Arlington Author Asks 'What If' And Finds Inspiration For First Historical Novel

ARLINGTON, VA — Dorine Andrews can trace it all back to one moment.

"I was messing about in some old boxes of stuff my mother had left me, and I found a kind of a memory box," she said. "It was full of old letters and I found a whole series of letters to and from my grandmother, and my uncle."

Andrews never knew her 22-year-old uncle, who'd died when his B-17 went down on a mission during World War II.

"Because I knew nothing about it, I said, 'What if while he was in England, something happened?Would he have had a relationship that would have changed our family's life?'"

From those questions Andrews began to craft a narrative that would become the basis for her first novel, "Jack's Gift."

Writing was still relatively new to Andrews, who had retired in 2015 after a long career as a consultant. Her last job was a five-year stint as the chief information officer of the Peace Corps. She had plenty of experience overseeing business systems and not much interest in writing.

That all changed when Andrews discovered blogging.

"I really got into it and decided that I really wanted to improve my writing," she said. "I went to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, their writing school. I took courses online and I practiced by writing blogs again and again."

Feeling more confident about her skills, Andrews took her ideas about her uncle and began turning them into a story. She wrote at least two to three hour every day or every other day.

"Sometimes, I got into this mode where my characters were dreaming with me," she said. "And that's how the story developed. I kept saying, 'What if? What if?"

Andrews conducted research online and even visited the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force in Savanah, Georgia to learn more about B-17s. In addition, she leveraged personal connections she'd made as an instructor at Georgetown University to learn more about South Asian culture.

But it was the letters that provided the depth Andrews needed to tell her story.

"The documentation my family had on him, and the whole situation on the war at that time, was probably about three inches high," she said. "It really got me thinking."

Andrews finished her first draft in December 2020. Based on the feedback received, she decided to reach out to a professional editor at Mascot Books, who helped her rework the book and get it published.

Now that her first novel behind her, Andrews is hard at work on a second. Once again, she's drawing on the history of her own family as inspiration.

"It's a little bit different," she said. "It's the same foundation. It's really the story of my mother, in a fictional kind of version. She was a product of the '50s. She married my father in 1942. And then he was shipped off and didn't come home till '45. And then she was a 1950s woman and not a particularly an ordinary woman."

As a published author, Andrews has this advice for those who wish to take up writing:

"Write stories. Write blogs. Write private journals and research. Find thins that are of interest to you and see if you really like writing, because if writing becomes a burden, you'll never enjoy it."

"Jack's Gift" is available for purchase on Amazon or on the author's website.