This is the ARISEN book that nearly beat me. Like all well structured stories, this epic project had a “dark night of the soul” – followed by an “all is lost” moment. And in that moment, I genuinely thought this book was too big, too hard, too complex, too daunting – and that my powers to make it happen were inadequate to the job. I’d seriously lost faith that I could make this story work – every chapter I’d written looked horrifying, and every new one I had yet to write looked impossible. I told Glynn I thought I was going to have to put the whole thing aside, and work on something else for a while, just to try and clear my head. He wondered aloud if we might be zombied out – and perhaps should wind up the series more quickly than we’d intended. For my part, I seriously wondered if we’d simply built a story both too intricate and too sprawling to manage anymore.

But, somehow, over the next 24 hours, instead of walking away from it… I made a decision. I decided that ARISEN was (by far) the best story we had to tell; and, much more importantly, I decided I was going to write this book if I had to do it five words at a time – i.e. even if the magic never came back, and the whole thing remained a complete soul-crushing struggle, fought inch by inch. But, somehow, as soon as I had made that commitment… the magic came back. All those myriad interlocking plot elements started to slot into place… the story problems all became tractable – or even started to look like opportunities… and the writing became fun and thrilling again. (Okay, there were actually about 100 subsequent occasions when it got hard as hell again, and completing the climax made me physically ill and wretchedly exhausted, but that’s not important – the main thing is it never again seemed fatally impossible.)

In retrospect, I think it was necessary that I pass through this crucible-type stage of the writer’s journey. But to get there, I had to embrace, in my weak and tiny way, the one quality that all special operators have burnt into their souls: RESOLVE. I had to be committed to achieving the mission – no matter what I had to do, no matter what it cost me. Or, as perfectly described by former Navy SEAL and sniper instructor Brandon Webb as the only answer to adversity: “Tough. Deal with it. Adapt and overcome.” With those last three words, you almost can’t lose at life.

There’s no question in my mind that each of these books has been harder to write than the last. But I’m equally sure that each one has turned out bigger, better, and more thrilling than those that came before. Long may it last. Thanks for sharing the adventure with us. Viva ARISEN.