Tonight at 9pm Pacific, 12am Midnight on the East Coast, Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poet’s era ends and her next era —The Life of a Showgirl—begins. And, best believe, I will be one of millions of Swifties around the world barricading myself in my room with headphones on the second the album drops.

There’s a moment in life when you look around—the toys scattered across the floor, the never-ending pile of laundry, the to-do list that only seems to grow—and think: Wait, who am I again?

For years, I told myself I’d get back to writing when life settled down. When my kids were older. When work wasn’t so demanding. When I finally “felt ready.”
But truth I finally came to terms with is there’s never going to be a perfect time.

After nearly twenty years of stops and starts, 2025 is the year I finally became a published author. But let me tell you—it’s been a journey.

“Hit it, then forget it!”

That was the advice my daughter’s tennis coach kept reiterating to my ten year old last Sunday. The coach explained to me that my daughter was hitting good shots, but she was so busy watching to see where they’d land that she wasn’t ready for the next one coming her way. 

Yesterday, I had lunch with a friend who confessed she was in a bit of a funk. She’s a teacher on summer break—technically her time to rest, reset, maybe even get creative and take care of the things she’s been putting off—but instead, she felt uninspired. She wasn’t doing the things she thought she should be doing. She wanted to be creative, productive, lit up by something, but instead she felt like she was wasting her precious time off.

This one’s for the aspiring authors who voted in my recent survey and said they wanted to hear more about my publishing journey. Specifically, I offered to share why I chose a reputable hybrid publisher with traditional distribution for my debut novel.

One of the biggest challenges I hear from women (and often wrestle with myself) is how to create space for ​our creative dreams​.

We want to write the book, start the thing, listen to the tug of inspiration. But between​ our daily to-do lists (and a healthy dose of imposter syndrome), it can be easy to put those parts of ourselves on hold, convincing ourselves it’s not the right time.

It was 8:30 a.m. on a Monday, and I was standing at the front desk of a lab, checking in for bloodwork. The receptionist, behind a glass partition and wearing a mask, asked for my date of birth. I gave it to her.

“Oh! You’re in your forties now! How is it?” she asked, her voice friendly and genuinely curious.

All dreams require sacrifice. Whether it’s parenthood, starting a business, or pursuing a creative passion, we know this truth before we begin—but it’s a very different thing to experience it.

By the time my debut novel—Annie in Retrospect—comes out this October, I’ll have been writing and editing it for three and a half years. The first year and a half, I wrote three drafts of my novel. Then came the work of sharing it with Beta readers, submitting it to publishers and querying agents. Then it went to editors and proofreaders. More re-reading and editing. And now, three years in, though the writing of the book is finally “complete,” the work of selling and promoting the book is only getting started.

A few weeks ago, my husband asked me what my goals were for my book. In other words, what outcome am I shooting for? How many copies do I want to sell? Do I want to make a bestsellers list?

I immediately felt defensive, as if years of my work were about to be reduced to a spreadsheet analyzing its success or failure. Now that my novel’s release date is about six months away, crippling anxiety has started to set in about all the things I could, or should, be doing to give my book the best chance of, you know, selling.

This week marked five years since the first stay-at-home order was issued here in the U.S. When I reflect on those first few weeks of lockdowns, I think of that epic speech from the movie Independence Day—with Bill Pullman as president reminding us that our petty differences no longer matter because all of humanity now has a common goal: survival. It’s hard to think of another event that impacted every person on Earth in such a profound way. And I suspect it will take a generation to fully unpack what it’s done to us.

Back in 2019, I was all in on social media. I was growing my Instagram, running a private Facebook group for writers with over 400 members, and had put in years of sweat equity to build my platform as a marketing coach and writer. When I was expecting twins—turning my family of three into a family of five overnight—I gave myself permission to step away for a couple of months, fully intending to come back.