This morning, I finished a novel.
The process of novel creation will never cease to unhinge me. Writing requires so much work, and so much love, and so much magic. I started the intensive effort of writing this story in February of this year, though I’ve been leaving myself notes on it since 2021. And one scene in it, I envisioned a good five years prior.
Writing “The End”—it’s a celebration, but one that can scarcely be celebrated. Because those two words represent not a finished story, but a finished draft. Really, “The End” is the doorway to a truer beginning.
Some hay-making is certainly called for upon penning “The End.” It’s a big deal, completing a first draft. I jotted “The End,” then closed my laptop and hurried to work. That last sentence, to get it just right, to leave things in a place that felt genuine—it had required some wresting, some real contemplation. I ran out the door and caught all the lights, and I was barely one minute late to the office.
And what a relief. Because had anyone asked why I was late, could I tell them that I’d just written “The End” in a novel? Does that feat justify rolling into work late?
I think it does. Completing a novel feels like a big deal, mainly because novels teach us so much as we write them. I often find myself unprepared for the insights that come. They strike like meteorites, these truths from seemingly no place that somehow flare and pass through us and brighten our stories.
This story will be book five in my Star of Atlantis series. The story introduces Sanjar Malek Asim—perhaps my favorite character of all I’ve written.
I mean, I love all my characters. Every one. Even the villains.
But Sanjar.
I’m convinced that my other characters, if they were being honest, would agree that he’s pretty special.
The first novel I wrote, which is wholly finished—book eight in the series and snapping electrically, aching to feel the free air in its leaves—includes Sanjar. In that novel he isn’t the protagonist, but he’s a shameless show-stealer, and he makes a big impact on the story. He certainly has his own arc.
I know him well. But it wasn’t until I was in the middle of this project—book five—when I realized that Sanjar jumps out of planes.
Sanjar is a bit of an adrenaline junky. I’ve always known this about him. But “junkie”—that’s not putting it quite right. More, he’s exuberant. A lover of life.
In a fit of story creation, I found myself in flight with Sanjar, in a skydiving plane. The air was thick with anxiety, for it wasn’t just the two of us, but Swift—no natural skydiver—was there too. The tension hit a fever pitch when we reached cruising altitude—ten thousand feet, the height from which people jump out of planes.
We achieved cruising altitude, and everyone in the plane was still safe. But we didn’t feel safe. Why? Because we had broken bonds with gravity. Because a fall was imminent. Inevitable.
In writing that scene, I realized that this savory, overwhelming concoction of thrill, of fear, and of spinning out of control is the very sensation of living.
Things feel unsafe, and anxiety abounds. Swift’s anxiety is raging (Sanjar’s is not). The only relief Swift can imagine is in forsaking the skydive and seeing the safe landing of that plane, in feeling its wheels coming to rest on the Earth. Everything in Swift is crying for a way out, for he and Sanjar to be spared from all risk of mechanical failure, of wild weather, of human error damning them, of meeting the consequences of a skydive gone terribly wrong.
And yet—in flight, they’re okay. They’re safe. Statistically, even, a case could be made that they’re out of harm’s way.
This acceptance of the discomfort of living—Sanjar, a brazen embracer of life, is teaching me. Sanjar is teaching me that the feeling of being unsafe can coexist with the state of being okay.
I recently underwent surgery, and through the recovery plenty of rest was called for. The days during which I most wholly, most completely rested, keeping fully clear of all interaction, focusing just on relaxation and sleep—those days were very good for my recovery. They were necessary and appreciated. On those days, I felt wholly safe.
And yet—of those days, I can’t remember much.
The days where there was some struggle through pain, I can recall. The days of a friend stopping by, the ache of a bit of strength returning, the striving through a first walk, the first time pushing myself to get out of the house with friends—all those days, I remember well.
Sanjar’s lesson is a good one. He urges me to not just press through challenging times, but to recognize those seasons as moments awake—as days carrying meaning. I believe the significance, the teaching, the reward is found not in the state of safeness, but in the feeling of being alive.
Book five in the Star of Atlantis series will be published when fully fledged. When that day comes, if you read the story, if you ride up in the plane with Sanjar and Swift, if you watch them gear up for the drop, if you find yourself sitting with them on the edge of the plane’s cargo door, I promise you—you will want to jump with them.
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