Miranda’s Story | From Veteran to Author

The first thing I ever wrote was in sixth grade. My class was given the assignment to write our own superhero stories, and ‘Mighty Miranda’ was born. Unbeknownst to me, writing became my superpower; I just didn’t know it at the time. 

Looking back on my life as a military brat, soldier, military spouse, and mother, I found that, over the years, I have still been writing. At my first duty station, which was Fort Polk, LA, two incredible things happened. I got a job at the Post newspaper as a staff writer. I later met my husband, Juan - AKA Quique, and married him in eight weeks!

Following a whirlwind of a wedding, we headed for Germany. I wrote for the Division paper in the Big Red One for the first year and a half. Subsequently, I had my first child, Eddie, and I left the military to follow Juan around the world. All the while, I continued to write here and there. I participated in poetry contests and wrote editorials for local papers. When we served our second tour at Fort Hood, Texas, Quique began deploying to Iraq, which prompted me to start my first book titled Diary of a Deployed Soldier’s Wife.’ I did not complete the book, but have since taken one excerpt and turned it into a personal essay called ‘The Long Goodbye’, which was published a few years ago in a military journal called Proud to Be.

I became involved in writer’s workshops through Gemini Ink, which gave me the courage to take my craft more seriously. It was the feedback from my workshop colleagues, family, and close friends that helped me to stay the course. I finally completed my novel, Hidden Gems: Sapphire, and like most artists at the end of a long project, I posed the question: Now what? I immediately enrolled in UCLA’s film and television screenwriting program to learn how to make my book into a feature film, and in the process fell in love with television writing.

While in school, I placed Hidden Gems: Sapphire on the back burner for almost two years before bringing it to all of you. My self-publishing trek is a book within itself, literally!  It has been a long and arduous journey, with numerous difficult learning lessons along the way. However, this is okay because I wanted to write a good story and share it with others, and I have accomplished that with Hidden Gems: Sapphire.

I look forward to sharing the rest of the series, coming soon in books two and three.

I really can’t see myself doing anything else but writing. I hope you will all join me on this incredible quest through each diegesis I plan to unfold. And trust me, there are many…