Chapter 20 - Ellie Lerum

Warning: this episode may make you hungry. Now that you are aware of the potential risks, enjoy what Ellie Lerum has to say on world building, characterization, and writing as a form of connection. 

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Every story is a ticket to somewhere extraordinary. No need to pack a bag, just settle in and let the words transport you. Now boarding: an insight to an author's mind. This is The Story Station.

Ellie: I'm Ellie Lerum. I am a local author here in Idaho Falls. My husband does all my artwork for me. I do all the writing. We raise two hellions of children, love them dearly, but it's a lot raising two kids, trying to do art, and do the writing. So all of my work kind of takes place in between the hectic-ness of life, which is why I write. There are so many things in this world that we go through every single day that we don't talk about. We don't talk about grief of losing loved ones. We don't talk about grief of losing expected family members. We don't talk about anxiety, mental health. And I saw a real need in the market to be able to talk about those things in a safe place that a person could approach it with the safety net of fantasy, work through their emotions, and then move forward with the characters as they grow alongside. That's really what I do, why I do it. It was something that I felt very strongly after losing my first pregnancy in 2020, and I knew no one who had experienced that loss as well. And I decided then and there that I didn't want people to be alone and feeling like they were alone when in all reality they're not. So it's what I do. It's a little bit of a heavy reason, but it's there.

Emma: I think it's needed, definitely. Because there's so many times when you're reading that you can really relate to the characters or relate what they're going through and reading can be a way to process things.

Ellie: Exactly. Yeah. And that's the entire hope with everything that I write, you know. I've got two Christian fantasies. I brought one with me today and then I'm releasing a dark fantasy series, and all of them touch on some aspect of life, a hard part of life.

For example, in Gracefully Broken, the main character has everything set up the way that she thinks life is supposed to go when she suddenly receives the feeling that she needs to go elsewhere and leave everything behind. So it's following that gut feeling of this is who I'm supposed to be. This is what I'm supposed to be doing and the discomfort in that.

Emma: Yeah. That can be very tricky.

Ellie: It can.

Emma: I don't know, making decisions... I'm not good at making decisions at all. So I like that, because

Ellie: Thank you.

Emma: sometimes you just don't know what to do and it does take courage to

Ellie: Yes.

Emma: leave everything to make decisions like that. So writing about it.

Ellie: Well, and, you know, depending on who's reading it too, it could be someone who experienced that several years ago, in the middle of it now. They have everything figured out and they haven't received anything strange like, oh, I need to be doing this instead. But it's everyone on some level even if it's not first person for them.

Emma: So tell me a little bit more about your books. You mentioned Gracefully Broken, and then I was doing a little research before, so I know your other one was... oh, remind me of the title.

Ellie: Turning Point.

Emma: Turning Point. That one looked fascinating.

Ellie: Thank you. Yeah, so Turning Point and Gracefully Broken actually kinda go hand in hand a little bit. So Gracefully Broken follows a woman named Marin. She is a healer. She follows the god HaMelech, and she has everything in life that she's supposed to have, and then she receives the call she needs to go to a king—not a kingdom, a nation in which people who worship HaMelech are persecuted. Straight up witch hunt, not a fun time. You don't wanna be in that city when the inquisitors come through. So Gracefully Broken is her story following up to when she ends up being found out.

Emma: Oh, wow.

Ellie: Yeah. So it's a little bit of an emotional roller coaster as she meets these friends along the way and gets settled.

Turning Point takes place in that same city in Zanther, and the interesting thing about Turning Point is it follows an inquisitor who are persecuting people like Marin, and you're following his story and his faith as he's meeting the same woman that Marin befriends and their story moving together.

So if you read Gracefully Broken, you might be a little bit disappointed with the ending. I won't lie, it's one of those ambiguous endings like an 80s movie where you watch it, you're like, so now what? Is it happily ever after, or isn't it? So if you read Gracefully Broken, it's got a little bit of an ending like that, but Turning Point picks it up and it shows the light at the end of the tunnel, what happens at the end.

I've also got a dark fantasy that will be debuting at the end of the year, and that one focuses on a young woman trying to survive after she's been diagnosed with chittering madness, which for lack of better terms is a personified, absolutely horrible version of anxiety where you're manifesting illusions that come into reality, kind of to help people who are diagnosed with mental health disorders like I am. It helps them explain what it's like, how debilitating it can be. So it's a survival story for that one.

Emma: Do all three of the books take place in the same world or just the first two?

Ellie: They do. They all take place in the same world. So it takes place on Illeross, which is actually—instead of being a globe like we're familiar with, a sphere—it's a torus, so it's a donut world. So you look out over the horizon and you can see a giant hole in the center and you can see things on the far side of the planet.

Emma: No way!

Ellie: Yeah. It's been a lot of fun trying to figure out cardinal directions when there aren't cardinal directions.

Emma: Yeah. Woah. So if you were, like, in the donut and you looked up, could you just see land above you? Or how does...

Ellie: So it depends on if you were on the sides or if you were on the bottom of that doughnut hole.

Emma: Uh-huh.

Ellie: So if you're on the bottom of the doughnut hole, you can see up towards the center of the doughnut hole and the outside, but you couldn't see anything above you.

Emma: Okay.

Ellie: If you're right on that inside ring of that doughnut hole, you can look aside and see directly across from you more people. It is the weirdest thing.

Emma: Yeah.

Ellie: My husband ran through all of the physics. We have an entire page in the dark fantasy explaining how the torus works.

Emma: Wow.

Ellie: It is such an interesting concept and a lot of math.

Emma: I'd imagine so.

Ellie: Yes.

Emma: But I've never... you know, talking about world building, there's so many different worlds, but I've never heard of one that's shaped differently.

Ellie: Yeah. Well, and with that, it also had the challenge of how does the sun work? And for us, given the fact that there is a lot of spiritual elements in the books we write, people believe that a sun god created this planet to be perfect and his avatar moves up and down. So the sun is on a vertical axis and it shoots straight up and it slowly lowers. It goes down straight...straight down quickly and then back up. So it's kind of like a yo-yo. It's really cool.

Emma: That is super cool. Kinda making me hungry, too, with all the donut talk.

Ellie: I know. I know. I'm wondering if we need to go get bagels after this.

Emma: Yes. Considering your world, how does that affect your writing of your characters? And I'm especially interested in the society because you're talking about the city where there is no religious tolerance for certain religions. So how does that shape your characters?

Ellie: Yeah. So it's really interesting. There are several different societal forces at play in our books. The first being the deities that are worshiped. So we are playing with both monotheism, which is the worshiping of one god, and polytheism. So pantheons, kind of like the Greek pantheon versus Christianity one god. So characters kind of fall into one of two branches. They either believe that there is one god, HaMelech, or they worship this pantheon full of individuals that they worship for any number of reasons.

With Zanther in particular, it is a Solari city. So they worship the Solari pantheon headed by Solaris, the sun god. In that particular city, as it is such a focus on that deity and that pantheon, there is very little religious tolerance. People are persecuted. People are executed. People live in fear and in hiding, very similar to people around the nation, around the world today where their religious beliefs are not tolerated.

It really truly depends on who I'm writing as it's such a vast difference. You don't have people believing both of them, you know. So with Marin following HaMelech, who is "the one true king" in Hebrew, you have a character who is just trying to live every day remaining faithful with that threat of persecution looming over her. If anyone finds out, she's gone. And the city is okay with that due to propaganda. They're heretics, they worship a usurper. If we don't call them out, they're going to ruin what we have, they'll take over, they'll persecute us. So a lot of it is fear-driven society as well, which we see today.

Writing from the perspective of another character following the pantheon, he ends up having that exact opposite view of "we're in the right, they're in the wrong." And it shapes interactions between characters. It shapes interactions between buildings and people. It's a really fascinating phenomenon that lays rooted in a lot of realism.

Emma: And I like how, you know, there's so many different levels and layers of conflicts. So you have the character, maybe inner conflict, and then you have the societal conflict. That's just really fascinating to me.

Ellie: Thank you. Yeah. It's just like us every day. You know, you hear something on the news, and all of a sudden you have to wrestle with it. Do I believe it? Do I not believe it? How does that affect my family? What does my family think about it? Okay, cool. What does my town think about it? Because there are some places where everyone kind of has the same mindset and if it doesn't align with that mindset, it's not what they want to deal with. So it's a really fun balancing act.

Emma: And so reading about it, too, is kind of cool because other perspectives and other...

Ellie: Mhmm.

Emma: other worlds.

Ellie: Yeah. And that's really what it is. More worlds.

Emma: I also wanted to ask about... Oh, yes. Because with your characters, you were talking about that in Turning Point, the inquisitor.

Ellie: Yeah.

Emma: And from his perspective, that's so interesting because having such strong beliefs in one way and then... I mean, I haven't read the book yet, so I can't really say anything, but it sounds to me as if he's probably gonna have a little bit of growth and changing

Ellie: Yeah.

Emma: as he interacts with different people and learns more and adapts to what he's learned. How do you track your character's growth? And it doesn't have to be just the inquisitor if you wanna talk about your other work too.

Ellie: Oh, you're good.

Emma: Tracking the character's growth and then also how do you show that growth in your writing?

Ellie: Yeah. So I use a lot of Google spreadsheets. I really truly honestly have to use a Google spreadsheet to write down what the character's doing and what epiphanies are happening because we are all guided by that inner monologue.

So if the inquisitor is dealing with this truth... so for example, his daughter is sick, very sick. Doctors have not been able to help her. So he is dealing with this. Well, all of a sudden he's introduced to HaMelech. How does that affect him, you know? So I'll write down, daughter is sick, doctors can't help, finds out who HaMelech is. So all of a sudden, there's something that has to shift there because he's confronting that original stigma that he has, and it has to morph to fit this new idea in.

It's just like a little kid when they're running around, oh, that's a dog, that's dog, that's dog, that's not a dog, it's a cat. All of a sudden they have to make things fit. And that's how it works with the characters. It is that brutal, brutal look at, okay, you're dealing with this now. Are you going to adapt? Are you going to remain hard-headed? And either direction, what's your next step? It's very much a conversation I have to have with the characters, as weird as that sounds, as they drive themselves sometimes.

Emma: Yeah. So you kind of map it out and...

Ellie: I do a little bit of a map. I am the type of person who doesn't like doing outlines, so I will write an entire book as a first draft, go through remove, change, rewrite, etcetera. And that helps with the process, too, so I can catch discrepancies. Oh, he experienced this, or Marin experienced this, or Jean in that dark fantasy experienced this. Why aren't we changing in this way? Why are we not having thoughts on this? Let's change this. They need to be thinking about it because they're not just going to blindly go towards something they weren't thinking about earlier, you know?

Emma: Sounds a little stressful sometimes as an author to kind of to figure it out and hope it all works out on the page.

Ellie: A little bit. And it's... I think that's part of the fun challenge is having to figure out. It makes you think, too.

Emma: That's true. And then there are breakthroughs.

Ellie: Exactly.

Emma: So have you ever had a scene that you're writing and it just does not work? Like, you're just trying to just... you come back to it and you just...

Ellie: Yep.

Emma: And what do you do in that situation?

Ellie: I end up having to put it to the side quite honestly, and I try again with a new a new issue. There have been points where in writing these characters, I have this awesome scene in my head and I'll write it down and I'll look at it and it just it doesn't work. Something's wrong. I often let my husband read those and have him pull it apart, too, because he knows a little bit more in-depth on, okay, if this isn't working, what's he picking out? He hasn't been stuck in that page for four hours.

Emma: Yeah.

Ellie: He has a fresh perspective. And oftentimes, if it's just not working, sometimes the idea just needs to get scrapped, which it's okay to do. People tell you "Don't get rid of any of your ideas," and I disagree. Save them somewhere else. Just get rid of it for the time.

Emma: Yeah, so you can move on.

Ellie: Exactly. And get going elsewhere.

Emma: That reminds me of working on audio, actually, because sometimes... lately we've been working with AI voices, and sometimes I'm just listening to them, listening to them. Sometimes they sound so fake, and sometimes they sound alright. And so sometimes I'm listening and listening, and it gets to the point where I'm like, "I can't even tell if this sounds good or bad anymore!" So then I have to go to my boss and be like, "Can you take a listen?" And, like, yeah, so it's the same with writing. Sometimes you're just so focused on it and so into it that you can kind of be blinded. So you have to kind of have someone else that you trust take a look at it, give you some advice and feedback, and that can really help you move on.

Ellie: Yep. Exactly. And it also gives you a little bit of time to breathe and step away from that frustration. They can deal with the problem. It's with someone I trust. It's with someone who can take care of it. It's ok right now. I can have a little bit of my time. I can work on something else. It's still moving forward.

Emma: And then how do you get back into it after having a frustration? How do you just get back and...

Ellie: Get going?

Emma: Get going, yeah.

Ellie: Yeah. So it really depends on the situation. So there were a couple of points in doing my dark fantasy where the characters were not meshing. They're supposed to have a very terse relationship. It's not a great one at all. It looks at red flags. And for some reason, they were getting along too well.

Emma: Oh, no.

Ellie: Which was really problematic because it's like, okay, I like this dynamic, but this is too soon. They cannot have this connection at this time. So I had my husband take a look at it. He came back with some ideas. And then I had to figure out, well, how am I supposed to integrate this? And quite honestly, what I ended up doing was a quick scene somewhere else to get back into the characters.

It does no good to just sit there and twiddle your thumbs. I'm a firm believer that if it is not working, take a break from that, find something else in that same vein. You might not use it ever, but get back into the habit of using that character, those voices, that situation, what have you, and then you can start moving back where it is.

Emma: I like that. Those are maybe the struggles and the hard part of writing. What is the most fun part of writing?

Ellie: I really, really enjoy interacting with people who have read the books. It is so incredibly special to me to have people come up and say, "Hey, I recognize your work. I've read it. Beautiful artwork." What have you. And then get to hear their stories. I recently did a craft fair actually where I was invited to do this podcast through, and it was really, really cool hearing people's stories there. You know, there was one woman who used to write stories of the elderly that she cared for in a nursing home. There's a mom who was telling me a story that she wanted to put out there that was about her birth story, and it's so incredibly cool to be able to talk to someone about what they go through based off of what I've written. And that opens up a huge door for communication and relationship. It is so incredibly worth it.

Emma: Writing is connection.

Ellie: Writing is connection.

Emma: So I see you brought Gracefully Broken today.

Ellie: I did. So Gracefully Broken is written a little bit strangely. The book is kind of split in half. You can start in the middle of the book at chapter five where I'll read from and have a complete story. You can start at the beginning of the book at chapter one and read to chapter five and have a complete story, and you can read the whole thing together. So chapter five starts with Marin having left home, having left a fiancé, having left a job and security to enter the city of Zanther, where she is being persecuted if she is found out. So this is her attempting to get into the city and figure out what to do within the first several hours of being in a place where she is hated for who she is and has absolutely no one.

Marin carefully clutched her documents to her chest. They had worked tirelessly on them: a fake home, a false history of Solari worship, a work visa to support the story... All of it had been carefully crafted to help Marin enter Zanther with little questioning. In her pocket, nearly burning a hole through the fabric, was a rough cut piece of amber. As much as Marin hated carrying it, she knew the stone would validate her story—every Solari had one, as they needed it to speak to their 'god.'

It was a sad idea, needing a rock to pray, but Marin didn't voice that opinion. She was sure other Kingsmen felt the same, and the Solari knew no difference.

As she approached the outer wall of Zanther, Marin was taken aback by the sheer size of it. The wall itself was made of colossal ancient stones that towered over a hundred feet above her. There was no end in sight as it stretched in both directions for miles, almost big enough for her to believe in the old stories about the giants that once lived in this region.

The large gatehouse and courtyard was built just outside the wall and was constructed of newer stone and was smaller by comparison. The first gate into the courtyard was easy enough to pass through, especially as only a single guard glanced at her. Marin was suddenly a part of a winding line of people moving through the courtyard into the massive gates and booths beyond it. On either side of the courtyard, too, there was a statue and a shrine. Each statue had a staff in one hand and a set of scales in the other. One had gold and goods on his scale, while the other had kneeling people. Marin stared at the statues, realizing they were the Solari gods Ireus and Drisis, the twin deities of travelers and merchants living and dead.

A small flock of round birds, similar to pigeons, pecked at some of the offerings that had been left behind. Their bulbous eyes moved independently from one another, one looking for acceptable crumbs while the other, comically, watched the crowd. "Shoo!" a pilgrim scolded, waving her cane. In an instant, the strange birds suddenly stood to reveal oddly large legs as they scattered with surprising speed. "Darn Zanther pigeons..."

Marin smiled slightly at the odd sight before she looked around, suddenly aware of a lingering dark presence around her. She looked around, watching as the black shadows washed over the area and swirled around people who passed by. Some seemed to have more of the darkness clinging to them, others seemed to simply move like they were walking through a bog.

Amongst the people was a large, black, hulking figure. There was no real shape, only darkness, but its eyes had a dangerous glint to them. No one seemed to know it was there as it walked. Every so often, it stopped beside a person and plucked at their very being. The victim staggered, life seeming to leave them before it walked past and moved on to its next target. Only once did it look at Marin, but then it turned and walked away as though it wasn't interested in her.

The young woman stared after it before she was jostled from behind. "Move it! I want to see my grandson, and you're holding up the line!"

As quickly as her vision had appeared, it faded.

Marin whispered a soft apology to the irate man behind her and approached the checkpoint. In the booth sat a bored looking guard. He was wearing Zanther colors, red with gold embellishment, and was currently playing with a piece of amber on a chain. The pilgrim before Marin provided the paperwork, answered a couple of questions, and then received a stamp on the topmost document. As the other pilgrim walked away, the guard gestured for Marin.

She stepped forward, holding her documents ever tighter, and then placed them on the counter. The guard scanned the first page and then looked at Marin with one eyebrow raised. "Do you have a job here already?"

"Yes, sir. I was hired by a Mr. and Mrs. Jodius Rampart—she's a midwife in Zanther, and I was going to work for her as I'm trained in midwifery as well." Marin shifted, and the guard's eyes narrowed.

"I see. Where were you planning on staying?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Rampart had an empty space in their attic. Part of my employment was room and board," Marin said.

"Do you have proof of this?"

Marin nodded. "It's in the third pages of my documents, sir. I saved the letters we sent back and forth. Mrs. Rampart wrote to Godrick's Rest asking if we had any midwives available for hire, as there was an influx of pregnancies in Zanther. We all wrote to her, and she selected me as her apprentice."

The guard skimmed the letter Marin was talking about before he sat the documents down. "Miss—" he glanced at her papers, "Lott, you are aware that Mr. and Mrs. Jodius Rampart were executed yesterday for practicing heresy and witchcraft, are you not?"

Marin's face ran cold, and she slowly shook her head. "No, sir. I was not aware of that."

He frowned. "I see. Well, Miss Lott, as there seems to be no reason to be here—"

"Oi, Thaddeus, get a load of this!"

Both Marin and the guard looked towards the shouting, where another guard had a young man by the scruff. "He's selling ambers... Glass ambers!"

"No, sirs, you misunderstand. They're not meant for worship... simply decoration!"

"Scoundrels... Let me finish this!" The guard before Marin fumbled for his stamp, knocking both over. He grabbed one blindly and then stamped Marin's top document. "Now get out of here." He all but tossed her documents to her. "Everyone clear out! This gate check is now closed!" He hurried from his booth, leaving Marin to stare at her documents.

Approved.

"Thank HaMelech," she breathed, catching sight of the large 'rejected' stamp that had remained abandoned on the table. With that, she pulled her cloak's hood up and hurried through the gate.

She didn't waste time looking for where to go. Instead, Marin flagged the first wagon she found. "Can you please take me to the inner wall?"

"It'll cost you."

Marin produced several small coins. "This is what I have to offer."

"Very well," the driver sighed.

Marin climbed amid his bags of flour and held onto the wagon as it lurched forward. Very few people looked towards them as they traveled through the hamlets between the walls, though Marin didn't focus on them. Instead, she watched as hulking shapes in the shadows walked around and plucked at the souls of Solari worshipers. Every so often, Marin could see a person that the shadows avoided, but she didn't dare bring any attention to them.

It was dangerous. Her contacts had been found out after all, even with all the care they took. Now... Marin swallowed, trying to wrap her mind around what she could do.

There wasn't any place for her to go, nor was there a place to work. She was so preoccupied with her worries that she didn't realize the wagon stopped until the driver shook her. "Get going!"

The second checkpoint was very easy compared to the first. They scanned her documents, found the approval stamp, and waved her through. Then, Martin stared around her to decide her next steps. The citadel before her made it difficult to focus, and it was covered in brightly polished amber. Guards and inquisitors patrolled the streets, making people move to both sides of the road as they walked through. Marin stepped backwards as a group of guards got too close, but they didn't pay any attention to her.

Utterly lost, Marin began down the streets. Her stomach growled and she finally stopped. "Excuse me. I'm new to the city and I need something to eat. Where is the nearest—"

"Oh, down the road and to the left," a little girl pointed. "It's got good food!"

Marin offered a weak smile and followed her directions. The little cafe was bursting at the seams, but Marin managed to find a seat after purchasing a small piece of bread and cheese to savor. She had just began to eat when a woman with brilliant blonde hair approached. "Hi! I know this is strange, but this is the only table left, and I don't have much time before I return to work. Can I sit with you?"

For a moment, Marin stared at her before she gave a little smile. "Sure."

The blonde sat across from her, beginning to ravenously eat. "Thank you! I wouldn't normally ask, but I wouldn't be able to take another break until around 8 as I'm stuck in a double shift—You wouldn't believe how busy we've been! What with the inquisitors starting to crack down on Kingsmen worshipers, a lot of civilians have been injured in the crossfire, and we're beginning to be work to the bone. Top that with a lot of mothers expecting, and you get the picture."

As the woman spoke, Marin tilted her head. "You work at an infirmary?"

"The biggest and busiest in town..." The blonde began to chew on another bite, waving her fork. "Are you new to Zanther?"

Marin nodded slowly and held her hand out. "I'm Marin Lott—I just made it past the walls today."

"I'm Anca Cassy. Sorry, I normally do what I can to introduce myself in a different way, but I don't have much time before Madame Justine will want me back... Wait a minute, how did you know I work at an infirmary?"

"Well... I've worked double shifts at an infirmary as well, and you're talking about midwifery issues and injuries..." Marin shifted. "I... guess it wasn't hard to figure out?"

Anca laughed, "I guess not, I'm just a bit scatterbrained right now. Wait. You've worked double shifts before?" Anca stared at Marin before the bells of the citadel rang. She muttered under her breath, finished shoveling food into her mouth, and stood. "Come on, we'll be late!"

"To what?"

"Work! Listen. I know we haven't really met, but if you worked as a healer before, we could really use your help... unless you already have a job. You don't have a job, do you?" Marin's silence made Anca beam and hold her hand out. "Then we'll get you one! I know Justine will hire anyone who's competent, and this would be great for both of us. Please, will you come with me?"

Emma: Talking about the society, there's also so much in the religion building the two different religions.

Ellie: Yes.

Emma: I mean, obviously, that's kind of really heavily related with the society because society seems to be based largely on their religion.

Ellie: Exactly.

Emma: But there's so much there with, like, the amber that they use for their prayers, and then there's, like, the whole society with living in fear a little bit.

Ellie: Yeah.

Emma: And then what... I'm so intrigued by the giant shadow things that are like going around like that's...

Ellie: Yeah. So it was something that my husband and I decided to talk about. Lots of people have things that they go through and it eats away at them. So we thought it would be really interesting to have Marin see in the spirit, to see these things that could be picking at people. With her theology, what does it look like, an angel or a demon?

And when she's watching someone who isn't living in the truth that she believes and there's these things reaching out and plucking at their souls, what would that look like? That's throughout this book. It's throughout the dark fantasy too where there's things. They're in the shadows. You can't see them, but they are there and they will find you. It's a fun little aspect that we've been able to really lean into.

Emma: That is such a cool visual, too.

Ellie: Thank you.

Emma: That leads to deeper things.

Ellie: It leads to deeper things.

Emma: And I that's an interesting structure, too, because having like the first part and the second part, two complete stories within one bigger story.

Ellie: Yeah. Yeah. It ended up just working out that way. I never set out trying to make two little stories within a larger work, but it worked out that way. The first half of the book is all about Marin and her training and who she is, her fiancé, and then it ends where she's decided she's going to leave. So if a reader likes that ending and, you know, let her ride off in the sunset, they can stop there. Or they can keep reading and figure out what happens when she does reach Zanther, which is the cool thing for me.

Emma: It's like the donut world. Something a little different.

Ellie: Yes.

Emma: But very cool.

Ellie: Yeah. Thank you.

Emma: Is there anything else you'd like to share about your books or about writing?

Ellie: My biggest piece of advice is to just do it. There are so many people who have stories to be told and lots of people have told me that they have things that they want to write but they never have. And I think that's my biggest piece is just write it. You don't have to ever publish it, but have a little bit of a legacy. Everyone wants to leave something when they leave this earth. Why not have it written down for people to look at in your family, friends for years to come? It is such a cool thing to be able to do that.

Thank you for traveling with us. Next stop: your work of art. Poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, you name it. Email us at [e-mail]. Submission guidelines are not shy; they can be found in the podcast description. The Story Station, hosted by Emma, is a production of Riverbend Media Group.