Here's Chapter 4, where we peek behind the curtain at my creative process — the soft rituals, the chaos gremlins, the playlists, the plot holes, and the sheer willpower that somehow turns blank pages into stories that feel. This chapter keeps my personal tone but adds a more candid, funny, and real perspective on how you create.

"My writing process? Imagine a beautiful cottagecore aesthetic. Now light it on fire."

There are writers who outline meticulously.
Writers with corkboards, color-coded notes, and stable word counts.
And then... there's me.

My process is part ritual, part emotional gamble, and part, "Let's see what happens if I just write this one unhinged line and spiral from there."
Spoiler: It works. Sometimes.

So if you're expecting a calm, collected system — I love that for you.
But this chapter? This is for the chaos.

✦ Where It Starts: The Spark

Sometimes it's a line.
Sometimes it's a feeling.
Sometimes it's a song lyric or a scene from a dream or a random "what if" I think of while brushing my teeth.

Example:

"What if someone fell in love with the wrong version of you, and you couldn't fix it?"
And suddenly I'm writing a 7,000-word oneshot at 3AM with no outline and 4 emotional breakdowns.

✦ The Ritual (That I Pretend Is Productive)

☕ Step 1: Romanticize the writing setup. Candles. Laptop. Music. Dramatic sigh.
📂 Step 2: Open the doc. Scroll. Scroll. Cry.
🎧 Step 3: Open a playlist and let a single lyric ruin me.
⏳ Step 4: Write one line. Then another.
🚨 Step 5: Rewrite both because they're too dramatic and I'm "not writing a fanfic from 2013."
🎢 Step 6: Write 2,000 words in a dissociative fog.
🫠 Step 7: Lay on the floor. Think about how fiction hurts in the best way.

✦ When I Get Stuck (aka Often)

I switch POVs. Sometimes I find the story from the other side.

I write what would happen if the character said what they're trying not to say.

I write the ending first, then work backwards.

I throw a hypothetical grenade in the scene: "What if someone walks out? What if someone kisses someone they shouldn't?"

And sometimes?
I walk away.
Not everything writes itself on the first try — or even the fifth.

✦ The Chaos Files (a.k.a. Writing Habits I Refuse to Apologize For)

Writing dialogue first, then building scenes around it like scaffolding.

Using [—] and [INSERT SOMETHING HEARTBREAKING HERE] as placeholders.

Naming every WIP after a Taylor Swift lyric until further notice.

Plotting romances based entirely on eye contact + emotional damage.

Leaving myself notes like "FIX THIS OR CRY" in bold red font.

✎ Things I Tell Myself When I Want to Quit:

"It doesn't have to be good. It just has to be honest."
"First drafts are allowed to be a disaster."
"Someone out there will love this like it saved them."
"You've done this before. You'll do it again."

📋 The 3 Writing Modes I Bounce Between:
Mood                                                                                 Me IRL
✨ Romantic writer                                 

Soft music, tea and I am one with the words.                       

🌀 Chaos goblin

14 tabs open. Crying.  "WHY IS HE SO EMOTIONALLY CONSTIPATED?"

🧊 Cold editor                                       

"Cut that. Cut that. Cut THAT Oh wow, you thought that line was deep? Delete it."

I rotate through these like outfits. Sometimes in the same hour.

Writing is the only thing that makes me feel both completely in control and completely out of it at the same time. It's the only kind of chaos I've ever felt at peace in.

I don't have a system. I have instincts.
And a little voice in the back of my head that keeps whispering, "Tell this one."

So I do.

Up next? The things and people that inspire me — books, films, music, quotes, and emotional support fictional characters who walked so my own could run 🖤✨