My Journey as an Author: From Rejections to Resilience

I never planned on becoming an author. In fact, for the longest time, I thought stories were just something I carried in my head to pass the time. It wasn’t until a friend read one of my scribbled drafts and said, “I feel this could be a book,” that I began to see writing differently.

My early days were a mix of excitement and self-doubt. I’d write late into the night, then wake up the next morning convinced everything I had written was terrible. Rejections came quickly, emails with polite lines like “not the right fit.” Each one stung, but I kept going, partly because I didn’t know how to stop.

The turning point came when I decided to self-publish. I had no marketing budget, no insider connections, just a Word document and the stubbornness to see it through. When the first copy sold on Amazon, I celebrated as if I’d hit the bestseller list. It was proof that my story had found its way into someone else’s life.

Since then, I’ve learned that being an author is less about overnight success and more about consistency. It’s about showing up at the desk even when the words feel clumsy, about listening to feedback without letting it crush your voice, about rewriting until your story finally says what it was meant to.

Do I dream of joining the ranks of famous authors and seeing my name on a list of bestselling authors? Of course. But more than that, I dream of building a body of work that feels true. Every draft, every edit, every book review, good or bad, is part of that journey. And honestly, that’s what keeps me writing.