I have always been honest with my readers. I am experiencing a sense of sadness, akin to mourning the loss of a loved one. I approach writing “The End” for Night Covenants. It is coming together as planned and the characters are following directions. I knew it was coming, but I wasn’t prepared for the profound sense of dread. I’m attempting to come to terms what that statement means.

“Part of the Journey is the End”

– Tony Stark

Nighthawks started in seventh grade. Nick Leonard and myself spent the our time after school swapping comics, talking about superheroes and day dreaming about what if we had powers? We didn’t advertise our geekery for fear of being ridiculed. Being the brilliant children we were, we decided to start our own comic. Nick spent his afternoons drawing powered characters while I wrote out melodramatic scripts. I used these characters for my creative outlets. They allowed me to work through the angst of my youth all while saving the world. They became like family.

We never made our comic, but the groundwork remained, hidden in a box in the attic.

At thirty, my parents moved. Childhood belongs were sorted and I donated most of my youth to charity. However, I found a notebook containing Nick’s drawings, old floppy disks and a few printed scripts. I had been writing for a few years and I recognized the potential for a story. It needed to mature and the world needed development, but our tween selves had started something that needed to be finished.

Vanessa transformed from a member of an invading alien race to a tender hearted telepath outcast by society. Skits became Dwayne’s sister and learned to fend for herself in a cruel world. Magus, a magical shaman with the ability to bend reality, well he got deleted because that was just batshit crazy. Even their location moved from New Haven Connecticut to Boston, Upstate New York and Chicago.

Only one character remained as he was created: Conthan. Conthan has always been me, there is no denying it. As a child, he was the man I hoped to be, a hero who in the face adversity could confront him demons and do what’s right. As an adult, he reminds me to roll with the punches, appreciate life, and remain connected to the people in my life. Conthan has become my alter ego where I get to explore a world different yet similar to our own.

Five books later, the Nighthawks have evolved. There will always been a need for heroes, but maybe not these heroes? I’m still writing the final chapters, so I don’t know what the story will bring. Eventually I will reach the final page and have to write “the end.” Truthfully? I’m a bit scared. At first I was concerned I would run out of ideas to write. With nearly a dozen outlines ready to be written, that’s not my concern. So why the melancholy? I’m saying goodbye to the only people who literally understand my every thought.

Their story will end, but mine will continue. There’s a sense of dread losing this support network I’ve manifested in my head. The grieving process has already begun. I’m currently in denial, trying to imagine the next story in which I’ll meet these characters. But even if I write it, I know we won’t be the same people when we reunite. It’s to the degree that I’m forcing myself to write, knowing every word puts me that much closer to a finale. Eleanor’s first letter rings oddly true.

Mr. Cowan,

As you ponder the situation laid out in front of you, it is clear that things will never be the same. Before you are many decisions, but alas, beyond this point I cannot see nor predict your future. You are an element that seems to defy the strands of probability. I fear that before you lies a path that will test the fortitude of your soul. I wish I could give you more than a simple direction. I have done everything in my power to see you safe to this point. I wish I could tell you that somewhere on the other side of the darkness will be you, standing triumphant. However, I cannot. For that, I am sorry. What I can do is start you on your hero’s journey.

Go to Sarah.

With Regards,

Eleanor P. Valentine

While wading through the mournful victory coming, I am working to end the story in a way where the characters and the fans give their best performance. I want there to be a sense of closure and a hopeful eye to the future. I want to believe the best has yet to come. I guess there is only one way to find out?

So thank you reader for being along for this epic journey. There is more to be had and growth underway, but thank you for being part of my story. It’s been amazing knowing that there are so many people along for the ride, supporting, interacting, and lifting me up. I have no words that truly show my appreciation. For now, thank you.

I had a long post about diversity and its importance in literature. I talked about ring born into a diverse world on a military base. I reminisced about growing up in the white washed world of northern Maine. I pontificated about a lot, but I wasn’t saying much. Now that I’m sitting in California, swept up in the diverse cultures intermingling, I feel I’m finally understanding what I was attempting to say. My identity, what makes me, well, me is but one thread in a beautifully woven tapestry of mankind.

I’ve lived all over the eastern seaboard of the United States. My father was in the military and we moved frequently. I grew up with this exposure to rich and vibrant cultures. My closest friends came from Korea, Polynesia, and Zimbabwe. I’ve been blessed to know that my family’s history and more importantly our unique and far from the status quo. I sit in a cafe in San Luis Obispo California, and there is a subtle beauty in occupying space with histories vastly different from my own.

I grew up different, a feeling that for the most haunted me. As a teen all you want is to fit in, but when you know there is an underlying difference than your peers, you begin to ostracize yourself. It’s only later in life I took the opportunity to embrace these differences and as they say, “Let my freak flag fly.” And fly it does.

So how does this impact my writing? I started traveling in the past few years as part of “life is more than work” lifestyle change. I needed an adventure, something to take my out of my bubble and start letting me see something bigger than my little slice of life. The more of this wonderful world I see, the more I feel the need, no, the urgency to include it into my writing. Let’s be honest, the diversity in literature movement is strong, but it has a long way to go. As a cis white male (even a gay one) I feel obligated to bring this richness into my writing.

Representation is something that has become a hot topic in the literature world. There tends to be three camps: bigots, those who believe the story dictates representation (bigots) and those who feel a story can be expanded to include representation. Originally the cast of the Nighthawks fell into the second camp. Other than Vanessa being labeled as “green,” I let the reader imagine who they wanted. In a moment of clarity, I recall saying it was a coward’s move. I stand by this epiphany, and let me just say, my writing has flourished because of it.

Dav5d is an autistic black man. Conthan and Dwayne are gay. Jasmine is a Mexican-American Catholic, Alyssa is Muslim and never once have I thought that this interrupted the story. In truth, I chose these aspects of their identities based on the students in my classroom. In each class, this is what I see, and the more I thought about it, I thought it important to let them know, “I see them.” This became such an important aspect for me, that it even worked itself into Night Legions as Azacca (a man with MS) uses the phrase to let his parishioners know that he sees the individual, the soul of a person.

There is an authentic aspect to this as well, and I’ve been called out on it. I speak very openly about how Conthan was always meant to be “me” and in my first book I was terrified to make him gay. What would fans think? What would those crazed superhero folks bring up if I made him more than the overtly effeminate homosexual (and there isn’t a damned thing wrong with that either!) A reviewer brought it up, loved the book overall, but found an awkward approach to the initial spark between Dwayne and Conthan to be contrived and reeking of a straight man terrified of writing gay characters. I was caught.

By book three, Conthan and Dwayne’s relationship is undefined and messy in the fact it’s not labeled in a neat box. Rarely have my relationships been as simple as calling a man my “partner” or “boyfriend.” I’ve had many “friends with some weird romancing.” I’m letting their relationship hover (they’re trying to save the world after all) and by Night Covenant, we get a solid definition, and not the one I think many fans will see coming.

But why is it important? Can’t readers just ignore these labels and let the reader plant themselves into the story? Truth is, the world is white washed to a degree that even people of color read characters as white unless otherwise stated. I would much prefer to remove this and let the reader know there a clear visible person they can connect with. Will I get them all? No, of course not. But I can show representation, broaden my reach and begin working toward a story that reflects the real world. Now, I hope that when a person picks up one of my novels they can stop and say, “That’s me.”

Write the stories we needed as kids. I needed these stories. For the next generation, I will do what I can and continue to question my own definitions, because the world outside my window is diverse, rich, and needs to exist to make my novels more than a story. I want characters a reader can connect with. I’m not sure I’m there yet, but I’m aware of it, and I’m working at it. I will continue to work at it.