It's what I was made to do.

It's who I am.

In the early years, I had trouble communicating and hardly talked at all. Often times, I felt angry or sad and couldn't understand where the emotions were coming from. I was a nervous child with a lot of anxiety, and never knew where to put these emotions that, I sometimes felt, weren't even mine. The waves of emotions spilling out of me were too big for me to verbally express, and the only way, my little child-self believed, was through writing. Therefore, I went mute and gave writing my voice.

It started off with letters to myself and others, diary entries, a collection of thoughts. Then letters quickly escalated to short stories and poetry and lyrics. By the time I was twelve, I wrote my first full-length novel.

In seventh grade, my English class was assigned to write a short story. When I realized the following day that we had to read it out loud, I'd wished I'd skipped school and remember standing from my desk at the front of the class, clutching my paper so tight it could rip. I didn't look up from it either. Eye contact? You must be joking. But I read it. Every word. In front of everyone. I remember my voice shaking and my heart hammering— you know how that goes. But when I was done, it got quiet. I looked up from my paper and my teacher was crying. When I looked around the room, almost half of my class had tears in their eyes.

I did that. I made others feel what I had felt, and it never made me feel so less alone. 

My love for reading came after my love of storytelling. Mysteries and thrillers were always what my hands were reaching for; masterfully woven plots and hidden clues hidden within the paragraphs. Or books with intense emotion, lay everything bare, and descriptions of setting and moods symbolizing what the characters feel. In high school, I consumed it all like the pages were delicious yet forbidden alcohol. It was my addiction. It wasn't always about getting lost for me, but the storytelling from incredible writers that was truly inspiring. I was amazed by the art of it all.

Then I fell in love with a boy and had two kids. I dedicated all my time to the first ten years of their lives to making sure they had all the tools they needed to figure out who they were and who they wanted to be while, slowly and without knowing, letting go of myself. I worked for other people's dreams because I felt as though I had to and lost a sense of my own identity in the process. There was no balance. My kids were my entire life.

In 2018 I was involved in a hit and run automobile accident and was bed-ridden for six months. Not only had I lost a sense of myself, but I fell into depression while suffering from chronic pain from the accident. I was at my rock bottom and took to writing, as always, but this time I didn't stop to breathe.

I never planned on Stay with Me. All I wanted to do was write a story about a cast of characters that each represented a side of myself, drop them into a fictional hell (a reformatory school), and make a love story out of it. I wanted to fall in love with me again. 

Writing was never something I thought I could make a career out of. It was just who I was and what I was made to do. Though, if there was a way to make something good of it, leave a footprint in this world, leave it better than how I was born into it, to possibly touch at least one person with my words, it was worth every trial.

Since my kids were older by this time, it was a better time than any to share my words with the world. I published Stay with Me on August 3rd, 2019, and the reaction from the readers was something I never expected. To this day, four years later, I am still reminded how this story saved others. It's all that matters and I'll always be grateful to those who take a chance on my books..

Since Stay with Me, I've published 4 more full length books and two novelettes. From dark romance to urban fantasy. From the 1500s to the world we live in today. From a fictional hidden town off Maine's coast to Los Angeles. I don't stick with a brand or follow rules. I'm a writer. I just want to write. And I want to write everything. 

It's what I was made to do.

It's who I am.