The Coffee-Fueled Chaos Behind the Magic of Writing

I was born a writer, forged in the fires of rejection letters, coupled with a determination gene. I am a caffeine-powered, plot-twisting, thesaurus-wielding creature who lives between reality and the multiverse. I was playing pickleball Friday night with a friend, and apparently, I was talking to myself. Her words were, "I love how you live in another world in your head."

Or something like that.  

I can spend an hour crafting a single sentence only to delete it because it sounded too good.  I thrive in my dimly lit room surrounded by coffee, half-empty diet sodas, and two dogs at my feet.  I eat burnt toast smothered with butter and chocolate. I love my dimly lit room; however, coffee is less a beverage and more a sacred elixir—preferably consumed in alarming quantities with sugar free creamer.

Inside my mind are 47 open tabs, much like a computer. One tab is researching an intergalactic spaceship, another is how to feed and house multiple alien species, and how long can someone survive without a space suit. But the BEST part was creating a species who was born inside the Oort cloud. I spend two seconds naming the being and hours trying to figure out their lives. Logic is always optional. 

I am nocturnal by nature and struggling to adapt to life after 5am so I can play pickleball.  If you encounter me in the wild—on the courts, at a bookstore or lurking near a coffee machine—approach slowly and say something like, “I loved your last book. The plot twist made me scream.” This will earn you a smile, a humble-brag deflection, and possibly a 20-minute rant about how the twist was actually a metaphor for late-stage capitalism.

I write paranormal and science fiction, so I am an even more fascinating subspecies. I dream in alien languages, argue with ghosts about character arcs, and maintain spreadsheets of interdimensional worlds with timelines. It’s not uncommon for me to ask questions like, “Would a demon use a smartphone?” or “Can love survive in a haunted spaceship?” I am the one who tries to make you believe the monster is really my protagonist's unresolved trauma.

Despite my chaos, I am an architect of worlds, and I delve into humanity where emotions are the crayons of life. I am sleep deprived and I cry over my characters, but I'm doing the Lord's work, one typo at a time. 

The next time you meet a writer, offer them a hug or a refill on their coffee. And if you’re curious about what goes on behind the scenes of my own writing chaos, check out my latest book. The characters are just as weird as I am—and twice as caffeinated.