Odysseys of Discovery

"What you really value is what you miss not what you have."  Victor Luis Borges

While reading, THE GIRL IN THE BLUE BERET  by Bobbie Ann Mason, I  thought about life's myriad odysseys of discovery.  What draws writers to stories that follow a journey's process?

This novel, inspired by the experience of Mason's father-in-law in World War II, involves a B-17 co-pilot, shot down over Belgium in 1944. He received help from the French Resistance network to escape across the Pyrenees to Spain, and then to England.   Marshall, widowed and forced into retirement from his job as an airline pilot in 1980, returns to France to find those who helped him evade the Nazis.

Marshall's curiosity focuses finding Annette, the girl in the blue beret who guided him. Her family hid him for weeks while the network of conspirators arranged his escape. Marshall’s odyssey of discovery sets him on a new life course.

Creative Write:   Return to a place back in time.  Use writing to resolve misunderstandings, conflict unresolved, or as a way to relieve yourself of a burden.  How might your older, wiser self write about it?

Consider these ideas in writing your odyssey of discovery:

Return to a time of intense conflict and confusion.  What's your view now?  How would you rewrite the events?  What would you do differently or not?

Write about a relationship that ended abruptly.  Does it requires rekindling in writing?  Where will it take you?

Return to a time of family unrest and travel through it.