Eight months ago, I opened a Word doc and told myself, Just finish it.

I had no idea what was coming.

What started as a messy, emotional, half-wild draft became a beta copy that I printed out—nervously, tentatively—and handed over to a few trusted friends and family members. I still remember the feeling of letting them read it for the first time. The vulnerability. The fear that maybe it wasn’t good enough. That I wasn’t good enough.

And then something amazing happened: they loved it.

Not just the kind of “oh this is nice” love you give when your friend asks your opinion on something and they're trying to be polite. I’m talking about genuine encouragement. Real praise. The kind that said, You need to keep going with this. And so I did.

The Growth I Didn’t Expect

Since then, Marked by Fate has grown in ways I didn’t think possible.

And so have I.

I’ve rewritten scenes, cut entire chapters, added nuance, deepened characters, and sharpened every word until it finally felt true. I taught myself how to format, design, brand, market, and distribute. I figured out how to build an author site, how to plan a launch event, how to set up preorders and track inventory and (mostly) not cry over the little things.

But the biggest growth didn’t happen on the page.

It happened in me.

Because in doing all of this—building this book from the ground up—I realized I’m capable of more than I gave myself credit for. I realized I’m not just a writer. I’m a professional. A builder. A finisher. I can take a dream and turn it into something real.

And now… people I’ve never met before are going to read this story.

This weekend, Marked by Fate leaves my hands and enters the hands of readers—many of them total strangers. And honestly? That thought makes me emotional in the best possible way. Because this book is personal. It’s raw. It carries pieces of my own survival. And knowing that someone, somewhere, might see themselves in it? Might feel a little less alone after reading it?

That’s everything.

So here we are. Eight months, hundreds of hours, and way too many cups of coffee later… Marked by Fate is no longer just mine.

It’s yours, too.

Thanks for being here.