Fay Messina

There’s a certain kind of silence that lives in the space between stories.

It’s not the peaceful kind, not at first. It’s itchy. Heavy. Like walking into a room and forgetting why you’re there. That’s the silence I’ve been sitting with lately, the kind that creeps in after a big writing push, or when a draft dies on the page before you figure out how to bring it back to life.

And for someone whose life is shaped by stories, that silence feels like failure.

I used to think writing was a thing I had to wrangle. Like if I worked hard enough, planned well enough, stuck to the schedule and drank enough caffeine, the words would behave. But lately? Lately, they’ve been quiet. Not gone, exactly. Just… waiting. Like they’re watching to see if I’ll sit with them anyway, even when they don’t show up the way I want.

So I’ve been doing a lot of sitting. A lot of staring. A lot of walking and thinking and scribbling down half-thoughts in the margins of receipts because it’s all I’ve got.

And weirdly, that has become part of the process, too.

Because writing isn’t just about words. It’s about living. About noticing. About what fills your cup between the chapters and the deadlines. I used to see those spaces as distractions, as delays. Now I’m trying to see them as compost. Messy, necessary things that eventually make something grow.

This spring I found myself rereading one of my favorite old fantasy books. I’ve read it probably five times, but this time, one particular line struck me like it never had before. It was just a simple sentence about grief—one of those lines that sits quiet in the middle of the page, easy to overlook. But it wrecked me. In the best way. Because it said something I hadn’t known I needed to hear until that exact moment.

That’s the magic of stories, right? They don’t just entertain us. They meet us. They echo things we didn’t know we were carrying. Sometimes they even heal.

That’s why I keep writing, even when it’s hard. Even when the words are slow. Because I believe there’s someone out there who might one day need my quiet line on their hard day.

So if you’re here reading this, thank you. Whether you’ve read one of my books or just stumbled across my little corner of the internet, I’m grateful you’re here. You’re part of what keeps me going. Part of why I show up to the page, even when it feels like shouting into the void.

There is another story coming. Slowly, maybe. But it’s coming. And I can’t wait to share it with you.

Until then, I’ll be here. Writing when I can. Resting when I need. Trusting that the silence between stories isn’t the end, it’s the breath before something begins.

With love and ink-stained fingers,

Fay Messina