My Navy SEALs

As I write this I'm listening to the sounds of my printer working away. Paper sliding out, ink being applied, paper sliding back in (I'm printing front to back). Tonight this script I'm printing will receive a final read through. A verbal once over read aloud by Angela and myself. And then tomorrow it'll get submitted to a writing program. And then to a contest. And then posted on the Blacklist. And maybe some day...

And fingers crossed, for a few days, maybe I won't think about SEAL Team 12 nonstop.

For the past nine months it's what I've been thinking of constantly. Navy SEALs. Terrorists. Fundamentalists. Bad guys. Good guys. Guns. Black Hawk helicopters. Parachute packs. Nuclear warheads. Nuclear bunkers. Missile silos. Special operations. The CIA. Who did it? Who might have done it? What did she do? How did she do it?

My pilot is about an all-female Navy SEAL team. Not the first such team, just a team of physically fit problem solvers who happen to be women. (I stole part of that line from a Navy admiral who believes women should be allowed in to be in special ops.) I love the world I created. I'm obsessed with the characters I have crafted. I sleep and dream about these stories.

And yet? Tomorrow I'll put these characters and these pages to bed. I'll put them away, in a neatly organized folder with a dozen drafts and files of notes, and I'll have to decide on a new project come Monday morning. A new story to obsess over. A new world to create.

But I won't forget about SEAL Team 12.

And I won't forget about the idea that started the obsession. The idea that women can be SEALs too. The idea that women can do anything. The idea that if girls see it on TV and in the movies, they'll be more likely to believe they can do it too.

Words have power. Pictures have power. Put the two together? So much power coming through those little screens. So much influence. So much hope. So much potential.

It they see it they can be it.

So why not SEALs? Hollywood, I've got a story for you...