Over a month ago, I popped in here to say I’d been quiet because I was writing.
That was true.
It’s still true.
What’s changed is this: the book I disappeared into is now almost complete. I’m deep in edits, sanding down sentences, polishing scenes, tightening characters. It feels a bit like walking around a house I’ve been secretly building and finally noticing every uneven hinge and scuffed baseboard.
Lately, I keep thinking about a phrase from my manuscript: gray before gold.
That thin band of sky right before sunrise. Not dark, not light. Just… in between.
That’s where I’ve been living.
A few mornings ago, that phrase stepped off the page and followed me into real life.
I was driving home from early cardio tennis, a little after 7 a.m. Winter light, the kind that still feels half-asleep. My legs were pleasantly tired, my sweatshirt damp at the collar, the car heater doing its best to out-argue the cold.
Everything around me was gray.
Gray pavement, gray trees, gray sky. Not dramatic gray, not storm-on-the-way gray. Just muted, washed-out, as if someone had quietly turned down the saturation on the whole city.
And then I saw it: a thin strip of bronze-gold along the horizon.
Not full sunrise.
Not even close.
Just a quiet band of light, stubborn and small, insisting that something brighter was coming.
Gray before gold, I thought. There it is.
And immediately, my brain whispered: That’s your book. That’s you.
This is my first book.
I have never been the “I’ve always wanted to be a writer” person. I’ve always been the reader, the noticer, the one in the corner soaking up the details. So dedicating thousands of hours to a single story has felt, more than once, like sneaking into a room I’m not entirely sure I’m invited to.
The questions love to ride shotgun on mornings like that drive:
What if this isn’t good enough?
What if I’m pouring time I don’t have into something that never quite lands?
Who do I think I am, taking up this much space on the page?
That uncertain, wobbly space is the gray.
Not a total disaster.
Not a triumphant, finished book on a shelf.
Just that long stretch in the middle where you’ve come far enough that it matters, but not far enough to see how it all ends.
Gray before gold.
Editing, especially, feels like living in that in-between.
Drafting gave me the adrenaline of “new.” Editing asks for something slower and braver. Now it’s not about filling blank pages, but about facing the ones that already exist and saying, This can be better.
Some days, opening the document feels like stepping back onto that winter road:
Everything looks flat.
Every sentence feels suspicious.
I suddenly see every uneven hinge and scuffed baseboard in that secret house I’ve been building.
But then there are the glimmers:
A line that finally sounds the way it did in my head.
A tiny change that makes a character stand up straighter.
A scene that makes me feel something, even though I know exactly what comes next.
Those moments are my thin strip of bronze on the horizon. Not full daylight, but proof that the sun exists.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, I realized I’m not just editing chapters. I’m editing the story I tell myself about who I am.
For a long time, my internal headline has been:
“I’m not really a writer. I just write a few blog posts now and then”
You can imagine how unhelpful that is when you’re trying to write and revise an entire book.
So, quietly, I’ve been rewriting that line:
I’m someone who shows up to the page.
I’m someone learning how to write a book.
I’m allowed to care about this, even as a beginner.
The fear doesn’t vanish when I say those things. But it loosens its grip just enough for me to open the document again. To take one more small step along that gray road.
Maybe you’re in your own gray-before-gold season.
Starting something new.
Going back to school.
Changing careers.
Parenting in a way you never saw modeled.
Trying a creative thing you feel wildly “unqualified” to attempt.
If that’s you, here’s the little glimmer I carried home from that cold morning drive:
You’re allowed to invest time, energy, and heart into something
before you feel sure you’re “good enough” at it.
The clarity doesn’t come first.
It grows out of the showing up.
Right now, I’m still in the gray-before-gold part of this book. Editing. Reworking. Doubting. Believing. Repeating. But the horizon is starting to warm, and I’m beginning to trust that all these early-morning and late-night hours will add up to something I can hand to you one day.
Until then, thank you for waiting with me in the gray. 🌅
Glimmers of The Wallflower 
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