There wasn't one big moment when it all changed. No grand email. No life-altering call.
Just… a soft yes.
A message from a mentor she deeply admired:
Your writing has something. I see you.
An unexpected DM from a small magazine:
Are you open to submitting something new?
A gentle invite to speak on a panel about storytelling and mental health, unpaid, but meaningful.
She said yes anyway.
They were small, but they added up.
Like steady waves reshaping a shoreline.
She found herself saying yes more often, to herself, to new things, to things that once scared her.
Yes to submitting a pitch to a site she thought was out of her league.
Yes to replying to that writer from Canada who said, I think we'd connect.
Yes to being visible, even when her voice shook.
The fear didn't vanish.
It just stopped being the loudest thing in the room.
Some mornings she still doubted herself.
Still wondered if her voice was enough.
Still questioned if the quiet life she was building could lead to something sustainable.
But the doubt no longer felt like truth.
Just background noise.
She started treating her writing time with more care.
Lit a candle. Made tea. Put her phone on airplane mode.
Not because it was aesthetic, but because she was finally taking herself seriously.
She updated her bio.
Added new bylines.
Cleaned up her portfolio.
She even created a dream email folder, a space to collect kind words, acceptance letters, editor feedback. On bad days, she would scroll through it like medicine.
She was no longer chasing a version of herself that needed to be rescued.
She was building one that could stand on her own.
One afternoon, after sending out a pitch to a literary journal, she closed her laptop and sat still for a moment.
She didn't feel panic.
She didn't feel desperation.
She just felt… proud.
Proud that she tried.
Proud that she showed up.
Proud that she was finally living in a story that was not about waiting to be chosen, but choosing herself, over and over again.
That day, she wrote a new note for her wall:
Soft beginnings count too.
And then she got up.
And kept going.
She didn't know it yet, but the next 'yes' was already waiting in her inbox.