The Beauty of the Unpublished

I saw a post today from an author who said she’s written five books she’ll never show her publisher. They weren’t ready for the world, even though she thought they were. But she still loves them, because they started her path to the sixth—the one that reached over a million readers.

I think that’s the beauty of writing. It isn’t stagnant. Some stories never make it out into the world, and that’s okay. The point isn’t always to be seen; sometimes it’s just to say what needed to be said, to learn from it, to grow.

Every piece we write plants something that will bloom later. My poetry feeds my prose; my prose shapes my poems. Each attempt builds on the last until we find the book, the poem, the essay that was waiting all along—the one the world was ready to hear.

It’s never easy. There’s rejection, doubt, and silence along the way. But that’s where the real work happens. We keep going, refining, rewriting, stubborn enough to believe that if we keep showing up, one day the stars will align.

For every writer still building toward their sixth book.