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 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 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 me, 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.

So what does all of this have to do with my novel?

My beta readers would know exactly what it has to do with it. Lucian, The Warrior from Monde, 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. As for struggles, that’s where Fabien comes in. I won’t go into details, but Fabien is no Lucian.

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

I wanted to show that no matter how tough, rich or powerful a character in my book is, someone is always 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 this idea, because I wanted to show that human men, are just human. Riches and natural strength can only take a man so far. With the non-human men in my novel (I won’t say who), they have to submit to their mission. And one of those non-human men, also has to answer to a man who is more powerful than him, as well as submit to his mission.

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, gets caught up in this.

Theme four – Race issues:

As a person who studied anthropology, I have a different understanding of races than the average person. I know race is merely an evolutionary adaption to environment. I include many races in my series. But also inject the realities of racism when I write about mortal lives. Rima deals with this in The Warrior from Monde.

Theme five – People are complex creatures:

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

Them 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 this idea. Nothing in nature sleeps. Trees can grow for millennia, the core of the Earth continues to burn, our sun burns, and changes fuels through various phases of its lifetime. The universe itself doesn’t sleep either; it’s said to be expanding. In my series, death opens a new mission to my characters (the majority of them). The missions my characters are assigned to will be found out by the reader.

Aliens have always fascinated me. And, yes, I believe there are other intelligent beings in the universe besides humans; hopefully more intelligent beings. I can’t go into detail as to how all of this fits into The Warrior from Monde, 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 be frightened of being sentenced to hell for nearly everything. But, over the years, logic kicked in. No human is perfect, and just in the process of growing up, many of us do things that would be deemed as sinful by the Catholic religion—I sure 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 play with 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 principle duty as part of the machine of the universe.

As for The Warrior from Monde novel, the kings of the empires have to battle with the issues inherent in organized religion. And religion plays a key role in the novel.

There you have it. I had a total road map of where I was going with The Warrior from Monde. I wrote this article because I felt it was necessary to explain my thought process with this story and the series. I wanted to write about my beliefs and my experiences, but at same time, create a tale of something much more exciting. Thus, The Warrior from Monde.