Author life - one failure at a time some days :)

There was a time—long, long ago, in a land of fluorescent lighting and lukewarm coffee—when my entire day was mapped out by someone else.

Eight hours. Eight very structured, very supervised hours. Someone told me what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Possibly even how to breathe while doing it.

And I remember thinking, with the quiet desperation of someone staring at a clock that refused to move that there had to be more than this.

Fast forward to now. I am an indie author.

Which sounds wildly glamorous until you realize it means I am now the boss, the employee, the intern, the marketing department, the IT support, and occasionally… the person who forgets where she put her own coffee. That's the plot twist no one really talks about:

When you become your own boss, no one tells you what to do anymore. At all.

There is no helpful voice saying, “Today, Sabine, you will write exactly 1,243 brilliant words, post at the optimal algorithm-approved time, and experience measurable success.”

No.

Instead, it’s more like: “Hmm… what happens if I try this?” “Oops.” “Well… that didn’t work.” “Let’s never speak of that again.”

“…or maybe let’s absolutely write a blog post about it.”

Because this—this chaotic, hilarious, slightly unhinged process—is what failing forward actually looks like. It’s trying something new with wild optimism… and watching it flop like a pancake that missed the pan entirely. It’s launching an idea you were convinced was the one… and hearing crickets so loud they deserve their own soundtrack. It’s experimenting, adjusting, learning, and occasionally staring into the abyss (also known as your analytics dashboard).

And yet…

It’s also freedom. It’s waking up and deciding, today I create something from nothing. It’s building stories, characters, entire cozy little worlds where mystery and magic live side by side. It’s realizing that failure isn’t the opposite of success—it’s the slightly awkward, coffee-fueled path that leads directly to it. 

Because every “well, that didn’t work” teaches you something invaluable. What your readers love, what resonates, what feels like you.

And slowly, almost without noticing, you get better. Not because someone told you how. But because you showed up. You tried. You failed.

You tried again anyway. That’s failing forward.

It’s not graceful and it’s not tidy. It’s definitely not Instagram-perfect. But it’s real.

And honestly? I wouldn’t trade it for anything—not even for a perfectly scheduled, eight-hour day with instructions neatly printed in advance. Because this life—the messy, magical, unpredictable life of a cozy mystery author—is mine. Every success. Every misstep.

Every spectacular, slightly dramatic crash-and-burn moment. And the best part?

Tomorrow, I get to wake up and try again. (Preferably with better coffee.)