When Fear Becomes the Quietest Companion: A Note From Me to You

I don’t usually sit down to write like this — raw, unedited, heart in hand. But tonight, or maybe this morning (time blurs when you’re living mostly inside your mind), I needed to speak to the people who might be out there. Or maybe to the version of myself who needs to hear this most.

The truth is, I’m scared.

I’m scared every day.

Not just of failing — although that’s part of it — but of disappearing. Of never ranking. Of never selling. Of pouring every last drop of myself into a story, designing the perfect cover, rewriting and revising and polishing it until it feels like bone—and then watching it vanish into the void of a market flooded with bigger authors, bigger names, bigger teams.

I’m scared of getting those little notifications telling me I didn’t qualify for this or that promo, didn’t hit this list, didn’t get noticed. I’m scared of being buried under algorithms and genres and trends I can barely afford to chase.

I change covers. I tweak blurbs. I rework titles. I second-guess every decision because maybe this time it’ll matter. Maybe this time the right person will see it.

I know they say indie publishing is freedom — and it is — but it’s also a curse sometimes. When you’re doing it alone, there are no teammates. No marketing department. No assistant. No publishing house telling you it’s all going to be okay. No mentor patting your shoulder.

It’s just you. A laptop. A dream. A thousand drafts you’re too afraid to open some days because they feel like ghosts of the person you used to be.

I’m thirty years old. I live alone. I don’t have anyone pushing me to keep going. There’s no partner reminding me that I’m talented when the words get stuck in my throat. There’s no safety net.

There’s just me. Disabled. Fighting through Tourette’s. Fighting through depression. Fighting chronic illness. Dragging hope behind me like a heavy, stubborn thing I refuse to let go of.

And still…

When I think about Lena Duchannes and Ethan Wate — two fictional characters from Beautiful Creatures that kept me alive during some of my darkest teenage years — I smile again.

I breathe again. I remember why I ever started writing at all.

It was never for fame. Or money. Or awards.

It was for them.

For the worlds inside my head that asked to be loved even when the real world couldn’t understand me.

It was for the high school version of me who scrawled half-stories in the margins of notebooks. For the college freshman who hid drafts under her bed because it felt too vulnerable to even share them with friends. For the woman I am now, scared but stubborn, refusing to let illness or loneliness erase the only real magic I’ve ever made.

I’ve been pulling those old stories out again — blowing dust off dreams I thought I had lost. I’m editing them. Finishing them. Publishing them. Leaving something behind for a world that may never notice me, but that can’t erase me either.

I don’t know if anyone cares. I don’t know if anyone reads.

Sometimes I feel fake. Like I’m playing at being a “real” author while the true greats are somewhere else, gliding across bestsellers lists with their teams and signings and beautiful matching aesthetics. I feel like I’m shouting into a canyon, and only the echoes answer back.

And yet I won’t give up.

This might never be a career. It might never pay the bills. It might be heartbreak after heartbreak after heartbreak.

It might be hell.

But it’s also me.

It’s the part of me that illness hasn’t stolen. The part that loneliness hasn’t extinguished. The part that fear hasn’t broken — even if it’s tried.

I must continue.

I have to keep writing.

I have to finish Lover of Flesh. I have to build the world of The Hollow Series. I have to finish the standalone novels waiting patiently in my mind. I have to bring The Elementals to life. I have to collaborate, even when I feel like I have no right to stand among the names I admire.

Because maybe I don’t need permission. Maybe the only permission that matters is my own.

Maybe that’s what surviving really looks like.

Not giving up. Even when you’re scared.

Even when you’re tired.

Even when no one is watching.

Maybe that’s how the real stories get written — not by the lucky or the beautiful or the well-connected, but by the ones who loved their stories too much to let them die.

If you’re reading this, whether you’re a friend, a fellow dreamer, a future reader, or just someone passing through — know this:

You’re not alone.

And neither am I.

Not as long as the words keep coming.

Not as long as I believe, even just a little bit, that stories are worth fighting for.

I’m scared.

I’m lonely.

I’m lost sometimes.

But I’m still here.

I’m still writing.

I’m still dreaming.

And maybe — just maybe — that’s enough.

Until the next page,

Llianne

References: /https://www.pluggedin.com/movie-reviews/beautiful-creatures/