The Problem With Courage

Truly, I didn’t know what to do. I’d written any number of lists about what made sense, and that only helped a little. I could argue both sides of the issue, and I did that, which left me with a few functioning brain cells that needed a break.

It was a timing thing, too, which meant I didn’t have all week or even all day to figure it out. All my perfectionistic DNA was jumping, or whatever DNA does, because I had to pick The Best Thing At This Moment Or Else Everything Would Be So Very Very BAD.

I ate a huge piece of coffee cake and drank two cups of black coffee — that helped. I made the phone call, feeling like a wuss, feeling that other people, whom I have yet to meet, could handle this situation with aplomb. I waited for the person to answer the phone. I said what needed to be said. We hung up. My eyes were moist. I told myself that could have gone so much better if:

. I had showered.

. I had cleaned my office.

. I had practiced a short speech so I could get everything in.

I slumped into my husband’s office and said, “I did it.”

Evan said, “You’re brave.”

What??? This is brave?

“Really brave,” he added.

I remembered standing in a gym before a large group of middle schoolers and asking, “What does courage mean?” The kids looked at each other: She’s a writer. She doesn’t know what courage means? We’re in for a long afternoon.

“It means you’re brave,” a student said.

I nodded and asked the group: “What does brave feel like?”

You’re strong. You’re awesome. You kick it.

One boy added, “Even if you’re scared, you do it. It means more if you’re scared.”

Nods all over the gym.

I once had a girl ask me, “Mrs. Bauer, how many times in your life did you have to be really brave?”I loved that question. I shared a few things with her, but later that week, I remembered more. I wrote them down. I felt energized. I walked around reading the list of Brave Stuff I Did Through the Ages. Then I lost the list. I looked everywhere. Had my grandmother been alive she would have told me, “Those moments are still inside you, Joan.”

When I was writing my new novel, This is Epic, I had this thought about courage. It’s tucked into Chapter Thirteen just as the protagonist, Epic Dupree, realizes she’s being called upon to do something :

I always wanted to understand courage, not just the stories of people on a battlefield who were brave and did things far beyond them but the kind of courage that everyday people possess. Courage when you’re sick or when someone dies or when something frightening happens or when you get so depressed you can hardly stand.

Why can some people stand and others can’t? I hope more courage is hiding in me. I hope it’s fresh and fierce. I’ll take the Iron Man exoskeleton suit, size 8, please, with same-day delivery.

You discover what you’ve got, I guess, when you start using it.

*** This is Epic will launch on October 27, 2026, published by the good people at Greenleaf Book Group. It’s my fifteenth novel, my first one with an adult protagonist. It’s the journey of a singer/songwriter trying to find her voice after her music career is upended. More to come as we get closer.

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