Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Writing About the Tough Issues by Author H.L. Wegley


Three years ago, I searched for a plot for book two in the Pure Genius Series. Then a neighbor asked my wife and me to attend a human-trafficking awareness meeting. There we met Dr. Cyndi Romine, who has rescued women around the globe from human traffickers. We also heard from law enforcement agencies tasked with stopping human trafficking. The statistics horrified us. Our county is the worst place in the entire nation for child prostitution. 
When we learned that children were lured from street corners in our neighborhood, from food courts in local malls, anywhere kids gather, I wanted to do something. Using my hero and heroine from Hide and Seek, book one in the series, I plotted a story about the rescue of some girls from an international human-trafficking ring.
You might still wonder, “How bad is this problem, really?” I’ll let my heroine, Jennifer, tell you in her own words, words taken from an impassioned speech she delivers to an audience of high-school students and parents:
There is an epidemic, no, a pandemic of child trafficking. Its dark, evil thread has become deeply woven into the fabric of our society. First came ethical quandary, then a loss of our moral compass, followed by the proliferation of pornography and the view that prostitution is a victimless crime, perhaps no crime at all.
Now we have children being lured by predators into a life they would never voluntarily choose, while others are snatched literally from their own front yards.
The average lifespan of a young girl sold into sexual slavery is less than four years. If she is properly marketed in the right location, she will make four to five million dollars for her owner before she dies. Sex trafficking is so profitable that arms and drug dealers are incorporating it into their highly organized operations.
The average age of girls entering prostitution is thirteen, but it drops every year. Next year it will probably be twelve. For every eighteen year old, how many nine-, ten-, and eleven-year-old girls are required to produce that average? You can do the math. The numbers paint an incredibly evil, ugly, perverted picture …
Can you imagine what it feels like when a young girl who is helpless and hopeless catches a glimpse of what’s in store for her? A sixteen-year-old girl hanged herself with her own shoestrings rather than let the traffickers sell her.
Sell her. That’s an understatement. Children are sold not once, but a dozen times a night for as long as they live. And every thirty seconds, somewhere in the world, another girl is victimized by traffickers. In the United States, every two minutes someone’s daughter falls victim.
Without light and hope, this could be a dark story. But On the Pineapple Express is a thoroughly uplifting story of faith, courage, and love. On Thursday I’ll share with you my approach to writing about dark subjects without letting the darkness overshadow the light.

H. L. Wegley served in the USAF as an Intelligence Analyst and a Weather Officer. In civilian life, he was a weather forecaster and a research scientist in atmospheric physics. After earning an MS in Computer Science, he developed computing systems for Boeing before retiring in the Seattle area, where he and his wife of 47 years enjoy small-group ministry, grandchildren, hiking Olympic Peninsula beaches, snorkeling Maui whenever they can, and where he writes inspirational thrillers and romantic-suspense novels. 

Links:
 Amazon Author Page: http://amzn.to/10hubj8
On the Pineapple Express: http://amzn.to/1bZxiJ4


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