I used to fantasize about the day I’d “make it” as a writer.
The agent. The deal. The shiny Instagram post where I hold my book with a caption that says something like “After years of blood, sweat, and edits…”
I knew the aesthetic. I followed the people. I read the craft books. I made the trackers.
I’ve written the chapters in stolen hours. I’ve outlined character arcs while scrubbing the kitchen floor.
I’ve carried a novel in my brain like a second job no one’s paying me for.
But somewhere along the way… something shifted.
The vision started to feel less like a dream — and more like a trap.
Not the writing part. I love writing.
I love discovering what a character wants and watching her behave badly to get it.
I love emotional logic, comedy beats, tension arcs.
I love disappearing into a scene and re-emerging feeling more like myself.
But the part where I had to grind and hustle and build a “platform”
and sell a version of me that looked effortlessly creative while running on fumes?
That part started to feel fake.I didn’t want to write to be someone.
I wanted to write to be.
“I stopped writing to make it.
I started writing to feel whole again.”
It’s not that I’ve given up on publishing.
It’s that I’ve stopped assigning it the power to validate my identity.
The truth is: I’m already a writer.
I write when I’m sick.
I write when I’m scared.
I write in Notes apps, journals, sticky notes, emails to myself.
I write not because it’s marketable — but because it’s how I metabolize life.
And when I let go of the desperate grip on “making it”,
something surprising happened:
The writing got better.
The joy returned.
The pressure lifted.
The voice — mine — got louder and more real.
Act 3 might still come.
The book deal, the publication, the praise.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
But Act 2 — this quiet, sweaty, real-time rewriting of who I am and why I create —
this is the part I won’t miss.
This is where the magic is.
My new mantra