By book eight, something shifted.
I wasn't asking if I could write anymore. I was just writing. The question changed from “Am I capable?” to “What comes next for these women? What are they trying to tell me?”
The belief didn't come from thinking I was talented. It came from consistency. It came from showing up so many times that I couldn't deny my own commitment anymore. I'd written eight books. Eight. I was a person who writes books.
That sounds simple, but it rewired something in me. It made it real in a way that intentions never can.
I was also watching my daughter navigate her own version of resilience. She was showing me how to adapt, how to keep going even when things hurt, how to find joy in the smallest moments. She was my biggest teacher about what these heroines were learning: Your best chapters aren't behind you. They're happening right now. This life, exactly as it is, is worth showing up for.
By book eight, I believed it because she was living it.