My Writing Journey: Pillar I The Mentor

The Mentor is a trustworthy guide supporting the protagonist, Ally, on her journey. My intention is for Ally to have had Logan already in her life as long as she can remember. He is friends with her parents and an uncle figure to Ally growing up. As with many people who work part time where the work takes them, Logan is around sometimes and away others. He enjoys working on the boats with his friends, but is not a permanent fixture. He is more interested in his personal startup vineyard where he turns his grapes into a grape whisky, only drank by those not faint at heart.

Unlike Ally, Logan is fully aware their is magic around them. He is a part of the magical community, although he keeps himself outside of it. He is what humans would call a shifter, he is equally comfortable in both of his forms, as a man and as a lynx. Earth has waning magic, so it is not easy for him to shift between his forms. He disappears at times, no one is sure where he goes, but when he returns, he has more vitality, almost as though he has been replenished with magic.

Having been scarred by it in the past, he courageously fights for security of individuals and for a better society. In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Logan is on the cusp between Esteem and Self-Actualization. He is a confident man, who has the respect of the boating community, especially Ally and Riley’s families. He is attempting to build a safe place for magical Beings on earth. He believes that everyone deserves to belong somewhere and is trying to make it a reality.

As a close friend of the family, Logan has taught both Ally and Riley skills in the forest that will help them in all environments. Tracking, surviving in the forest, and the beauty of having the tops of the trees and stars as a roof at night are some of the best memories Ally has of her childhood. It is from Logan that Ally found her love of sleeping outside in a hammock and having land beneath her feet instead of a boat on the water.

Logan has guided both youths to the secrets of the forest as a way to keep them safe while teaching them how to be safe. He is protective of them, as if they were his own family, and as so agrees with Ally’s parents that she does not need to be aware of all the truths of their home.

While Logan is one of the people Ally depends on, he is not always available to be there for her. For he has his own goals, to create a safe place for Beings like him. Beings outside of their home, trying to create a new one while not being found odd, different, something scary found only in folklore.

Logan’s background begins with a loving family and ends with him alone. A snippet of him with his family can be found in the short story, Lynx in Exile. To read the story, signup for the blog mailing list and receive the free story.