today I’m posting very late and, to be honest, I almost didn’t post at all because I had a little “moment.” A moment of pure happiness that should have made me laugh, jump, scream, something completely different from what I actually did.

I just froze.

I think doubt has been so strong inside me, and the saboteur has been doing such a good job against me, while I have been doing such a good job trying to silence her, that when I received genuine, kind feedback about my work I didn’t really know how to react. I’m so used to fighting the voice telling me I’m not good enough that when someone came along and told me the opposite, I got shocked.

And “good feedback” actually diminishes what I received.

I received an email from an author I admire enormously. The kind of author whose next book I’m waiting for like a child waits for Christmas morning. The kind of author I discovered because I decided to give a new genre a chance and immediately fell in love with it.

She is also someone who has been working with words and managing people who also work with words for decades, and I know that when you are a professional in a field and you stop to write to somebody to tell them how much you like the work they are doing, it is because you really mean it.

I know because when I stop to write to someone in my old field to tell them that I admire what they are doing, it is because I genuinely mean it.

So that email was basically a slap in the face of the part of me that sabotages me every single day.

For a second I let down the armour I put on to fight against myself. The armour I use against the part of me that tells me to go back to being a crisis manager, that I’m not good enough for this, that maybe all of this is ridiculous and I should just stop.

And then this author, who I will not name but who now lives in my heart forever, gave me something I could never have given myself.

She punched the part of me that sabotages my work, my efforts and my dreams directly in the face and knocked her out.

The same part of me that I normally try to calm down by being kind to her and saying:

Apparently she didn’t need a hug.

She needed a knockout.

And from the moment she was knocked out, another part of me appeared. An even bigger dreamer, one I didn’t even know existed. And now this dreamer is sitting here telling me all the ideas the other part of me thought were too much and giving me courage to actually consider them.

Not fake-it-until-you-make-it courage. Real courage. The kind of courage that makes you think maybe I can actually do this.

Now I have a bodyguard defending me against self-sabotage and fear.

Her email.

An email I will cherish forever.

I’m here every day with my humble webpage that some people call flat and homemade, and yes, it is homemade. Very homemade actually.

And every day I’m trying to make it a little better, learning something, fixing something, breaking something, fixing what I broke and continuing.

I’ll continue exactly in the same humble way you all already know, with my Coke Zero, the voices in my head pushing me to work more, my books, my reviews, my podcast, The Chosen, and all the ridiculous ideas that apparently the bigger dreamer has now decided we should try.

But now, when the saboteur and fear come back and try to make me stop, I’ll go back to your email, my dear.

Because today I learned something that has absolutely nothing to do with algorithms, SEO, followers, sales or views.

Sometimes all it takes is taking five minutes to write one kind email to someone, and those five minutes can make that person continue believing in herself.

To you, my defender against self-sabotage, I’m sending all my love.

And by the way, please send me the uncorrected proof of the next book the second it exists because I NEED to know what happens next. I’m already waiting like a child for Christmas morning and this is becoming a problem.

And you Rebels reading me, go read Before October Ends and The Chosen and help this little indie author.

Love to all of you.

And now I’ll go grab a Coke Zero and write The Chosen.