Author
"I write the stories that truth is too afraid to tell."
I didn't set out to be a writer. I set out to survive. But somewhere along the way, I realized that survival wasn't enough. I needed to tell the story not just for me, but for everyone who has ever felt like they were breaking under the weight of their own life.
Storie isn't just a character. She's the part of me that endured boot camp, the part that got back up every time she was knocked down, the part that learned strength isn't about never falling, it's about always rising.
But here's the thing: some truths are too raw, too vulnerable, too real to tell as memoir. So I wrapped them in fiction. I gave them different names, different faces, different settings. But the heart of it? That's all mine.
Every drill. Every letter home. Every moment of doubt and every moment of triumph, it happened. Maybe not exactly as I've written it, but it happened in the ways that matter most.
When you're bound by facts, you're bound by what actually happened. But the emotional truth, the feelings, the realizations, the transformations, those don't always fit neatly into real timelines and real people. Fiction gave me the freedom to tell the deeper truth.
My story involves other people, people who didn't sign up to have their lives written about. Fiction lets me honor their privacy while still sharing the experiences that shaped me.
Paradoxically, wrapping truth in fiction allows readers to connect with it more deeply. You don't have to wonder if it really happened. You just have to feel it. And feeling is everything.
"Every word in this trilogy carries the weight of real experience. The names may be changed. The details may be adjusted. But the truth? The truth is unflinching. And it's all here."
Venetta Jones