Tales From The Coffee Shop

  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...