Four months into my Ephemeris journey, and the strangest thing has happened: I find myself grieving characters no one else knows. Debating fictional politics no one has voted on. Losing sleep over plot decisions no one is even aware of.
And in that isolation, I’ve discovered a truth no one warns you about when you set out to write a novel: there is a profound loneliness in loving a story before anyone else has the chance to.
When I was drafting Ephemeris, the momentum carried me. Writing is often described as a solitary act, but for me, it felt crowded. There were new characters at every turn. Conversations sparked in the shower. Plot twists unfolded during my drive to work. There were mornings I sat down to write and felt more like a stenographer than a creator…just doing my best to keep up.
But editing is something else entirely. It’s quiet. Purposeful. It requires a clinical detachment that’s often at odds with the emotional intimacy you’ve built with your characters. You’re not dreaming anymore: you’re revising. Measuring. Cutting. Mourning the scenes that no longer serve the whole. And most days, you’re doing it alone.
When You’re the Only One Who Knows
Right now, I am the only person alive who knows everything that will happen in the final draft of Ephemeris. That’s both thrilling and terrifying. Thrilling because I get to reveal this world slowly, on my terms. Terrifying because I can’t really talk to anyone about it.
My wife, Megan, is one of my beta readers. She’s being wonderfully generous with her feedback, pointing out everything from subtle inconsistencies to emotional moments that could hit much harder. She’s sharp and supportive…and she doesn’t want spoilers.
Which means I’m stuck in a very specific kind of limbo: I can’t share with her what’s going to happen to that character she loves in Book Two. I can’t talk about a quiet clue I left in Chapter 10 that will finally pay off in Book 3 or tell her what I plan to go back and change about Chapter 6 that will open things up quite a bit more.
There’s so much I want to say, but I have to keep it to myself. And the silence is deafening.
Political Chaos in Fiction—and Reality
One of the central tensions in Ephemeris is political: what happens when a once-stable society fractures under the weight of competing ideologies, broken systems, and selfish power grabs. Sound familiar?
I didn’t set out to write a political book, but it’s hard to write speculative fiction without engaging with systems of power. The world of The Man Man Sky is full of shifting loyalties and leaders making impossible choices in a time when the old rules no longer apply. Most of that happens off screen in Ephemeris, but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
Much like our world today, the uncertainty, the disillusionment is still very much there. The lingering question of whether any of it can be saved.
Some of my characters will respond to the crisis with compassion. Others will become hardened. A few will betray everything they once believed in. And writing those arcs…building the slow erosion of trust, the rationalizations, the irreversible choices…has been painful. Necessary, but painful.
Because again, I’m the only one who knows what’s coming. The readers don’t see the full picture yet. Even Megan doesn’t. And so I carry the weight of every betrayal, every failed compromise, every death. Alone.
Deaths That No One Mourns (Yet)
There are some deaths in Ephemeris that still catch in my throat when I read them. They’re not just plot devices. These characters matter. To me, at least.
Some die heroically. Others meaninglessly. A few deaths hurt in a way I didn’t expect. Maybe a character was never supposed to be important. But they kept showing up, quietly proving their worth, until one day you realized you’ve grown deeply attached. And then you realize they couldn’t survive the story.
So you write their death in a single sitting. Then you close the file and don’t touch it again for several days because it feels like a real loss…and you have no one to shave the pain with.
There’s an odd sadness in knowing that these deaths might not land for anyone else the way they land for me. That the grief I feel might never be shared. That this character I wept over might never even be a footnote in someone else’s reading experience.
That’s the bargain we make, isn’t it? We love the story deeply enough to finish it, even knowing it might not be loved back the same way.
The Quiet Ache of Caring Too Much
Here’s the part I didn’t anticipate: how vulnerable it feels to care so deeply about something that doesn’t yet exist for anyone else.
When I try to talk about Ephemeris, I often feel like I’m speaking a language no one else knows. And it’s not because people aren’t interested. It’s because they can’t yet understand. They haven’t lived inside the story. They haven’t met these characters. They haven’t watched a friendship unravel across fifty pages, or seen the glint of something dangerous in a throwaway line of dialogue.
And so I keep it all in. I don’t want to spoil it. But I also don’t want to carry it alone.
I take comfort in the fact that every writer I admire has likely felt this same ache: the one that comes from loving something deeply and having no one to share it with. Not yet.
Why I Keep Going
Some days, editing Ephemeris feels like shouting into the void. But most days, I keep going because I believe in the story. Because I believe these characters deserve their full arc. Because I want the world I’ve built to exist outside of my own head.
And maybe, someday, someone will care about these people the way I do. Maybe someone will catch that clue I dropped in Chapter 10 and feel that little jolt of satisfaction. Maybe someone will grieve when that bootstraps character dies. Maybe someone will rage at the same political nonsense that broke me when I wrote it.
But even if no one ever loves it as much as I do…or loves it at all for that matter…I’ll know I did everything I could to make it worth loving.
And for now, that has to be enough.
Want to follow the journey of Ephemeris and the stories behind the story?
Subscribe to The Cole Mine, my behind-the-scenes biweekly newsletter for readers, writers, and anyone who enjoys a glimpse into the creative trenches. You’ll get exclusive updates, early peeks at new work, and the kind of honest reflections I don’t post anywhere else.
