Jonathan Livingston Seagull author Richard Bach was hospitalized after crashing his small plane this weekend while flying in Washington State.

James Marcus Bach, the son of the bestselling novelist, has been keeping readers updated on his father’s condition on Twitter. This weekend, he wrote: “My father has made marked improvement today. He’s lucid. We’re optimistic.” Last night, he added: “Well folks, it’s going to be a long haul with Dad. I thought he was lucid, but he’s really not.”

He also wrote about the accident in a blog post, explaining how his father clipped a power line during his landing. He added: “We are not victims of fate, we are the authors of our lives. Yes, life will be turbulent, at times. We will have our inflight emergencies. But we prepare for them, and we take action to turn bad feelings and bad situations into something positive. Turn everything positive. Learn from everything that happens. In this way, we are always pilots-in-command, no matter what happens.”

His brother Jon Bach also wrote a message for his father’s fans who are asking “Is he going to be okay?” He wrote:

Actually, they can find the answer at the heart of every book he has written.

“Am I going to be ok?”  Flip to the end, the answer is usually “yes”, even if the main character dies a few pages before reaching the back cover.

I think Dad would agree that whether the answer to “Am I going to be ok?” is yes or no, lies a test.  It’s not the answer that matters, but the pursuit of the answer.

Testing is that pursuit.

(Image via Goodreads)