It Took Me Ten Years to Write Musical Awakening — Here's the Timeline 📖💖🎶

Musical Awakening didn't start as a novel.

It started as a letter I never sent.

2013 — The Letter 📫

In 2013 I was deep in my music blogger and concert photographer era — following bands I loved to cities I'd never been to, standing front row at small venues, documenting everything through a lens.

I was also going through something personally that I wasn't ready to share directly. So I wrote around it instead.

I wrote a letter. To my then husband and shared it with a friend. About what it felt like to watch someone perform and feel like the music was made specifically for you.

I didn't know then that I was writing the first draft of a novel. I thought I was just processing something.

2014-2015 — The Short Story 🗒️

The letter became a short story. June Snow (named for two A Silent Film songs) appeared — a concert photographer and music blogger who was, in many ways, a fictional version of me during that era.

Richmond Adams appeared (named for one of my favorite characters on The IT Crowd). The British musician whose music finds June at exactly the right moment and refuses to let her go.

In 2015 I decided the short story wanted to be longer. I started expanding it into something that looked like a novel.

Then life intervened — the way it does — and I put it in a drawer.

2015-2022 — The Drawer Years 🫣

I came back to the manuscript periodically over the next several years. I'd open it, read what I had, feel something about it, and close it again.

The problem wasn't the writing. The writing was fine.

The problem was I didn't know how it ended.

I was going through a divorce. A cross-country move. The rebuilding years. I was writing about it on this blog under the 100 Cups of Coffee series — honest stories about dating, identity, and figuring out who you are when the life you planned falls away.

I couldn't finish June's story because I hadn't finished my own yet.

2022-2026 — Finding the Ending 💖

I met my husband. And somewhere in the warmth and stability of that new chapter, I finally knew how June's story ended.

Because I had lived it. I knew what it felt like to wait for something real and then actually get it.

I opened the manuscript again in May 2026. Read it from the beginning.

And thought: this is actually good!

My husband read it twice. He caught things I missed, asked questions that made the story better, and did it all on his own. He wanted to help. He is one of the reasons this book is out in the world today.

I went through the manuscript three times myself — adding depth, dialogue, pacing, the ending I had always known was there but never been able to write.

And then I finished it. It was finally time to let the world #ListenForYourself 🎶

June 2, 2026 — Publication 📖💖🎶

I chose to self-publish Musical Awakening for a few reasons:

I had queried agents with an unfinished version years earlier and heard nothing back. I knew the book was ready now in a way it hadn't been then. And I wanted control — over the cover, the timeline, how the story showed up in the world.

I used Vellum for formatting — the single best investment I made in the whole process. I designed the cover in Canva. I purchased my own ISBN through IngramSpark. I set up KDP for ebook and paperback distribution. I'm in the process of finalizing IngramSpark for bookstore distribution.

The ebook launched June 2, 2026 — my old wedding anniversary, a date I wanted to reclaim.

The paperback launched July 2, 2026.

On July 24th I'm going to San Diego Comic Con with 15 signed copies and a lot of feelings about how long this journey took.

What I Want You to Know 💡

If you have a manuscript in a drawer — this post is for you.

The writing is the hardest part. Everything else is learnable. Self-publishing has never been more accessible, more legitimate, or more author-friendly than it is right now. The tools exist. The platforms exist. The readers exist.

Don't let the publishing process intimidate you out of finishing the story.

Write the story. Finish it. The rest follows.

And if it takes ten years? That's okay too. Some stories aren't ready until you are.

Some songs take years to finish. So do some love stories.
#ListenForYourself 🎶

📖 Read Musical Awakening on Amazon

Are you working on a manuscript right now? Tell me about it in the comments. I'd love to cheer you on. 💖