Inspiration for 

The Lucky One

The Lucky One is unique among my novels in that it is the only
novel inspired by an image.  

At the time, the news from Iraq was dominating the front pages. 
Because my town is virtually surrounded by military bases
(including Camp Lejeune, Fort Bragg, Seymour Johnson AFB, Cherry
Point Marine Corp Air Station, and the New River Air Station),
stories in the newspaper about military personnel are often personal
and focus on their families or the struggles they faced upon
returning home.  In addition, I have dozens of neighbors who have
spent time in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

It was this combination of things that I assume led to the image. 

In my mind’s eye, I saw a marine staring at a photograph as if
drawing strength from the image.  He was in his fatigues and he
looked tired and dusty after a long day on patrol, and though it was
simply an image, I couldn’t seem to get it out of my mind.  It was,
somehow, calling to me and though it took a couple of years for me
to figure out the nuances, I knew I would eventually end up writing
about the image. 

From there, I began to ask the type of questions anyone would: 

Why is he staring?  Who is in the picture?  What is the status of
their relationship?  And little by little, elements of the story began to
form. 

No, I thought, he doesn’t know her.  He found the photograph in

the sands of Kuwait.  But he considers the photograph his lucky
charm.  And then decides that after his tour, he’s going to find her.
Not all those elements were maintained in exactly those ways, but it
was enough to get the mind turning.  The rest of the story slowly
evolved from there.

There were a couple of other challenges in conceiving the story. 

Readers familiar with the military are sticklers for accuracy (blame
Tom Clancy and Stephen Ambrose), and thus I knew I had to find a
marine unit that had been posted to Iraq three times.  (It’s easier to
find one now, but in 2008, only a few units had served three
times.)  I also had to find a unit that suffered an inordinately high
number of casualties.  I also wanted a “variation” in the type of
tours they did, just to keep the story interesting.  And then, in order
for him to be “lucky,” I had to find out whether what I was writing
could be considered believable.