Tales From The Coffee Shop

Creative burnout, delayed book releases, and finding my way back to writing I've experienced harsh winters before. Some were cold enough that I questioned whether I would make it through them. But here I am again, writing about another winter—one that wasn’t as brutal as some of the ones in the past, but harsh enough that I found myself wrapped in a blanket, quietly hoping the sun would return soon. And as if on cue, it has. The sun has been shining again. There have been a couple of cloudy days here and there over the last week, but that’s okay. Both metaphorically and physically speaking.  That’s why they call them the seasons of life. Sometimes they line up almost perfectly with the seasons outside our windows. This last winter of life was one of those times.  If you follow me on social media, you probably saw me make the gut-wrenching decision to push back the release of Comatose . In fact, the book was supposed to release yesterday. Now, there isn’t an exact date. Al...

I’m sitting in my coffee shop — the one that gave me a safe space to write. A safe space to create. A safe space to just… be me. And honestly, I’m overwhelmed. For those of you who’ve been following this journey, you know the technological struggle has been real. I decided to write a book, and about a month into it my computer — the trusty steed that she was — ran her final run. Suddenly, I had no way to continue writing my debut novel. Or so you’d think. Not a stranger to terrible timing, I improvised. I wrote the entire manuscript by hand before eventually switching to an iPad. It wasn’t perfect, but once I paired it with a Bluetooth keyboard, I became unstoppable — 143,000 words in just four months. And then, as some of you noticed, I went silent. As fate would have it, the universe wanted to see just how badly I wanted this dream. In January, I was out of town for work, staying with a friend. On my last night, we went out to dinner. Things were finally starting to look up. I was a ...

  The sun rose over the rolling hills of the Palouse, and I sat on my porch, drinking my coffee. Not that I needed it. I was already jittery from the nerves that had knotted my stomach into a twisted mess. But the warmth of it on my tongue grounded me in something familiar — something I was desperate for, knowing what was coming in just a few hours. Since I was seventeen, there’s only been one time in my life when I didn’t work. It was 2012. The world was finally starting to crawl out of the recession — not that I noticed, because I’d been poor since the moment I left my grandparents’ house — and I’d just lost my job. Trying to find another at that time was like looking for a needle in a haystack. And to top it off, I was pregnant. No employer will ever tell you they’re not hiring you because you’re pregnant. Instead, they’ll tell you that you’re just “not a good fit.” I heard that one too many times to count. It took two years to finally find work again — and I’ve had a job ...

Comatose , for the most part, is finished. So now what? That was the first thing that slipped out of my mouth when I realized I’d written the final word. “Now what do I do?” I tried reading another book, but I think I need to wait a bit. Right now every book sounds better than mine—or maybe I just chose the wrong one to start with. I probably shouldn’t have jumped straight into the book everyone says “made them think and look up definitions for the first time in years.” Anyone would feel a little small after that. So instead of forcing myself to read, I decided there’s no time like the present to start the next piece of the Awake world: Dystortia—the standalone that was never supposed to be. Dystortia , like Comatose, has lived in countless notebooks over the years. Longer than Comatose , actually. It’s the story I started writing at twelve years old, rewriting it over and over only to feel like it kept falling short of what I wanted it to be. But this time feels different. This time, ...

It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post. Not that long ago, a break like this would’ve meant one thing—  that I’d fallen off the horse again. Whenever I disappeared from a project, people around me usually took it as a sign that my latest adventure had run its course. I’d either end up making an awkward video explaining why it “just wasn’t for me,” or I’d go silent and never bring it up again. And if I went silent, well, that was the unspoken signal: I’d given up. That’s how it used to be. But this time? This silence meant something entirely different. This time, the quiet was productive. It was intentional. It was me doing the work I’ve always dreamed of finishing. I had tight deadlines for Comatose—four months to write two drafts and prepare Beta Reader copies by September 22nd. I didn’t meet that first deadline. And at first, I panicked. Every time I’ve missed a deadline in the past, I’ve lost momentum. But this time, I pushed it to October 10th and decided that instead...

  When I think about “womanhood” and the “women support women” movement, yesterday is what comes to mind. SenLinYu is the author of one of the most printed — and yes, illegally sold — fanfics of all time. She wrote it in a fandom that isn’t even canon to the HP universe, but has become one of the most debated, loved, and hated Harry Potter ships out there: Dramione. For those who don’t know, Dramione is an entire community built around one moment in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — the moment Draco Malfoy could have followed through with villainous behavior, but didn’t. The moment we realized that while he may have hated the Golden Trio, he didn’t want them dead. It was the first glimpse that Draco wasn’t just a “bad guy.” He was a child thrown into impossible situations by the choices of his family. J.K. Rowling herself has condemned the idea of Draco and Hermione together, saying Draco was always meant to be bad. But my take has always been: if you didn’t want him t...