The mind is a funny thing.
Visualization and imagination create the same mental effects as if it were real. Going back to Napoleon Hill and up through neuroscience, the research seems to point to the mind’s inability to distinguish between real and visualization.
Adalbern didn’t exist until one sunny day a crouching warrior in custom armor, carrying equivalent to one of the most famous swords to ever exist, carefully climbed the side of a mountain with an army behind him. The warrior was hunting the mighty dragon, to claim its horde, and all the trials associated with claiming the cursed dragon horde.
Spending time with the characters that you create is like creating friends, and people you have never met, but who you either care for or revile. It is one of the most interesting experiences of my life.
Sometimes things get in the way. There are times when things just don’t click, and others when commitments overwhelm. All of that is just bullshit excuses though. If you ever want to be what you have in mind, we can’t make excuses for ourselves. David Goggins put out too much material in the subject, and all of that is supported by the biographies of every single successful person in history. We cannot make excuses.
Adalbern is a raider reaching past this prime. He is an old man in a world where men die young. The character is based upon the old English story of the Danish warrior Beowulf. The thought experiment in this case that drives his plot is that he was on that path, and destiny decides to take him somewhere else. He is taken from the cusp of victory, to the long bitter grinding road of life.
You can have a lot of fun unpacking that psychologically! Dealing with Adalbern on a regular basis for so many months has made him become completely real. The first book in the series is complete, but there is so much more to tell.
It is important to sit down and take the appropriate time to tell that story.
Hopefully, very soon, you will have an opportunity to meet him also.
By the way, if you have not had a chance, please take a minute to check out the Facebook page that I put together.
https://m.facebook.com/Douglas-A-Franklin-Books-108628307349817/?ref=bookmarks.
It is still in the early stages, but I hope to see you there.