2025 is when I really finished it, but there are stories like “crying over spilt milk” that I wrote in 2021. There’s the VMAs red carpet one I wrote three years ago. I have a journal entry from 2023 about turning 23. So it’s cool because it was written throughout this longer period of time.

Initially, I had a publisher, but I wound up going with a different one that was a better fit. With the first publisher, I was fighting them every step of the way. They didn’t like the cover. They wanted my face on the cover. We fought on almost every single point.

Then I got on the phone with Authors Equity, and they go, “Tell me your story.” I just started bawling my eyes out. I don’t know why, but I’m just sobbing on a Zoom call explaining my book. Unprompted, they say, “You know, this is the kind of book that I don’t even want your face on the cover.” I felt like they understood the vision and that they believed in me. I finally felt ready and stable enough in my life to say, “I can put this out as a statement and stand behind it.”

I think all the stars aligned, and it finally felt like I had the grace, the strength, and the resilience to just get through and put it out. But it was not an easy journey, and I faced my shadow every day.

In Rookie, you say that you almost quit writing more times than you can count. What pushed you to continue forward?

Ultimately, it’s about thinking: what potential value does this have for people? Words have an impact. When I’m vulnerable in an interview, people will come up to me, even years later, and tell me what I said gave them a new perspective or helped them heal. It’s about those moments when someone comes up to you on the street, and they’re like, “When you said that years ago, it changed my life.” That’s the stuff that keeps me going.

The thing I was avoiding was the emotional discomfort of facing my pain. But like I say in the book, the artist paves the road for the audience to stroll down. It’s about remembering that it’s bigger than just me. If my true goal is to serve others and not myself, that means doing the dirty work. It means persevering, even though you would rather stay comfortable.