How Writing My New Book Helped Calm My Anxiety by Meghann Whistler

It was the summer of 2022. The tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texas had thrown me for a huge loop for a whole bunch of reasons:

• Uvalde is only a five-hour drive from where I live in South Texas, so it felt like ithad happened in my own backyard.
• The mother of a student at my sons’ school was killed in the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, so I’d had a firsthand view of the toll gun violence takes on a family and their community.
• The kids who were killed in Uvalde were right around the age of my own children at the time, and as a mom, it was impossible for me not to imagine the horror of losing a child in that way.

I dreaded reading the news but I also felt compelled to read it.

As more details were released about the lack of action from the police in Uvalde on that terrible day, I felt worse and worse.

Anxious. 

Depressed. 

Incapable of putting pen to paper and getting words onto the page.

I needed a real-life hero to restore my faith in humanity.

And then, in July, I found one. 

A Real-life Hero 

I first heard about Nick Bostic in a clip on a news show talking about how a pizza delivery man had left his home without his cell phone in the middle of the night after having an argument with his girlfriend.

While he was driving around, he saw a house on fire. Unable to call emergency responders, he stopped his car and ran into the home to see if the residents were still inside.

They were.

Or at least, their children were.The owners—a married couple—had gone out for a date, and their 18-year-old daughter was babysitting her three younger siblings and one of their friends. He rushed the kids outside, only to discover that their 6-year-old sister was missing.

Without skipping a beat, Nick ran back inside. After searching and searching, he finally found the little girl, but the smoke was too thick for him to find his way back out from the first floor. He ran up the stairs, broke a second-story window and jumped to safety with the girl in his arms.

In a video clip released by the police, the first thing Nick says after handing the child over to the emergency responders is, “Is the baby okay? Please tell me the baby’s okay.”

That, I remember thinking, is a true hero.

Suddenly, I knew exactly how I wanted to start my next book, Their Unlikely Protector,
and I got straight to work.

For me, writing is a wonderful way to reduce anxiety, since I can literally create the
world I’d like to live in. The characters in Their Unlikely Protector deal with real-world
issues like eating disorders, dyslexia and loss, but they help each other, support each
other, and—of course—find love in the end.

Here’s the blurb:
The last person Valerie Williams expects to rescue her and her toddler twin brothers
from a fiery blaze is Brett Richardson, her high school nemesis. But with her house
burned down, Valerie is forced to stay at the same inn as Brett and work with him on the
town festival.
Now Brett has the chance to make things right, but can Valerie let go of the past to
make way for a future together?

About Meghann:

Meghann Whistler writes sweet Christian romance novels that won’t make your
grandmother blush.

Her debut novel, Falling for the Innkeeper, was named one of “Six Sensational 2020
Debut Series Romances” by the American Library Association’s Booklist Reader, and
was also a finalist for the 2021 Book Buyers Best Award.

Her first indie book, The Billionaire’s Secret, won the 2022 Selah Award for
Contemporary Romance, placed second in the romance category of the 2022 Christian
Indie Awards, and was a finalist for the 2022 HOLT Medallion.

Before settling down with her rocket scientist husband and raising three rambunctious
boys, Meghann earned a B.A. in English from Amherst College and an M.F.A. in
creative writing from Emerson College.

She is grateful to be living her dream of writing sweet, hopeful stories that demonstrate
the power of love and grace.