What If?

The question that has stopped more people than failure ever has.

What if it doesn't work?

That question has probably stopped more dreams than failure ever has.

What if people don't like it?

What if nobody cares?

What if I fail?

What if I leave what I know and discover the other side isn't any better?

What if?

Sometimes doubt doesn't tell you to quit.

It convinces you not to begin.

And that is even more dangerous.

I could have listened to that voice when I started writing.

What if nobody reads it?

What if people think it's terrible?

What if it doesn't sell?

There were plenty of questions. All of them logical. All of them loud.

But eventually, I realized something:

I wasn't writing because I had guaranteed readers waiting for me. I wasn't writing for money. I wasn't chasing clout.

I was writing because I had stories living inside my head, and I wanted to let them out.

That was enough to start.

STEELHEART, my memoir, opened another door in my mind. It made me wonder:

What if I told a different kind of story?

That question became Beneath the Shadow Crown.

Then came another question:

What if I went somewhere completely different?

That question became Forbidden Love.

An underwater kingdom. A jinn princess. A human man. An impossible love. An entire world built from imagination, folklore, and whatever strange machinery my brain decides to assemble at three in the morning.

And here's the part most people don't know:

Forbidden Love was the first book I chose to publish through Hidden Legacy Publishers.

But it wasn't the first manuscript I wrote.

It was my third.

And somehow, that makes perfect sense to me now.

We have this strange expectation that life should happen in order.

First this.

Then that.

Then the next thing.

As if every opportunity has a queue number and we're supposed to wait patiently for ours to be called.

But creativity doesn't work that way.

Neither does life.

Sometimes the third thing becomes the first thing people see.

Sometimes the project you thought would come later becomes the one that opens the door.

Sometimes the path only makes sense when you look backward.

The important thing is that you're moving.

Because maybe things don't have to happen in order.

Maybe they just have to happen.

That's what "What If?" means to me now.

Not:

What if I fail?

But:

• What if I don't try?

• What if the thing you're afraid won't work becomes the thing that changes everything?

• What if the opportunity you're waiting for isn't coming because you're supposed to create your own?

• What if the road you're afraid to take leads somewhere you couldn't have imagined from where you're standing?

We spend so much time trying to eliminate uncertainty before making a decision.

But uncertainty is part of the deal.

You don't get to see the entire staircase before taking the first step.

You just decide whether the first step is worth taking.

I didn't know if people would connect with Forbidden Love. I didn't know if they would understand the world I had imagined. I didn't know what would happen after I put it out into the world.

I only knew that the story existed.

And I had to make a choice:

Keep it locked inside my head because of a collection of hypothetical problems...

...or give it a chance to exist outside of me.

I chose the second option.

And I'm glad I did.

Because sometimes the biggest risk isn't failing at something new.

It's staying exactly where you are because you're too afraid to find out what could have happened.

So if you're standing at the edge of something unfamiliar right now, don't ask yourself if it will work.

Ask a different question.

What if?