otta make this vague – too much real-world tie in here. But there is a point to be made.

Sometimes things happen, especially between the individual and the group. Wars begin over a slight between princes. Men are called into the dusty street to slap leather over a quip. The course of lives change over the smallest of things.

Without being specific, such a thing recently happened between myself and a group and I didn’t see it coming, I hated it when it happened, burned in shame the entire evening, and lay in bed the entire night thinking of what should have been said, what should have been done, a million little scenarios. I mentally drafted statements of this and that, considered confrontations, recovery operations, all that. The next day dawned (far too early) and I was left with a far colder heart. Where a younger me would cheerfully burn his boats with the kindle of rashness, the older me realized that I couldn’t go backwards, either in conflict or acquiescence. I’d be forced to change my life and my relationships and move to a new place, a place I didn’t really want to go.

It’s said (half in jest) that there are really only two story types – a man comes to town, or a man leaves town. I was in the second category; I was leaving town. Jason leaving Greece, Elisha leaving Carthage, Hannibal crossing the Alps, I was in it.

And it’s not a very comfortable feeling.

Of course, there is always the writer part of me, the side that looks at life as stories and stories as life. It’s one thing to read about a content hobbit realizing with regret that he should never have let Gandalf into his den. Such stories are interesting, expansive, and comfortably different – when you are just a reader. Yet now, suddenly, here is this quest before me, this change of relationships, statuses, and physical locations. I have to walk away from a comfortable situation and the Misty Mountains are ahead.

As a human, it is not a great place to be. But there is the writer side, the part of me that whispers take note. Because this is how heroes should feel, deep inside, when you peal back the heroics and commitment and jingoistic desire to make the world right. This is how the characters of your stories should feel as they take that first great step.

They should feel reluctant and alone and uneasy.

Remember it and live it.

>>>ELISHA OF TYRE HAD THESE FEELINGS. AS A BANISHED NOBLE FROM A FAILED COUP, SHE CLEARLY FELT THIS AS SHE SAILED WEST WITH HER FOLLOWERS INTO THE UNKNOWN. YOU CAN READ OF HER STRUGGLES IN “FIRE AND BRONZE”, AVAILABLE AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS LINK. HAVE A LOOK!<<<