New Year. Same Inbox. New Nerves.

The calendar flipped. The champagne glasses clinked. People started posting their big announcements and fresh starts and this is my year energy.

And my inbox?

Still quiet.

No offers.No rejections.No news at all.

Just silence—the kind that doesn’t slam a door but also doesn’t open one.

I wish I could say I greeted the new year with calm certainty. That I felt grounded. Confident. At peace with the process. But the truth is, the quiet messes with you. It makes you question things you were solid about just days ago. It turns patience into anxiety and optimism into a low hum of what if.

What if I missed something?What if I’m not as close as I thought?What if the story I poured myself into just… isn’t enough?

There’s a special kind of vulnerability in submitting your work and then having to wait through a symbolic moment like the New Year. Everyone talks about resolutions and momentum, while you’re standing still—trusting that something is happening behind the scenes, even when you can’t see it.

I remind myself that silence doesn’t mean no. It also doesn’t mean yes. It means the work is being considered. It means someone is reading slowly. It means I’m in the middle, not the end.

And the middle is uncomfortable.

So I’m letting myself feel the nerves without letting them rewrite the truth. I wrote the book. I sent it out. I did the brave part already. Everything else is timing, taste, and patience—three things I don’t fully control, no matter how much I wish I did.

This year didn’t start with fireworks or good news in my inbox. It started with me learning how to sit with uncertainty without abandoning myself in the process. That counts for something.

For now, I’ll keep writing.I’ll keep checking my email (but maybe not every five minutes).I’ll keep trusting that quiet seasons still mean growth.

The year is young.So am I.And the story—mine and the one on submission—is still unfolding.