Plot Twist: I Didn’t Start Writing Until Everything Else Fell Apart
WHY I FEEL LIKE NOT WRITING MY WHOLE LIFE IS A DISADVANTAGE.
(Or: How I accidentally became an author after life punched me in the spine.)
I love hearing writers talk about how they've been doing this since they were old enough to chew on a crayon. Their origin stories are these sprawling, poetic timelines of childhood journaling, angsty teenage poetry, and college writing workshops. They’ve been living and breathing words for decades.
That was me.
But with art.
I had no idea whether I was a good writer—hell, even a passable one—because I had nothing to measure it against. Meanwhile, I had 35 years’ worth of crafts and chaos to prove I was at least a functioning artist. The kind with paint-splattered floors, wood blanks hoarded like currency, and more tools than a suburban dad with a Lowe’s addiction. I even mastered commercial laser engravers I had absolutely no business operating. (And honestly? I slayed.)
Then came the spinal surgeries. Yes, plural. Holding a paintbrush became a Herculean task. Lifting my arms? Not unless I wanted to recreate the sound of a glowstick cracking in real time with pain to match.
After my last surgery, the doctors shrugged and basically said, “Welp. We tried.” I walked out of that hospital with a permanent 10-pound weight restriction and the overwhelming sense that someone had just amputated my identity.
I wasn’t just an artist—I was art.
Covered in it, surrounded by it, built from it.
And then an MRI revealed a spinal deformity no one had ever seen before. So that was fun. Years of pain that I’d been gaslit into ignoring? Validated. Cue the “experimental surgery” arc of my life story. It didn’t end well.
The first surgery wasn’t awful, if we’re grading on a curve of pain and emotional destruction. The second one, though? Straight-up horror novel. Right in the middle of the pandemic, no visitors allowed, which meant my husband (the person I literally share a bed, toothbrush drawer, and every bodily fluid with) wasn’t allowed to see me post-op.
Add to that the fact that the nurses ignored the “patient projectile vomits on fentanyl” warning in my chart, and I was left heaving my guts out—alone—mere hours after a spinal operation. Nothing screams “healthcare system excellence!” like throwing up with a fresh neck incision.
Anyway.
After that disaster, I had to accept the worst: I wasn’t getting better. Not physically. Not enough to do what I used to do.
And I didn’t know who I was anymore.
Yes, I was a mom (homeschooling one, at that—gold star for chaos). But kids grow up. They leave. And if you’re not careful, you’re left standing in a quiet house wondering where you fit in all the noise. I knew I couldn’t pour all of myself into parenting forever.
I kept asking, what now?
What does a person do when their entire creative identity is ripped out from under them and set on fire?
Well. Apparently, she writes a book.
The Quinn and Raeban story hit me like a freight train of emotional damage and sexual tension. It was relentless. I didn’t even think I wanted to write a novel. I just needed the characters to shut up and they wouldn’t. So I wrote it down. And then I kept writing. Somewhere in the process, it hit me: I was still making art. Just with words instead of wood.
Instead of sanding edges, I was smoothing dialogue. Instead of laser-etching wooden signs, I was carving emotion into every scene. My materials changed, but the soul of what I do stayed the same.
Books were always my escape. As a kid, I clung to Harry Potter like a life raft. (Yes, I know. JKR has ruined it a bit. But it was my first taste of fantasy, and I’ll always be grateful to the world she created.) These days, it’s authors like Harley Laroux and Rebecca Yarros who feed my imagination. Whether it’s demons with multiple forms or dragons you can ride into battle, it’s all painting, just… with metaphors and mayhem.
So yes. Authors are artists, too.
Even if we sometimes doubt it.
And oh boy, did I doubt it. When you’ve spent decades mastering one craft, starting over feels like showing up to a fencing match with a spoon. I felt like a toddler in a hallway of locked doors—unsure which to open, unsure if I even belonged there.
[Cue the writer’s block.]
And not the cute kind where you sigh dramatically while holding a coffee mug and staring out a window. No. I’m talking full existential meltdown. I’d sit at my screen, rereading the same chapter 600 times, hoping the words would magically appear if I blinked aggressively enough.
They didn’t.
Artists get it. Sometimes you just have to make something ugly to get going again. So I did. I journaled. I word-vomited my feelings into my notes app. I blogged. And those blog posts—this one included—were the shaky steps that led me back to writing my book.
Now I’m 2,500 words deeper into my manuscript, still haunted by self-doubt gremlins whispering:
“Real writers have done this their whole lives.”
“You’re a craft mom with a decent vocabulary. Calm down.”
“You’re publishing ONE book next to authors who’ve written 170. Sit down.”
But I’m ignoring them. Mostly. Because the stories in my head matter. They’re mine. My art is still art, even if it’s made with a keyboard instead of a paintbrush.
So here I am. An artist. An author. A reluctant blogger. And a woman who accidentally discovered that writing was in her all along… it just took a few broken vertebrae, a demon love interest, some magic, and a couple of dragons to find it.
