection to him in that way. Only he is much stronger than I am. And his strength will not wither with age, as mine will. I wanted to express the joy he feels as a superior athlete. The parallels in Vanguardian to my military experience and what I wanted for my son are no leap or far-off concoction. Lucian and Duke Fabien de Vistre are foils to each other. Fabien is no Lucian athletically, and Lucian can never have the emotional depth of Fabien.

Theme Two – There’s always a better man or someone to answer to:

I wanted to show that no matter how strong, rich, or powerful a character in my book is, there is always someone more powerful—whether it’s another man, citizens, politics, or religion. Every man in my novel has someone or something to answer to.

I enjoyed exploring this idea because I wanted to illustrate that human men are only human. Riches and natural strength can only take a man so far. With the non-human characters in my novel (I won’t say who), they must submit to their mission. One of these non-human characters must also answer to a man more powerful than him, and that man, in turn, must submit to his own mission. Finally, all must submit to the dictates of the universe.

Theme three – Women’s issues

There are some life issues that I believe are uniquely female. I don’t want to spoil the story, so I won’t go into details about this. But I don’t shy away from certain situations that women may face. Rima, Lucian’s mother, combats challenges from men and women. In my future novels, I will continue to air out my grievances with female-on-female aggression and social pressures. Vanguardian only scratches the surface.

Theme four – Race issues

As someone who studied anthropology, I believe have a different understanding of race than the average person. I know that race is merely an evolutionary adaptation to the environment. I include many races in my series, but also address the realities of racism when writing about mortal lives. Rima deals with this in Vanguardian.

Theme five – People can be complex creatures

No matter how deranged someone might seem, or what deranged things they may have done, it’s worth digging deeper. I won’t reveal who this refers to, but readers will figure it out.

Theme six – The afterlife and alien life

I’ve often fantasized about walking into another life. I like to believe that death is the gateway to a new world, possibly a better one. And not a permanent vacation, but an existence with a purpose.

My Astral Warrior series lets me play with the above idea. Nothing in nature sleeps. Trees can grow for millennia, the core of the Earth continues to burn, our sun burns and changes fuels throughout various phases of its lifetime. The universe itself doesn’t sleep; it’s said to be expanding and is possibly teeming with life. In my series, death opens a new mission to my characters (the majority of them).

The idea of alien life has always fascinated me, and yes, I believe there are other intelligent beings in the universe besides humans—hopefully more intelligent beings. In this post, I won’t go into detail as to how all of this fits into Vanguardian, but if you’re into those topics, I hope you’ll enjoy my novel.

Theme seven – Religion

My astral warrior series dabbles with some of my ideas about organized religion, and my beliefs or wishes regarding the afterlife.

I was raised Catholic. As a result, I was made to fear being sentenced to hell for nearly everything. But, over the years, logic kicked in. No human is perfect, and in the process of growing up, many of us do things that would be deemed sinful by the Catholic religion—I certainly did. I believe in personal growth, forgiveness, and understanding why people do the things they do. I don’t believe in harsh, eternal punishment.

In my series, I explore the idea of reincarnation. The process of reincarnation purifies the soul, until one can be free of their mortal life and ultimately carry out their principal duty as part of the universe’s greater design.

As for Vanguardian, the kings of the empires must battle with the issues inherent in organized religion, which plays a key role in the novel.

Conclusion

There you have it: a complete roadmap of Vanguardian‘s themes and my motivations behind them. I wrote this article because I felt it was necessary to explain my thought process with this book and the series. I wanted to write about my beliefs and experiences, while at same time, create a tale of something much more exciting.

Read Now

Vanguardian is available online and at bookstores.