Today I made two members of my “team” shriek like giddy schoolgirls over a development they didn’t know about yet, because they haven’t finished my manuscript. Do you know how good that felt? That validation. To see that my writing still has that kind of impact. It feels strange even calling it a team. For so long this has just been me and a blinking cursor, self-doubt, and the quiet fear that maybe I wasn’t capable of carrying this all the way through.
Here’s where I am with the book. I didn’t realize how deeply I needed this kind of support and guidance until I had it. Sitting across from people who take the work seriously, who ask smart questions and push me further instead of letting me hide, has brought my spark back. My creativity feels alive again, moving through me and onto the page with an energy I haven’t felt in a long time.
In our last couple of meetings, we’ve been walking through my chapters one by one. I’m also working through new chapters, figuring out where they belong and whether they strengthen the spine of the story. I explain what each piece means to me and why it matters, why certain parts must stay. There is something powerful about speaking the words instead of carrying them silently inside myself. When I read them out loud, the story feels embodied. It feels real.
And I can once again feel Ronan everywhere. I can feel him coming back to life on these pages. For so long I was so frustrated, afraid he had gotten lost in the mechanics of it all, buried beneath edits and structure and the pressure to make it work. But today I felt him. My team felt him. They saw him.
There is something indescribable about watching other people fall in love with your child through your words. Watching them meet him not as a tragedy, but as a boy. As light. As force. I kept saying it over and over today: I just want someone to read this book and feel less alone in their pain. I want this to be the book someone reaches for on their nightstand when the world around them is crumbling, the one they open in the dark because they cannot breathe and need proof that survival is possible. I want it to sit beside them and make them feel understood in a way that is steady and honest.
After years of writing this in isolation, the shift feels almost unreal. What once felt lonely now feels collaborative. What once felt heavy now feels purposeful.
For so long it felt like I was wandering through fragments—memories, hospital rooms, voice notes, drafts written at two in the morning, chapters started and abandoned and resurrected. I kept wondering if I actually had a book or just a lifetime of grief scattered across pages. But now I can see it. The spine is there. The arc is there. The heartbeat is there.
This doesn’t feel like a beginning anymore. It feels like crossing into something earned. Not because the pain is finished, that part never is, but because the story has finally taken its full shape. Every chapter belongs. Every hard section has a purpose. Every moment that once felt too raw to touch now has a place inside something whole.
All of the puzzle pieces are there. And what they form is not just a book. It’s him. It’s us. It’s you. Because this story is not only mine. Loss is universal. Grief is universal. The ache of loving someone you cannot keep is universal. No one should have to navigate that alone.
Today I felt alive. Not just productive, not just “on,” but fully alive. I felt proud in a way that didn’t make me shrink. I felt close to Ronan in a way that steadied me instead of undoing me. I cried. I laughed. I spoke with strength and guts and conviction. I was clear. I was grounded. I was giddy.
I watched faces light up through a screen, watched the reaction land in real time, and one of my team members said, “I’m so embarrassed. I’m totally geeking out right now and I can’t stop smiling.” Watching that unfold, watching someone respond to this story with that kind of joy and awe, did something to me.
For so long this has been solitary. Quiet. Carried alone. And today it felt shared. Celebrated. Witnessed. And I feel so fucking happy.
Because this process has bloodied my knees. It has stolen my happiness at times. It has left me up more nights than I can count, throwing up over a toilet, staring at the ceiling in the dark, unable to sleep. It has pulled me into insomnia and anxiety and places so low I wasn’t sure I would climb back out. There were moments when it felt like it might actually take me down with it.
But it didn’t.
I’m still here. The book is still here. Ronan is still here in these pages. And today, instead of it breaking me, it lifted me. And today, I am going to relish in that and then get back to work.
If you’ve been following Rockstar Ronan over the years, thank you for still being here.
These days, I do most of my writing over at Written Wildly on Substack. It’s where I share regular essays about love, grief, motherhood, ordinary life, and the making of my memoir. I write the things we often leave unsaid—especially about grief—and bring readers behind the scenes as my book takes shape with an incredible editorial team. (I still can’t believe I tried to wrestle 400,000 words into a book by myself.)
If you’d like to keep up with my writing between posts here, I’d love to have you join me there.
→ Follow Written Wildly on Substack:
https://open.substack.com/pub/mamamaya4
Thank you for reading. Thank you for staying. It means more than I can ever say.
— Maya
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