The Story That Won't Let Go: A New Year's Reflection
What I've learned from writing a novel about doubt in a world that demands certainty
My editor sent me notes this week. Line edits, scene expansions, ideas about pacing and cultural texture. The kind of work that reminds you a book is never truly finished—it’s surrendered. But buried in the markup was a line I keep returning to: “Overall, I am so proud to be working with you, the novel is well-written.”
I’ve read that sentence a dozen times. Not because I need the validation—though I won’t pretend it doesn’t help—but because it marks something I didn’t see coming when I started writing Becoming James years ago. I thought I was writing a book about doubt. About a man trying to lead when everything inside him says he’s not ready. About the brother of Jesus stumbling through grief and uncertainty, searching for a path forward that makes sense.
Turns out, I was writing about myself.
As we step into 2026, I find myself grateful for things I never thought to name before.
I’m grateful for family. Not in the abstract, Hallmark way, but in the specific, grounding way that matters when you’re trying to build something from nothing. My family held space for me to disappear into James’s world. They didn’t ask me to hurry up or make sense or produce certainty. They just let me work.
I’m grateful for a clear mind….which is a funny thing to say about a book born from grief. When my brother died, clarity felt impossible. But somewhere in the process of following James through his own loss, through his failures and his fear, I found a kind of focus I hadn’t felt in years. Not the clarity of answers, but the clarity of knowing what questions matter.
I’m grateful for support… from readers who’ve followed this journey, from an editor who sees what this book can become, from people who believe stories still heal us even when they don’t fix us.
And I’m grateful for the story itself. For James, who still teaches me things I didn’t know I needed to learn.
Here’s what surprised me most about writing this book: how easily the old tools came back.
I spent two decades as a journalist and producer, building scenes from interviews, watching how people move and speak and carry their truths. I trained myself to see—to witness without imposing, to construct narrative from raw life. Those skills felt distant when I started writing fiction. But the moment I stepped into James’s world, everything I’d learned came flooding back.
I could see the dust in Nazareth. I could hear the cadence of his doubt. I could feel the weight of leading when you’re not sure where you’re going.
Turns out, journalism wasn’t just a career. It was preparation. Grief handed me a story I had to tell, and journalism gave me the tools to tell it.
My relationship with James has become something I didn’t expect.
When I started, he was a character. A historical figure I was trying to understand, to animate, to make real. But the deeper I went, the more I realized: James and I share the same uncertainty. The same reluctance to lead. The same tension between what we believe and what we can prove. The same exhaustion that comes from living in a world that demands certainty when all you have is doubt.
James had to find a way forward in the aftermath of his brother’s death, in a movement that didn’t make sense, in a world that was hostile to the truth he was trying to carry. He had to lead anyway.
I don’t know what 2026 holds. I don’t know how this book will land or who will need it or whether it will do what I hope it does. But I know this: I thrive in uncertainty. Not because I’m brave, but because I’ve learned that uncertainty is where the real work happens. It’s where meaning gets made. It’s where stories become true.
James taught me that. Or maybe I taught him. Maybe we’re teaching each other.
The book is nearly finished. My editor is keeping me busy with expansions and refinements, pulling more tension from scenes I thought were done. There’s still work to do. There’s always more work to do.
But as I look toward the year ahead, I’m not thinking about publication dates or marketing plans or any of the machinery that comes with putting a book into the world. I’m thinking about the people who live in the tension between doubt and hope. The ones who are searching, not knowing. The ones who need a story that doesn’t offer answers but offers company.
That’s who I wrote this for. That’s who I’m still writing for.
Happy New Year. May 2026 bring us all the courage to lead in uncertainty…and the grace to keep going when we don’t know where we’re going.
—P.B. McKenzie