This has been the most incredible month for me and I'm overflowing with gratitude for the incredible response to The Navigator.
I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief today. Even colors seem brighter this week than last.
Why?
As you might imagine, the answer goes much deeper than a book launch.
Do you remember the last time you stood at a crossroads, spinning your wheels to find your bearings? Maybe after a breakup, career shift, or big move? Can you recall those wild swings between "This is going to be GREAT!" and "This will NEVER work!"?
Or maybe that's just me.
I've lived through a parade of crossroads over the past five years—almost to the day—since Covid pried me out of my beloved identity as a live-aboard cruiser attempting to sail around the world. My psyche has grasped at a lot of straws to fill that identity void since then: return to freelance marketing? Become a corporate board member? A health coach? An entrepreneur building productivity courses? Should I get a job-job?
This month, with the launch of The Navigator, I finally feel like I'm on the other side.
I know who I am again. A writer.
You might think my debut novel would have carved out that identity, but honestly? It felt more like a cool resumé bullet point: published author. A great step, but to authentically claim the title of writer, per my own personal version of what that meant, I needed to know I could do it again.
Over the past few years, I traveled down dozens of writing roads only to hit dead ends. I wrote three complete novels that I shelved because they didn't feel right. I read mountains of craft books and tried umpteen processes, hoping one would magically make things easier. It was like being back in my teenage years, trying on rapid-fire identities: "Is the real writer me more goth or more athlete?" and "Does she belong with the stoners or the AP kids?"
Eventually, I realized that identity just had to build itself. There was no magic shortcut. The experiments had to lead wherever they were meant to. The failures carved out the negative space of what didn't work, leaving a much clearer version of what actually did. And they gave me a story I'm genuinely proud of.
So with The Navigator out in the world, I finally feel like I've earned the identity of writer—enough to appease my exacting psyche, anyway— someone who consistently writes stories and shares them.
I still don't have a magic formula for how the next novel will get written, or the one after. But I absolutely have the confidence to say it will happen—and it won't take years to get there. In fact, it's already in the works.
This morning I was back on the quarterdeck of a tea trader caught in an 1841 gale, puzzling out how a determined woman became strong, and how a strong woman became a legend.
The adventure continues. :)
Fair winds,
Cheyenne
P.S. The cruiser attempting to sail around the world part of my identity never left, it just had to wait for a boat. But that milestone is very close as well.
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