A few weeks back, Pat Rothfuss challenged us on twitter with the following:

Get out there and Bilbo it up! Bare feet! Crispy leaves! Live a little! I want pictures too! pic.twitter.com/Bu8ckvUVl1

— Pat Rothfuss (@PatrickRothfuss) October 18, 2015

My submission was the cover image. I was getting back home on the LIRR. Could have removed my socks, but it’s still concrete underneath.

But a week later I was headed to NW Arkansas to my secret, secret hideaway in the Ozark Mountains where I channel the force, build nuclear bombs (vicariously through my novel’s characters), and otherwise channel the divine into my simple little life. Every time I leave, I wonder why I haven’t yet become a monk.

And every time I leave, I resolve to become more monk-like.

The contrast of these pictures are the contrast of my soul. The power-hungry gamemaker wants world domination. That’s my Boromir side.

My inner St. Francis wants to cast off my clothes, give up my surname and take to the woods and fields. That’s my Bilbo side.

For years Pat’s been telling us to Bilbo it up. I need more of that and less of everything else. The simple way. I idealize it because I truly believe it’s practical. Not practical as in “easiest.” Practical as in “here is what a man of action must do if he is to thrive.”

The woods.

The fields.

The silence.

The inkwell.

And the scrivener.

What else do you need?

“Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps because I am afraid, and he gives me courage.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien