Fear and Bravery: Two Sides of the Same Coin

I won’t lie: publishing a book feels a little like standing naked in public and handing strangers your diary.

There’s a part of me that’s wildly excited. Broken Glass is a story that’s lived in my head, evolved, unraveled, and rebuilt itself for years. It holds pieces of me I didn’t even know I’d put there—moments of silence, control, grief, and defiance I’ve carried without realizing. Now that it’s real, actually real, I’m proud.

And terrified.

Because when you write something this personal, this layered, this emotionally sharp… sharing it means letting go. It means allowing people to see your characters, your choices, your prose, and judge it.

Judge you.

I’ve rewritten sentences ten times because I thought they were “too much.”

I’ve stared at the manuscript wondering if it’s too quiet, too bold, too raw, too slow, too strange… too long. I’ve questioned everything, more than once.

And still, I’m publishing. I haven’t killed off my self-doubt, but I’ve learned to carry it with me.

Here’s the part no one tells you:

You don’t wake up one day suddenly brave. You just get tired of silencing yourself.

And somewhere between chapter two and the final line, I realized that this story deserves to exist.

Even if it’s not perfect.

Even if it doesn’t land in everyone’s heart the way it lived in mine.

Even if I tremble a little hitting that “publish” button.

I’m doing it because I’m more motivated than I am scared.

Motivated by the readers who’ll find themselves in these pages. By the people who’ve felt silenced, or swallowed too much just to be loved, or shaped themselves to survive. By the version of me who wrote that first scene, not knowing it would become the beginning of something that mattered.

I didn’t write Broken Glass because I wanted to be fearless. I wrote it because I was finally ready to stop hiding.

Yes, I’m nervous. I probably will be right up until the moment it lands in someone’s hands. And after.

But I’m also ready.

Because it’s time. Because the story is no longer just mine. And because maybe, just maybe, someone out there is waiting to read the words I was once too afraid to write.

If you’ve ever put something out into the world that made you nervous—but did it anyway—I’d love to hear about it. Let’s normalize creative courage.