For the last two weeks or so, my author site has been sitting behind an “under construction” screen while I rebuilt it from the inside out.
Pages rewritten. Sections reorganized. Entire hubs re‑voiced. The Daffodil Girl has finally been given her own space. The kind of work that looks simple when it’s finished, but feels like excavation while you’re doing it.
And somewhere in the middle of all that scaffolding, I realized something I hadn’t said out loud:
I wasn’t just rebuilding my website. I was rebuilding myself.
It’s funny how obvious that sounds now. But when you’re in it — when you’re knee‑deep in menus and branding and voice decisions — you don’t always see the parallel work happening underneath your own skin.
The truth is, I’ve been under construction for a while.
Not in a dramatic, phoenix‑rising way. More in the quiet, steady, brick‑by‑brick way. The kind where you don’t tear everything down — you just start reinforcing the parts that need to hold more weight.
While I was rewriting the Daffodil Girl hub, I was also rewriting the way I talk about my work. While I was shaping the Severed Mercy page, I was shaping the next phase of my creative identity. While I was choosing colors and typography, I was choosing clarity over hesitation. While I was building a home for my stories, I was building a home for myself as an author.
It wasn’t just the site that needed a new foundation. It was me.
And that’s the part no one sees when they visit a polished website. They don’t see the drafts that didn’t work. The versions you scrapped. The moments you questioned whether any of it mattered. The quiet recalibrations. The internal negotiations. The days you felt like you were building a cathedral with a teaspoon.
But that’s the work. That’s the becoming.
When I finally took the site out of under‑construction mode, it wasn’t because everything was perfect. It was because everything was true.
True to my voice. True to my worlds. True to the writer I am now — not the one I was when I first put this site up.
And yes, there’s still tweaking to do. There always will be. A living site evolves. A living writer evolves with it.
But the scaffolding is down. The lights are on. The door is open.
I’m stepping into my new CM Seybolt branding next, and on Sunday, a new short story goes out into the world. The timing feels intentional, even though I didn’t plan it that way. Like the work aligned itself and said, “Alright. It’s time.”
So here I am. No longer under construction. Still building. Still becoming. But visible now — and that matters.
If you’re in your own interim season, I hope you give yourself the same grace. You’re allowed to be a work in progress and still show up. You’re allowed to publish before you feel finished. You’re allowed to be both the builder and the building.
I was under construction.
Now I’m here.
And I’m not done — not even close.
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