Beyond and Behind the Story Archives - View from the Front Porch

29 01, 2024

Where Do Stories Come From?

By judythemorgan|2024-01-29T08:09:17-06:00January 29th, 2024|behind the books, Beyond and Behind the Story|0 Comments

People often ask if my books are autobiographical. They aren’t, at least not completely. Things that happen in my life spark story ideas.

Sometimes it’s the location or an event.

That’s especially true of the first book in the Promise Series: Love in the Morning Calm.

The idea for the story came from my experiences as a Department of Army Civilian at Headquarters, Eighth Army, Yongsan, South Korea. Morning Calm is another name for South Korea, hence the title.

During the Vietnam War, I followed my husband on his unaccompanied tour to the 8th Army, Korea Procurement Agency. As unauthorized dependents, my daughter and I could not live on post in Yongsan. Instead, we rented an apartment high above the Han River in Han Nam Dong’s U.N. Village.

We did enjoy the other privileges like Post Exchange (PX), commissary, and medical facilities. I even rode the Army bus to work at the compound several miles away.

In Love in the Morning Calm, Lily lives where we did and works at G3, Eighth Army as I did.

But that’s where the character similarities end. 😉 The plot is not my personal story but a made-up love story of Lily and Alex.

I used events that happened while we were there to build the plot. President Lyndon Johnson’s secret visit to Eighth Army during his Southeast Asia Tour was what brought Lily Johnson and Major Alex (Ace) Cabot together. I was the secretary for the G3 group overseeing the presidential visit.

Other real experiences and places appear in story scenes too. Chungpyung Reservoir where we picnicked with friends.

The Bando Hotel where my husband and I had dinners and Walker Hill where the Presidential Reception was held.

And there really was a gold dress like Lily wore at the Presidential Reception.

Creating plots for books allows me to weave my life experiences, and places I’ve been into the stories I write.

In that sense, the stories I write are little memoirs. Not wholly, but in pieces.

I’ll be sharing the stories behind my other books in future blogs, come back. And, if you want to read about Lily and Alex’s story, here is the link: Love in the Morning Calm

In the furor of the ’60s, when women were fighting for their rights and men the Viet Cong, a young Tennessee preacher’s daughter seeks personal liberation. Lily finds instead a love that defines her even as it forever alters her definition of freedom and liberation.

Green Beret Major Alex Cabot meets Lily Reed, a Department of Army civilian at Eighth Army Headquarters in South Korea. He’s a high-potential career officer, who should resist the temptation of any woman, but he can’t ignore Lily.

In an uncertain time, in a temporary safe zone, yielding to temptation changes both their lives forever.

29 11, 2021

Memories Fuel Writers’ Stories

By judythemorgan|2021-11-28T07:56:58-06:00November 29th, 2021|Beyond and Behind the Story, Holidays|0 Comments

I’m always asked where I get my story ideas. The simple answer is my life. As writers, we call on our memories to plot stories and fuel characters’ emotions. Sometimes obviously. Sometimes subtly.

There’s personal memory embedded somewhere in a plot or a character or a scene in every book I’ve written. None more than When Love Endures, book three of the Fitzpatrick Family series. It’s based on one of my favorite holiday memories.

Growing up, holidays involved gathering around the piano and singing. It never mattered how you sounded or how old you were. You sang.

Or you played the piano.

Another thing we did was attend holiday programs either as an audience or participants. School programs, church programs, choir performances, band, and orchestra performances. Listening to the holiday songs always fueled our holiday spirit.

One memory—playing a Christmas duet with my daughter at her piano recital—provided the springboard for When Love Endures, my new holiday novella.

In the story, heroine Sarah’s high school sweetheart moves back to their small town and enrolls his daughter in her school music class. Old feelings return, but Sarah must win the daughter over. There are obstacles, but, like all Hallmark Christmas love stories, there is a happy ending that may or may not involve playing a Christmas duet.

When Love Endures

Sarah Fitzpatrick, pianist extraordinaire, gave up on true love when her high school boyfriend, Nick Stephens, ran off to marry his pregnant ex-girlfriend. When his daughter shows up in her music class eleven years later, Sarah must find a way to keep the little girl and her widowed father out of her heart. She can’t risk losing everything again.

Nicks Stephens has other plans. Sarah is and always has been the love of his life and he’s back in Burton, TX to prove it. But there are secrets Nick must keep, from Sarah and his daughter, that could destroy everything he hopes to build.

Use these links to get your copy.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/When-Love-Endures-Fitzpatrick-Family-ebook/dp/B08W9MP12F/

B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/when-love-endures-judythe-morgan/1138790688

I hope a fond holiday memory comes to your mind when you read When Love Endures.

5 08, 2013

Beyond and Behind the Story – Love in the Morning Calm

By judythemorgan|2013-08-05T05:48:12-05:00August 5th, 2013|Beyond and Behind the Story|2 Comments

Research and details in a book can make a major difference in a reader’s pleasure.

That’s why in Love in the Morning Calm and The Pendant’s Promise I include details selected from my time in South Korea.

Lily’s apartment is where we lived in U.N. Village.

I walked the same roads that she walked to catch the bus to Eighth Army Headquarters.

We got so used to the train whistle we didn’t even hear it.

These pictures stir memories for me and I hope give you a good idea of where Lily lived. If you’ve read Love in the Morning Calm, is it like your mental picture?

A gold dress also plays an important role in both books. I got the idea for those scenes from my own experience having a gold dress made to wear to the reception President Park Chung Hee and his wife gave for President and Mrs. Lyndon Johnson. Here’s what my dress looked like. Is it what you pictured Lily wearing?

There’s a carved Papasan in both stories. I brought back several carvings from South Korea to remind us of our time in Han Nam Dong.That’s the Papasan third from the left. When we lived in Seoul, Papasan meant a title used to address elderly men. The term has come to be used for pimps or a person who manages a bar or a brothel or a similar establishment. The kindly men in the white suits we met didn’t do any of that!

You’ll find I used others places we went during our time in South Korea and developed scenes around them. Places like Chungpyung Reservoir. I can still remember our picnic on the hood of the motor pool jeep with the sound of the roaring dam behind us. Ace and Lily picnicked there too.

I hope these glimpses of South Korea when I was there enhance your reading of Lily and Ace’s love story. Or make you want to read.

It should also demonstrate how writers use their personal experiences in creating their fictional stories.

In 1966, while on temporary assignment to South Korea, Green Beret Major Ace Cabot meets Lily Reed, a Department of Army civilian at Eighth Army Headquarters. Ace is a high-potential career officer, who should resist the temptation of any woman, but he can’t ignore his interest in her.

Lily is a firm supporter of the budding women’s lib movement. She enjoys her freedom and new life away from her stifling hometown. Her plans leave no room for any man. No matter how captivating his smile.

In an uncertain time, in a temporary safe zone, yielding to temptation changes both their lives forever.

Available for Kindle Nook Apple iBook/iPad and Smashwords for PDF, Diesel, or Kobo

For twenty years, Lily Johnson’s life, albeit a life of lies, has been good. Then her daughter falls in love and trouble abounds.

The young man her daughter plans to marry is the godson of her daughter’s biological father. A Green Beret Lily thought died in Vietnam.

When they meet him face-to-face, the years melt away and old passion returns, but Lily’s convinced revealing the truth could mean losing her daughter and the only man she’s ever loved. He believes Lily betrayed her promise to wait.

Is the flame of love strong enough to be re-ignited, or, is it too late?

Available for Kindle Apple iBook/iPad Nook Smashwords for PDF, Diesel, or Kobo and in Paperback

29 07, 2013

Beyond and Behind the Story

By judythemorgan|2013-07-29T05:51:39-05:00July 29th, 2013|Beyond and Behind the Story|0 Comments

One of the question authors are most frequently asked is where do ideas come from.

Today, I’ll be sharing the background behind Love in the Morning Calm and The Pendant’s Promise. These two books tell the love story of Alex (Ace) Cabot and Lily Reed Johnson.

Though not a series in the true sense of a book series, Love in the Morning Calm is the Prequel and tells how Lily and Ace met and fell in love. The Pendant’s Promise picks up the story twenty years later.

The idea for Lily and Ace’s story came from my personal experience at Eighth Army Headquarters in South Korea. What was I doing in South Korea at Eighth Army?

That’s a story in itself.

My husband is a retired Army Reserve officer. He completed R.O.T.C. during college and at the height of Vietnam War received his commission when he graduated.

With a military background – my father was an Army Air Corp officer, I was proud that my husband joined the Army Reserves…until his first unaccompanied assignment.

The thought of being stateside while he served at the Korea Procurement Agency, Eighth Army, South Korea, was not appealing.

It was so unpleasant that I sold our car, purchased airline tickets for our toddler daughter and myself, and followed him.

During our time there, I worked as a Department of Army Civilian (DAC) at Eighth Army Headquarters in G3.

That’s why, in the story, Lily is a DAC at G3. I knew what it was like. You might recognize the picture from the cover of Love in the Morning Calm.

Both novels are fiction loosely based around Lyndon Johnson’s Southeast Asia in 1966.

The characters in Love in the Morning Calm and The Pendant’s Promise are figments of my imagination, but I confess they have some traits of people I met during my time at Eighth Army G3. (That tee shirt saying, watch what you say or you might end up in my novel, is actually true.)

The setting is accurate though I’m sure that Yongsan Compound has changed dramatically since we were there.

If you’re read either Love in the Morning Calm and The Pendant’s Promise, you might recognize some of these places.

The parade field in front of Headquarters, pictured here from 1966.

The PX

The military buses

Next week, I’ll be sharing more photos of places around Seoul that I incorporated into both stories.

YOUR TURN: Do you like seeing “real” pictures to compare to what you imagined when you read books?