As a writer, I’ve spent years thinking about beginnings.

We tend to imagine them as confident moments — the first chapter written with certainty, the character stepping forward because they know who they are and what they want. But the longer I write, the more I realize that meaningful beginnings almost never look like that.

They look hesitant.
They look incomplete.
They look like someone starting anyway.

This week, I’ve been thinking about how often we wait to feel ready — in life and on the page. Ready to commit to a story. Ready to trust a character. Ready to believe we’re allowed to begin again.

But characters don’t change because they’re ready. They change because staying the same becomes impossible.

That’s something I understand more clearly now, both as a writer and as a person.

Starting vanlife at 55 wasn’t a dramatic turning point; it was an internal one. The same kind I write about. The moment when the old life no longer fits, but the new one isn’t fully formed yet. That uneasy, honest space in between.

It’s changed how I approach my work-in-progress. I have more patience for uncertainty. More respect for quiet starts. More understanding for characters who hesitate, who doubt, who move forward without clarity.

Starting before you’re ready isn’t reckless.
It’s faithful — to the story, to the self, to the truth underneath the fear.

If you’re in the middle of something unfinished — a draft, a dream, a reinvention — you’re not behind. You’re in the beginning.

— Michelle