When The Payoff is Worth the Wait

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 quarter of the way through a massive line edit for Comatose, preparing for new beta readers, and adjusting to a pushed‑back release date in July.

Then tragedy struck.

We came back from dinner to find my car gone. Everything inside it was gone too — including the iPad I’d been using to write Comatose.

I’ve been stuck ever since. I managed to get a few things done for Dystortia, the interconnected standalone to the Awake duology, but not much.

But here I am, finally, almost two months later, writing this from my brand‑new laptop. Not an iPad. Not a tablet. A real laptop.

It’ll take me a few days to get everything set back up, but we’re officially back in business. Comatose is still coming out this year — I just need to make sure I’m still on track before I set a firm release date.

So to the universe, who so clearly wanted to test how badly I want to be a published author?

My answer is this: Absolutely.