Deep Water (Tsillan)

Lake Chelan, WA

Lake Chelan is one of the deepest lakes in the United States. Fifty-five miles long, over 1,500 feet deep in places. From the surface, it looks calm. Still. You can't see what's underneath. But there's an entire world down there.

The original Salish name was Tsillan—deep water.

I live in Chelan County, in a valley I once swore I'd leave. I didn't. Something about this place held me. The mountains, the orchards, the way the light changes across the seasons. And the lake—always the lake, holding its depths quietly.

When I started writing about attachment and avoidance, I didn't know what to call the work. I just knew I was trying to name something that lived beneath the surface. Something that looked calm from the outside but held currents and cold and unexplored darkness underneath.

That's when I understood: this is deep water work.

The Metaphor

People who pull away in relationships are often called cold. Distant. Unavailable.

But still waters run deep.

What looks like coldness is usually protection. A surface that stays calm because what's underneath is too much to show. Feelings that run strong but stay hidden. A wall that holds everything in—safe, contained, invisible from above.

The lake doesn't show you its depths. That doesn't mean they aren't there.

What's Coming

Deep Water is a series on attachment, avoidance, and what we hide from the people who try to love us.

There are four books, woven together but each standing alone:

• Book 1 is for the partner of someone who pulls away.

• Book 2 is for the one who pursues—who reaches and reaches and can't stop reaching.

• Book 3 is for the one who pulls away. The one behind the wall.

• Book 4 is for the one who is, at times, all of these.

They talk to each other. They reference the same dynamics from different angles. They can be read alone or together, in any order.

The first release will be a gateway—a short letter, maybe twenty pages, for someone who might not read a longer book. Someone skeptical. Someone who had it placed in their hands by a partner who hoped they'd read it.

Introducing "A Letter to the One Who Pulls Away"

It won't chase. It won't demand. It will just say: I see you. I've been you. Here's what I wish someone had told me.

Where It Began

The name comes from here. But the work began somewhere else.

Along the seawall in Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia. Water on one side, ancient trees on the other. The totems standing witness—the same totems that earlier had called to me when I named my business venture.

Stanley Park, Vancouver BC

I walked those paths with someone who held up a mirror I wasn't ready to look into. She showed me hard truths. Joy. Pain that led to reflection.

She pulled away, as she needed to. And in the space she left, I started writing.

But the deeper water—the real excavation—that came from thirty years with my wife. From patterns we built together and couldn't see until they broke. And from the work I'm still doing now, with people patient enough to walk slowly beside me while I figure out what I'm capable of.

I don't name them here. But if any of them ever read this, I want them to know: this work exists because of what they offered me—even when I couldn't receive it, even when I ran from it (or chased it).

I am forever grateful.

Ethan

The books are written by someone named Ethan.

Ethan isn't me. But he's not not me either.

He's a voice I can write through—someone who has been on both sides of the wall, who has done the work, who can speak without the biographical details that would make this about my specific story rather than patterns that millions of people share.

Writing as Ethan gives me freedom. And it gives readers something that might be more useful than my autobiography: a guide who understands, without the distraction of wondering who exactly he's talking about.

Tsillan Publishing

The books come out under Tsillan Publishing—named for the deep water.

It's a small imprint for work that matters to me. Contemplative writing that bridges the psychological and the spiritual. Work that honors complexity without pretending to have clean answers.

Deep Water is the first series. There will be others.

Why This, Why Now

Because the work changed me. The act of writing it. The discipline of trying to articulate patterns I'd lived but never named.

And because somewhere, there's a person who pulls away and doesn't know why. A partner exhausted from reaching for someone who keeps disappearing. Someone who just realized they've been on both sides of the same wall.

If one of them finds something useful here, the work was worth doing.

More soon.

~Drew

The Pre-release Version

The novella will be available early 2026 from Tsillan Publishing. If you'd like to read (or share) the initial version of the work, please feel free.

You can read about the book here before committing to turn the page, or

Download "A Letter to the One Who Pulls Away"