My Journey Back into Epic Fantasy

In this essay, I express my beautiful journey back into the world of epic fantasy. As you will come to see, this journey has resulted in me being connected to God… and in a state where I am wholly undefined.

I have always been intimidated by the genre of epic fantasy. 

I believe it is a very specific niche for many reasons. These books often possess complex worldbuilding, history, storylines, magic systems, character arcs, mysteries, and so on. It makes sense that this is a genre that can be difficult for anyone to get into—even avid fantasy readers. 

In November of 2022, I was brand new to the genre. Advised by a friend, I decided to read the first two installments of the Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb. While I absolutely enjoyed those novels, (which follow the story of a bastard son named FitzChivalry Farseer who embarks on his own unique journey), I slowly started falling away from this genre due to a sudden desire to pursue my own desire to write a story—a romance novel about two characters named Melanie and Levi. At that same time, however, I remember being introduced to a series called the Mistborn Trilogy, and another series called the Stormlight Archive—both by an author named Brandon Sanderson. At the time, these series briefly piqued my interest, but I felt horrifyingly intimidated by them, since they are large works of literature. And remember: I was very caught up in the beginnings of my own book. So just like the final story of the Farseer Trilogy, these were novels that I never opened. 

It is now December of 2024. 

For these past few months, I have found myself falling in and out of seasons of “off-ness” in my life. 

Fortunately, my connection to God through my Catholic faith is still going strong. I still love Christ with all of my heart, and I think I always will. I attend Mass every Sunday, talk to God every night, do gratitude journaling, and pray for my loved ones. However, I do deal with something known as “spiritual desolation” often; there is sometimes a hollowness to religion that is hard to explain. (I have learned that you need to bring your personal, Christ-inspired meanings to the various rituals and practices, otherwise, their significance feels empty.) But, putting aside this hollowness, I know that God’s Spirit is always near, always beckoning me toward Him. 

And my literary and writing journeys have also been… interesting. For the past few months, I have been following my own system of reading, which involves reading two books at one time: a fiction work, and a non-fiction Catholic or Christian work. This allows me to have a good balance of reading material, for moments where I may be in the mood for those varying genres. I also think it is very important for me to always be doing some sort of Christian reading so that I do not stray from God, even when it seems He has strayed from me. However, as of late, most of the books I have been reading have stopped bringing me a sense of lasting fulfillment and connection. I am not getting lost in them, even though some of them are very significant to me (an example would include the work of Søren Kierkegaard, a prominent Christian existentialist). At the same time as this unpleasant reading experience has been going on, I hit a complete and utter dead end with my romance novel not long ago. Due to this, I no longer plan to continue writing it, which means I definitely do not plan on publishing it one day. This may be disappointing for some to read, but I can assure you that you are being spared. Around the time I decided to stop writing my novel, I had begun listening to Brandon Sanderson’s lectures on creative writing, only to come face-to-face with the truth that I had done everything wrong. As it turns out, you can not pull a story together out of thin air; fumble your way through two hundred thousand words of filler and unnecessary scenes (featuring: an overwritten, unwieldy, confused plot); lack an understanding of narrative structure—and still expect it to be good… all because you feel things deeply. Melanie and Levi are characters that I think I had a vaguely interesting vision for, and I do have a fondness for them—their love story would have involved themes of unrequited love, deep betrayal, and destiny—but I am now greatly content with leaving this story as an unfinished work. Words will always be my favorite medium of expressing myself—and wherever my muse goes, there I shall follow—but this is where I now stand: creative writing is not something I want to focus on anymore. 

Now, moving away from the religious, writing, and literary aspects of my life, I would like to now discuss my mental health journey. When I started this off by mentioning that I was going through seasons of “off-ness”, this is primarily what I am referring to. This is probably the most vulnerable, honest aspect of my life at the moment, and while I am nervous to share it with those who know me… it feels right to do it here. So, here it goes: in June of 2024, I was diagnosed with a mental illness known as bipolar depression after dealing with a serious episode of it that essentially caused me to lose contact with reality. But just a month prior to this episode, everything in my life was going wonderfully. I had graduated from college with a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology; successfully moved all the way back home to Chicago, Illinois, from St. Paul, Minnesota; and I even started looking for jobs within my field. How had things gone so wrong? 

For me, leaving St. Paul is significant because it is a city that has transformed me. I went there to obtain a rigorous education in Psychology and Theology at the University of St. Thomas; but what I came home with exceeded so much more than the knowledge I had acquired from those fields. The young woman writing these words is not the girl who entered the doors of that institution—in fact, I can hardly remember her. She was like a lost spirit, abandoned to the darkness of this fallen world. She did not have much of an identity at all; she was listless. The majority of my memories from elementary and high school escape me. My family describes my younger self as very reclusive, always away from other people. But when I went to college, a thousand little things started to change for me. The darkness that had been so present within me began to fall, and when it fell—I slowly learned to master it. (I am still learning.) I grew out of my profound reticence and developed very close friendships, allowing my full personality to flicker to life. A wonderful friar and professor named Fr. Brian Zuelke showed me the beauty of thinking deeply about the world through the Theology courses he taught. I developed my own various thoughts about the universe, growing more and more inquisitive. During my Sophomore year, I came to a striking realization about the value of my own thoughts, which propelled my passion for writing to develop and mature: I’d found my voice as a writer. Most significant, though, is the fact that I went through a difficult season of unrequited love, only to meet the very essence of God at the end of it. Please note that if it were not for my wonderful parents, everything they do for me, and the fact that they let me choose where I wanted to go to college, I never would have become the woman that I am today, and that thought is haunting. 

So many of my greatest joys and my greatest sorrows took place underneath the delicate glow of St. Paul city lights. So, in May of 2024, when I inevitably had to leave all of these memories and friends in exchange for returning back to my childhood home in Chicago… it makes so much sense as to how the transition was remarkably difficult for me. I felt like I was walking backward in life, back into the unknown, back to the bleak place where life had once felt so listless and so lonely for me. A place where I was seldom known by other people, and never even truly known by myself. In all of this time since graduating from college, though, my parents had been infinitely supportive, patient, and generous toward me. They understood how difficult it was for me to have left my life in college, but they did their best to encourage me as I navigated my next steps into my new life. But my mind and my body seemed to betray me, as the weeks passed on. Without going into all of the details, I stopped sleeping and began experiencing a painful, unwanted form of euphoria, the kind that felt like it would tear me apart; I was in a haze of mania. All without me understanding what was going on, the fire of my episode of bipolar depression had been ignited. It took me over completely. I became someone I was not; I said and did many things I wish I hadn’t; and my family was greatly worried for me. Echoes of that brokenness follow me, even to this day. 

So, for these past few months, it makes sense that I have found myself falling in and out of seasons of “off-ness” in my life. 

And now, as December passes by, I face this truth: something has been missing from my life. I keep searching, unsure of what I am looking for. But I will know it when I find it. 

Surely, this missing piece is not God; He is always there, reminding me of His love, even when I am in moments of desolation. It’s not a lack of familial love; all my family has ever done is pour out their unrelenting love, care, wisdom, and understanding onto me… especially during my darkest moments. Plausibly, the missing piece could be that I do not have a strong community of friends. Despite maintaining a few current long-distance friendships, my inability to find in-person, long-term friends here in Chicago is an issue I have not yet entirely addressed. But still, my lack of community is not the ultimate answer to what my heart is searching for.

On December 4th, 2024—a date that now represents a beacon of light, shining in the darkness—I found out what was truly missing. 

The grey clouds in the sky were looming over Chicago, casting barrenness over the city. A brisk winter breeze whipped outside, threatening anyone who dared to step out into its midst. I was in my bedroom, rising from a nap, feeling as though I had come up against a wall. I had fallen ill the day prior, but it was my third day in a row taking a break to sleep during the day, feeling somewhat depressed. An instance of spiritual desolation had come upon me, too; God had seemed far from me. Part of what contributed to my low emotional state and anhedonia, though, was the fact that I had entirely given up on writing my romance novel at this time… and I was unconsciously reeling from the disappointment of that immense failure. It had been a total of two years of me writing it—something I told people I would accomplish—but then, over the course of a few hours, I realized that it was over. 

As that very day pressed on, though, new thoughts came to me. I began to wonder if I should simply focus on my reading for a while—for the sole purpose of enjoying the work, not to use it to enhance my own craft for my novel. I knew that I would keep my current system of reading two books at a time (one, some sort of fiction, and the other, a Christian work). To start out on this journey, I read a short, emotional romance novel called Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott nd I enjoyed it… but I was still left wanting more. Curiosity buzzed around me, and I thought about the creative writing lectures I listened to from Brandon Sanderson. In that, I was reminded of all of the fantasy novels I knew about from my experiences in November of 2022: there was the Farseer Trilogy, but then there was also the Mistborn Trilogy and the Stormlight Archive. I felt a mysterious sense of light come through me—a light, I now suspect, that came from God. 

While I was nervous about what I knew I was about to embark on, this mysterious sense of light seemed to be urging me on to re-start my literary journey into the worlds portrayed in epic fantasy. Because I knew that I wanted to re-read the first two novels of the Farseer Trilogy before going back to the third book, this was the day in which I decided to start reading the first novel in the Mistborn Trilogy. Given the nature of epic fantasy, you can be sure that I was enormously confused at the start of the novel. There were all sorts of names, events, and magics happening that caused me to feel great bewilderment. I felt like I was re-reading paragraphs over and over again. Things were not clicking, and my internal anxiety was mounting. What had that mysterious sense of light been for? Who had been calling out to me? I was still but a traveler, searching for something, and here I was: unable to find it. But fortunately, as I kept reading, things slowly started to give way. It was not long before I understood that I had entered the extraordinary Cosmere, a vast universe of stars, lands, inhabitants, and stories. From there, I found myself in a fascinating city named Luthadel where magic known as Allomancy is practiced by those with special abilities known as Mistings and Mistborns. I then became acquainted with the main characters Vin and Kelsier, finding a deep fondness for their unique characterizations, personalities, and gifts. (I am dreadful at summarizing things, so I apologize for having nothing more to offer regarding the book.) 

And today, at the time of writing this essay, on December 12th, 2024, I have finally finished this first installment of the Mistborn Trilogy. I am so in love with the world, magic system, and characters that Brandon Sanderson has created. Every time I would put down my book, I felt such a strong desire to go back to it, so excited to see what would happen next. I even remember feeling so excited to share with the world all of the wonderful things that had happened to me when I found myself in Luthadel for the first time—the result of which is this entire essay. Mark my words: Sanderson is a brilliant storyteller and writer in every capacity you can imagine. Never in my life have I read through a novel that I’ve loved so much, and I like to think I’ve done a lot of reading. A lot of feeling. 

Whilst words are always going to fail me, Sanderson has truly blessed me with a gift—a gift that I will forever hold in my innermost being. After I finish the Mistborn Trilogy, I will begin my entrance into the world of Roshar through the Stormlight Archive. While that series is going to be an immense challenge for me, I will still be going back into the Cosmere, so I expect some things to be rather… familiar. Reading the Archive should be yet another incomprehensibly wonderful gift, especially since The Way of Kings is one of Sanderson’s favorites. 

To start wrapping up all of these musings, allow me to leave you with some final thoughts. I am very pleased with everything I have reflected upon about my life in this essay. And to think—it is all because God knew He would bring the radiance of Brandon Sanderson’s imagination into my consciousness, a small source that just begins to shine the grand light of epic fantasy onto the tapestry of my soul—at this exact moment in my life. Where everything felt like it was falling apart. 

From graduating from the University of St. Thomas, leaving behind my life in St. Paul, transitioning to life back at home in Chicago, having various struggles in my walk with Christ, being diagnosed with bipolar depression, going through my ebbing seasons of “off-ness”, all the way to deciding to cease writing my romance novel… I have been through so much. I think my soul is at a point where she simply wants to rest in the quietness of her being. 

And the good news is that her desires have been answered.

I understand that, in the end, this is just me, one voice in a sea of billions… sharing candid vulnerabilities about herself, discussing my mental health diagnoses, and being excited about reading super awesome books. None of this may seem significant in the big picture of my life, but this little journey of mine back into epic fantasy just makes me so… happy. 

I really am feeling a peace and an aliveness in ways that I have never before. Reading the first novel of the Mistborn Trilogy has changed my life, providing me with a unique form of happiness; a happiness that has not come to me in a very long time. And when I say this, please do not misunderstand me—this is not euphoria I speak of. True euphoria is piercing, and it is excruciating for the person enduring it. Euphoria is temporary, which is why it demands to be chased: its own fleeting nature is the expression of its existence. But this happiness is different. This is a deep, thrumming, pleasant, and “melting” sort of joy that I don’t think I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. Again, words are always going to fail me. What I can say, though, is that this joy does not ask me to chase it. 

This joy does not ask me to hurt.

This is it—this is the missing piece. 

This joy asks me to simply be, as the God of the universe simply is. 

This is what I have been searching for. 
This joy asks me to be undefined.