Ina previous post I wrote that 'I finally GET IT'.
After many years of struggling with the concept of something I regarded as ephemeral and 'Whoo Whoo,' I finally understood it after watching a short video
On marketing books of all things

Image source: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/spirit-soul-book-smoke-memories-751277/
The presenter said that as writers we should identify the 'ONE thing' that our books are about
And to communicate the essence of that to our audience
Well my books are science fiction, so maybe:
The future
How would that differentiate me from one hundred and one other writers?
Exploration
The same again
Aliens
You see the problem>
My epic adventure '59 is about a young woman's quest to discover her missing father's fate after the first mission to the stars ends in disaster, so:
Family?
Love?
How does that hook readers?
No, it had to be something that connects us all
That can connect me with my audience
And that I can communicate to readers and people browsing through my books

Then It Hit Me

What possesses people to travel far out into space?
What could possibly have connected all of these astronauts to want to go on such a long, arduous, and potentially dangerous mission?
What could make a young woman vow to risk everything to discover the truth?
Why would the search and rescue teams risk their lives after seeing other people die?
Why would the aliens I'm writing about in another series have travelled to this planet?
Why is one of them infiltrating the FBI's alien hunting team when she knows that discovery would lead to certain death?
What could possibly unite such a disparate group of characters to act in ways that spell great struggles and dangers for them ; if not death?

SPIRIT

It's something that's hard to define unless you look at it in the context of what I've written above
But how to convey it to readers without spelling it out in a way that seems like a great big spammy sales message - which I hope the above doesn't sound like?
That's what this series is going to be about
Because SPIRIT acts in different ways through different people, but it can still clearly be seen as that
I'm going to include a story that most of you will be familiar with; and will, I've no doubt, be controversial
Although I hope that you will all see it as the very embodiment of spirit
It's the story of a man who committed everything he had in order to save millions of people from conquest and subjugation
Knowing all the time that the same people would happily shower him with vitriol and stone him to death
Still he carried on with the vital work that would save a nation
Sure enough, his reward was castigation and a torrent of opprobrium
Now that man had spirit!
I'll feature his story later in the series
I'm also going to write a series featuring songs that reference spirit
Hey; I'm a writer, and I've just been showered with a load of ideas!
Spirit is about, adventure, exploration, love for your fellow man, nature, and the planet
These videos sum that up through the actions of these wonderful selfless people willing to assist helpless animals even though they have no hope or expectation of reward