Fourteen years ago, I started writing a story. Today, I get to put it in your hands. There’s horror in it. There’s humor. There are people I’ve lived with for a long time, and now you get to meet them.
I wish I could tell you all those years were spent writing, but life had a few other things for me to do.
I struggled with PTSD. I went through a divorce. I worked. I kept coming back to the book.
When I served in Iraq, I was young. Through the things I saw and experienced, I gave a part of myself away that I didn’t know I would lose. Something I can’t get back.
Then I came home and tried to get on with my life.
Finding a good job was hard. The economy was struggling. I went to interviews with skills, experience, and a willingness to work. I heard, “Thank you for your service.”
Then I went home and kept looking.
I want to be clear about something. I did get jobs. When I first got out, I worked at Target and Walmart at the same time. Two jobs. Stockroom work was some of the hardest work I’ve ever done, and not having the proper tools made it harder. My heart goes out to the people doing that work every day. They earn their money.
After that, I decided to go to college.
I was trying to find work that would use what I had learned and give me somewhere to go with it.
I’ve heard “thank you for your service” at the end of interviews, and then nothing. It’s disorienting. The words land, and the door still stays shut.
I’m not asking for anything for my service. I’m trying to explain what that moment feels like.
What I wished for was simple. A chance.
I think about other service members coming home ready to show up every day and do the absolute best job they can. I worry about how many have something to offer that never gets recognized. That ought to concern us.
I don’t speak for every veteran. This is how it felt to me.
That’s part of why I want to talk about my experience with PTSD. Even these little moments can be hard to explain. Sometimes you don’t have the words when someone asks. Sometimes you’re still trying to figure them out years later.
During those years, I was writing Midnight Radio.
I sent the first chapter to my mother. She thought the family was funny. She got interested in their lives. When we talked on the phone, she wanted to know about the next chapter.
She would get giddy when another one arrived.
Her wanting the next chapter helped shape the book. She was reading it a piece at a time, and I started thinking about it that way. Give her a story in each chapter. Leave her wanting another one.
My mother was my first reader.
Things weren’t always good between us. But we had those chapters. We had those conversations about the people I was making up and what they were going to do next.
She died a year ago.
The story was already finished. She could have read the ending, but she never did because I never gave it to her. That makes me sad for her. I know what it’s like to get caught up in a story and want to know what happens.
I wish she could have had the finished book in her hands.
Along the way, I found my editor, Linda. We got to work.
That sounds like a short sentence for a lot of hours.
We went through the manuscript, revisions, formatting, covers, and proofs. Little details turned into entire evenings. I got frustrated. We worked through it. Then we found another little detail.
I finally had help getting this book where I had wanted it to go.
I just needed someone to say, “Okay, let’s go.”
Give me a chance, and I’ll take it and run with it. I’ll work hard.
And here we are.
Midnight Radio is horror. There’s humor in it, too. There are families, children, and people carrying things they don’t know how to put down. I wanted you to know them well enough to care what happened to them.
Now you get to meet them.
I wonder where you’ll laugh. I wonder what will bother you after you close the book. And I hope, somewhere along the way, you finish a chapter and want the next one.
Mom, thank you for being my first reader.
I finished it.
I’m moving forward. I just wish I could put a copy in your hands.
And today, the book we talked about one chapter at a time is out in the world.
Midnight Radio is available now. I hope you’ll give it a chance.
If you’re a former service member reading this, there’s something I want you to know. I know what it’s like to come home from war and try to find your place in civilian life. To hear “thank you for your service” and still feel dismissed. I don’t know everything you’ve been through, but some of what you’re carrying may be familiar to me. Part of why I wanted to tell this story was to reach you. It’s okay to hurt. I’m still finding my way, too. Take a deep breath. Let’s move forward, not as we were, but as we are now. I see you. There’s still a life here for us.