You know how separation anxiety works: You get this awkward feeling that something isn’t right. You feel like you’re missing something. There’s this indefinable, but undeniable blasé feeling. I sit here at my computer and realize I’m feeling that way right now.

Yesterday, I happily turned over the manuscript for Penance to my publisher. Yay! I should be happy, right? I AM happy to complete the book. I’m VERY happy with the final product. But I’m a bit sad too. You see, when you live with characters every day for months at a time, they become somehow greater than the fiction in your mind and heart. I’m not delusional enough to say they became real to me, but they really became a part of my life.

This morning I woke up without Michael, or Gloria, or Michele to worry about. How will they make it through the prophesied worst time to ever come on the world? How did they feel knowing they could have avoided all this pain by simply accepting Jesus? Their trials seem endless. Their immediate futures look dim. For months I’ve been helping them learn to survive in a world gone crazy. And now they don’t need me. They’re in the capable hands of Archway Publishing.

And I’m staring at a pile of laundry and a full laundry list of things that need to be done around the house—all of which were sent to the back burner while I helped my imaginary friends survive their imaginary trials. Even before lunch, I folded my whites, hung a mirror and installed a towel rack. Oh, and I scheduled a few appointments … but how does that compare to thwarting Benny’s evil schemes or investigating a mystery in the past of our characters?

I won’t be separating laundry for long. There’s really only one answer when author-centric separation anxiety hits (If this were a television commercial, we would shorten it to ACSA to make it sound more deadly). You have to get right back on the horse that threw you. Tomorrow I start the re-write of The Challenge with the hopes of getting it to press this year. Right now I hope to make quick work of it, because on the other side my friends are waiting. The best part about writing a book series is that the characters live on. And at the risk of giving too much away, a lot of things are left up in the air at the end of Penance—what a perfect excuse for me to start picking away at Parousia, the next book in the series!

This Generation Series books available now: Precipice, Pentecost

Coming in 2016: Penance, The Challenge