Chapter 6: The First Real Test
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The next morning, Favour opened her laptop with a mixture of excitement and fear. Her notebook had spilled ideas into her mind all night, but now she had to decide which ones were strong enough to become real. She knew that writing again meant confronting the doubts she had spent months running from.
As she typed, she felt a familiar pressure creeping in. The words she had once written freely now felt fragile. What if she wasn't good enough? What if readers didn't understand her vision? What if she failed again?
Her heart raced, but she remembered something her mother had told her long ago:
"Courage isn't the absence of fear. It's moving forward even when fear is there."
With that in mind, she pressed forward. The first paragraph spilled onto the page, shaky but alive. Then the next one. And the next. Soon, a scene began to take shape, vibrant with characters, emotion, and life.
Hours passed. The sun climbed higher, and Favour didn't notice. She was immersed in the world she was creating. But then, reality knocked: her little brother barged in, spilling her notebook onto the floor, scattering pages and ideas.
Frustration bubbled inside her. She could feel the old doubts whispering: "See? You can't even control this. You're never ready."
But Favour took a deep breath, crouched down, and started picking up the pages. As she gathered her scattered ideas, she realized something profound:
Even when life tried to knock her down, she could rebuild. Even when her ideas were scattered and messy, she could make them whole again.
By the end of the day, she had rewritten the scene, better than before. It wasn't perfect — it didn't have to be. But it was real, it was hers, and it was alive.
For the first time since she returned to writing, Favour smiled with certainty:
"This is only the beginning."
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