Mom Mode After the Holidays: Resetting the House & the Nervous System

Hey hey everyone! It's Sunday, a day of rest and reset. A day for reflection if you will. But not for me and unfortunately not in this house. See after the holidays and a break from school, the house always tells on us. Items are everywhere, dishes are never ending, and our homes look like battle zones we barely survived. 

Extra noise, Extra mess, Extra stuff that doesn’t quite belong anywhere at the moment. The routines are off, the sleep is weird, and everyone’s nervous system feels like it’s been run through a blender along with our sanity. Everyone seems a little short tempered, no one really wants to do anything, and yet the mess grows unprompted. 

So before I reset the house, I reset myself. No amount of organizing works if everyone is still dysregulated from the almost two-ish weeks of chaos. And let's face a blinding fact here… If you have children still in your home that you can’t send outside, running behind you playing wrecking ball to everything you just managed to get clean… you're going to be pulling your damn hair out.

For me, the post-holiday reset isn’t about deep cleaning or reinventing systems. It’s about reducing stimulation. Fewer decisions. Fewer piles. Fewer expectations stacked on top of already-tired people. And let's not forget containment. Because as long as the mess is contained to that one room (or at least the rooms the mess belongs to) it's a whole lot easier to deal with it.

Tomorrow, once the gremlin is on the bus and I have sat in the silence that is the regaining of my salinity, I will start small. Trash out. Dishes caught up. One surface cleared at a time. Not because the house needs to look perfect—but because visual calm helps bodies settle. Then I reset the rhythms.

Bedtimes inch back into place. Meals get simpler. We go back to what works instead of what looks good online. Because let's face it, what people try to sell us online is probably hours of cleaning packaged into a 60 second video. Predictability is grounding, especially for kids—and especially after weeks of disruption. 

I’m also lowering the bar for myself. Not to be lazy, but to keep a larger chunk of my salinity in place every day. With all the goals that I have set out for myself in 2026, timing is what’s going to keep me on track with a full head of steem. No jumping in guns blazing and then crying in the shower in a week or three when shit doesn’t start to pan out. No. No. HELL NO. Life is one thing at a time.

This isn’t the week for ambitious goals or elaborate plans. It’s a week for nervous system repair. For noticing who’s overwhelmed. For choosing connection over productivity when possible. And setting the foundation. Because we all know a weak foundation will have a house crumbling into the yard before you can say don’t do it. Writing, housework, and just general life is no different.

A regulated parent sets the tone, even when things aren’t ideal. So, I will be taking breaks when I need them, stepping outside, and breathing. I will remind myself that recovery isn’t laziness—it’s maintenance. And if I don’t put my mask on first, I can’t help those around me. (Which will be the hardest lesson of all.)

The house will reset in layers and so will we. What matters most isn’t how fast everything gets back to normal—it’s how we get there. And for a lot of us that’s basically out here doing it on our own, I see you. You’re doing an amazing job whether you know it or not. Shits hard sometimes, but we have to keep our feet moving. 

So, what’s your first call to action once the littles are back to school this season? What are some of your goals going into this week? Have you checked on your laundry? Leave me a comment below and lets talk about it.

Be Brave, Be Bold, But Always Stay Humble.

What Writing Gives Me When Therapy Isn’t Enough.

Happy Saturday! I hope everyone is well. That you’re starting the year off slow, and with purpose. Me, well I’m hanging in there the best I can right now. Working out some new things and hoping something sticks. That’s the best we can do right? 

Today, we are going to just jump right in on something I find extremely serious. Mental Health…. Something that we all battle on a day to day basis. Whether that is personal or with those around us, we all have someone in our lives that has hidden battles they are fighting.

Fast Facts

More than 1 in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness each year

More than 1 in 20 U.S. adults experience serious mental illness crisis each year

More than 1 in 7 U.S. youth ages 6-17 experience a mental health disorder each year

50% of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14, and 75% by age 24

Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death among people ages 10-24

Only 42.1% of Males and 59.2% of Females seek treatment

79% of people who die by suicide in the U.S. are male

The suicide rate is nearly 4x higher among males than females in the U.S.

Transgender adults are nearly 9x more likely to attempt suicide at some point in their lifetime compared to the general population

*Statics are based off assigned gender at birth* 

https://www.nami.org/about-mental-illness/mental-health-by-the-numbers/

So, you're probably asking yourself, “What does this mean for me?” Well, it means you're not alone. None of us really are. We might not all come from the same background, creed, color, or region of the world. But we all have something very basic in common…. We are all human. We all feel, bleed, and love. 

Therapy can help… I want to say that up front. It gives you language, perspective, and tools. It helps untangle things that you might not be able to name on my own. It teaches how to pause instead of react, how to notice patterns instead of drowning in them.

But sometimes, it isn’t enough. And that's okay too.

In the spirit of honesty and transparency, I personally haven’t gone since I was ordered to do so. I was in elementary school when I started seeing a counselor. They said I had anger issues… what no one dared to ask was why I had those issues. What made me lash out. That’s when I was 6 and started writing. So began the budding author.

After that, it was an on and off thing when it came to therapy. Something would happen at school and land me in front of a professional for 6 to 8 weeks. When it was over, I had more interesting terms for my character. 

It wasn’t until I was pregnant with the gremlin that I was kind of going to therapy. My mom suckered me into a few family sessions under the guise of “it will be good to deal with things before my child was born”. I wouldn’t say it worked for me but it gave me ways of dealing with taking care of both mom and my son.

And even with mom’s passing, June 16th 2024, I haven’t sought out therapy. Not because it won’t work, but because some things don’t want to be processed. They want to be expressed. They want somewhere to go that isn’t linear, polite, or solution-oriented. They want to RAGE. 

That’s where writing steps in. It’s the safest way of processing without actually laying my hands on another person. I can’t say my characters have not been the victims of my wrath. Or had to play out situations that I have personally been through. Their outcome came out a little better than mine did by the end of the story. 

But in the end writing gives me a place where I don’t have to explain the context before debating how much truth comes out. Where I can contradict myself, circle the same wound, say the wrong thing first. It lets me lay everything out without being asked “what I’m going to do about it”, “how did that make you feel”, or my personal favorite “Did you pray about it?”

On the page, nothing needs to be fixed immediately if at all…. Hell in the end it all becomes character development, or plot twists.

Writing doesn’t rush me toward healing. It lets me sit inside the mess long enough to understand its shape. It holds the anger, the grief, the numbness—without trying to smooth it into something inspirational. Because in the end PAIN should never be used that way. If it inspires you to do something different, that's one thing. If you can use it later down the line as a cautionary tale, even better. But this isn’t a “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” 

There are thoughts I can only reach when I’m not being witnessed in real time. Emotions that show up sideways, through metaphor and rhythm and fragments. Writing gives those parts permission to exist without judgment. 

It also gives me distance. An outside looking in perspective. Because sometimes it's looking at it from all the different angles that helps us learn how to handle it differently. Sometimes that’s all we need. 

When something lives on the page, it no longer lives rent free in my head. I can look at it. Shape it. Decide what stays and what gets revised. That control—small as it is—matters when the world feels unmanageable. And worse case, you can always set fire to it and cast it out. It no longer serves you. And now it doesn’t serve anyone cause it doesn’t exist any longer.

Therapy helps most survive the darkness, writing is what helps me. Both have their place. Both are necessary. But when the talking stalls, when insight doesn’t bring relief, when coping tools feel blunt—writing is where I go to remember myself.

I’m in no way an expert on any of this, but I am one of the many that has suffered through trauma in spades, abuse of all kinds, and now stands here a little wiser, a whole lot crazier, and a wholeheartedly unapologetically me. 

So, I want you to do one thing for me as we navigate another season of uncertainty. Breathe. Just fucking Breathe. Then pick up a notebook, scrap of paper, hell a napkin if you can make it work, and give me three reasons why you need to stay. Cause I can give you one right off the bat. The World Will Not Be The Same Without You In IT. Now your turn. And every time the world gets loud or your brain tells you shit that isn’t true. Do it again.

When words fail you out loud, where do you go instead? What gives you release when talking it through isn’t enough? Tell me in the comments—or keep it close and write it out for yourself. Remember there are resources out there that can help. 

Be Brave, Be Bold, But Always Stay Humble

Surviving The Beginning of January, Without Burning Everything Down.

Happy 2nd day of 2026, or as we like to call it Friday… How's everyone holding up? Are you still feeling the effects of that hangover? Wondering if everything you did yesterday will give you a brighter year? Or maybe you're sitting at your computer preparing a battle plan, because if the last 5 to 6 years has taught us anything; You prepare for everything (leave nothing to chance). 

Maybe yesterday you did the whole Resolutions list…  You now have 6 to 10 things you want to happen in the next 363 days. All well in good, but what are you going to do to actively make that happen? Words without action is just screaming into the void. And I don’t want anyone out here screaming, pulling their hair out, or saying the dreaded “I couldn’t do it”…. Babe, you can do whatever the hell you set your mind too… But you are going to have to be realistic about a LOT of things. 

See January has a reputation it didn’t really earn and some things that it did. It’s the month where expectations spike and energy doesn’t. Where everyone is suddenly sprinting toward “better” while still exhausted from surviving. Where the pressure to optimize your life shows up before you’ve even caught your breath.

If January makes you want to burn everything down and start over, you’re not broken. You’re human. We have been fed this line of bullshit since we were old enough to know what the hell it is. Society, sitting back wanting us all to fit into this little box, but we were never meant to. They want us to be smaller, quieter, and less opinionated. Not in this rodeo. 

For me, survival in January doesn’t look like transformation. It looks like restraint balled up in frustration, tied off with “don’t make rash decisions”. You know it's choosing not to make permanent decisions in temporary exhaustion. (Which hasn’t felt temporary in the last year and a half.) Not rewriting my entire life because the calendar flipped. Not mistaking restlessness for failure or quiet for stagnation. Because what a lot of us forget, you need quiet to find your center, and restlessness to forward the plot.

January is literally a holding pattern month. A stabilization month. A “don’t make it worse” month, but it does set the tone for the year. That means we need to focus on fewer big promises and more realistic ones. Keeping routines simple. Letting some things stay messy without interpreting that as moral failure. Remembering that momentum doesn’t always announce itself loudly—it often shows up as consistency you almost overlook.

I remind myself that burnout doesn’t disappear just because the year is new. Healing doesn’t accelerate on command, pressure disguised as motivation is still pressure, and no matter what anyone else wants you to do… you can make it a FUCK NO. 

So instead of lighting matches, I try to focus on tending the small fires left over from the year before. Giving myself enough structure to feel grounded, enough flexibility to breathe, and enough honesty to admit when I’m tired instead of pretending I’m inspired.

January doesn’t need to be conquered. It needs to be endured with intention. Survival is not a setback. It’s the foundation everything else gets built on. It’s also the reminder that we are stronger than we give ourselves credit for. Because at the end of the day we stand up, take care of our families, and we take-ith no Shit. We don’t need to come in with guns blazing. We need to tiptoe like its quickstand. 

So, what’s helping you survive January without self-destructing? What are you giving yourself permission not to fix right now? Tell me in the comments, I want to hear how We’re gunna get through this together.

The Plot Holes I’m Choosing Not to Fix Yet

Happy 2026, everyone. Hoping everyone had a great New Years Eve, and stayed out of trouble. I spent mine much like others. I hung out with my friends, had a drink to toast in the new year, and as the ball dropped in the various time zones we wished the other a Happy and Bright New Year. Now mind I never left my house to do any of this. I hung out in my discord group with the people I see practically everyday. I poured a Crown Apple and Fuji Apple & Ginger Red Bull. We all had our music playing and projects rolling. 

Since we are all over the world, it made it a little interesting. Bitzer, our resident Aussie, Was already well into 2026 before I jumped in last night. Leon, resident Frenchman, had just seen 2026 two hours prior. While those of us in the US or Canada had about a 3 to 5 hour wait. This at one point in the evening had me sitting in awe. One because the concept “if you build it they will come”.... The Hold My Pen Promptcast was a half baked idea, I was told would never work. That happened to be two years ago, and it worked out a hell of a lot better than any of us dared to imagine. (Anniversary Show ON Saturday) And I pray it gets bigger and better every year.

The Second reason, we are all from different walks of life, different skill sets, hell different parts of the world. Yet we treat each other with kindness, respect, and dare I say like a giant family. All coming together at first for a common goal… Writing. Staying because we are a community that has the others back no matter how far apart we all may be. It's a glorious feeling.

Which allows me the ability to say this without judgment from anyone other than myself at this point: There are plot holes in my work right now. 

I know where they are. I know why they exist. I could probably fix a few of them if I sat still long enough and stopped pretending they don’t exist. But I’m not going to fix them yet, and that’s intentional.

Some plot holes aren’t problems. They’re placeholders. They’re the story telling that hasn’t finished revealing itself yet. Every time I’ve forced on an answer too early, I’ve paid for it later with rewrites, retcons, and characters who suddenly felt hollow or situations that fell short.

So I’m letting a few things stay unresolved. At least for a little while. 

There are motivations that don’t fully line up yet, and let's face facts forcing ideas doesn’t work out the way we all plan. Timelines that almost make sense, but later cause a headache especially if this one story becomes part of a bigger plot. Characters who know something I don’t, at least not consciously. That doesn’t mean the story is broken. It means it’s still breathing life onto the page.

See writers don’t talk enough about this part: the middle phase where everything looks wrong, feels fragile, and tempts you to either overcorrect or abandon the ship entirely. That’s usually when panic editing happens. That’s when people sand down edges that were never meant to be smooth, and things start to go haywire faster than you can put the brakes on.

I’m learning to pause. To really listen to my characters and the advice of those that have been in the game longer than me. It's not an easy task by any means but it's something I have to learn how to adapt to. I have to keep moving forward without demanding perfection from unfinished work. I have to trust that clarity comes from momentum, and not interrogation. Most of my “plot holes” eventually turn out to be doors or windows, I just hadn’t reached yet.

This isn’t avoidance. It’s patience. Something I am terrible at. If I have an idea in my head I’m all in on lets get this done down now. While 60ish percent of the time it works out for me, that 40 kicks me straight in the ass. Most things require planning, understanding, and a means to get/keep it together. Not running in guns blazing, and being pissed when shit falls apart.

Fixing things too early is just another way of trying to control uncertainty. And stories, like people and situations, don’t respond well to being cornered or trying to shove them into a little box.

So for now, I’m letting the gaps exist. I’m writing past them, around them, and sometimes straight through them. When the story is ready, I’ll know what needs fixing and what was never broken in the first place. The most important part is just getting it out on paper. You can’t fix or edit what doesn't exist. Once it’s done then breathe and start from the top…. If it still doesn’t make any sense do what others do… get a second opinion.

What are you leaving unfinished on purpose right now in your writing, your work, or your life? What are you trusting time to reveal instead of forcing an answer? What are you hoping to get done over the next year? Tell me in the comments.

Be Brave, Be Bold, But ALWAYS Stay Humble

I’m Not Reinventing Myself—Here’s What I’m Carrying Forward

Hey everyone! I know it’s been a hot minute since you have seen a post from me. First of all I would like to point out, as I always do, Burn out is fucking real and neglecting the signs is the quickest one way track to laying on your couch doom scrolling the day away. While also trying to convince yourself you will get up in a few minutes to handle that task that is now glaring at you. 

Now, couple that with the plague hitting my house like a 747 and you have a small glimpse into what I have been dealing with for the last two-ish months. I got sick about two weeks before Thanksgiving and stayed sick till just after. Gremlin got sick on the first day of Christmas Break and is just recently back up to par. Thankfully the other half hasn’t caught more than a cough that was quickly handled.

And that’s life at this grand moment in time. Fighting off sickness, while also trying to get work done, is enough to make you want to scream. Also with the Gremlin off school, let's just say no parent is getting anything done right now. If you are out there with littles, special needs, or teens that think the cleaning fairy will get it, my hats off to y’all. We are all in the same fucking boat right now. 

Which leads me into the whole topic of this post. Every year around this time, the internet gets loud about reinvention. All about New year, new you. Burn it all down. Become unrecognizable. 

That’s never been how my life worked. Hell the best I ever got into doing anything like that was picking a new hair color, maybe trying a new style, but never reinventing myself. Because here is the kicker, I’m unapologetically ME. I don’t need a new personality, a new spine, or a clean slate. I’ve earned what I carry, and I’m done pretending survival skills are flaws that need polishing away. Because when push comes to shove, it has been my skills, in various areas, that have been sought after from my friends. From cooking to automotive, I have walked them through the steps from hundreds if not thousands of miles away. 

What I and so many others need to be doing is choosing what comes with us into the new year. Think on that for one moment please. You don’t like your job? Figure out how to get into something that will fulfill you, while also keeping a roof over your head. (VERY IMPORTANT) You don’t like the company you keep? Maybe it's time to thin the herd a little. You recognize the person you see in the mirror? Honey, it's time for you to have a hard conversation with yourself. And this is just a few really great examples that I see everyday being thrown out there.

I am personally carrying forward the parts of me that learned how to function under pressure. Not that I haven’t been a master pro at that since I was like 8, but I’ve learned how to do it with a little bit more grace for myself. I’m taking the version of me that can build something out of scraps, keep moving when plans collapse, and tell the truth even when it’s uncomfortable to do so. 

I’m carrying forward the creativity that shows up messy and late but always honest. The instinct to write through confusion instead of waiting for clarity. The refusal to package pain into something pretty just to make it palatable for others. Because at the end of the day that pain turned into a warning tale that so many others read. 

I’m carrying forward boundaries that don’t require explanations, because at the end of the day when I say “hey that’s not gunna fly” Bet your boots its not going to. My private life is private unless I wish to share it. And when I say life be life-in, understand it's not that I don’t want to but I need to step back, because if I don’t no one is going to be happy with anything I do… Most of all, me. Love, creativity, and friendship doesn’t need an audience to be real.

What I’m not carrying forward is the expectation to perform growth for anyone else. The pressure to smooth my edges for approval. The belief that healing means becoming quieter, softer, or easier to digest. Because we all know that just isn’t who I am. Not as a person, mom, wife, writer, author, Co-Host or friend, I’m the same way online as you meet at any one of these conventions. I refuse to be anything other than who I am.

Growth, for me, in the new year looks like discernment. Choosing where my energy goes, and most importantly who/what it goes on. Because we are all out here begging for scraps (whether that be attention, time, or affection) from people who wouldn’t throw a glass of water on us if we were on fire, wouldn’t give food if we were hungry, or let us crash on their couches if we had no where else to go. 

This is where the line gets drawn in the concrete not the sand. The tide will come in and take away that line on the sand, not the concrete. We all have to stand like statues in our peace, our convictions if you will, if we are to see any real change and stop circling the drain.

This space exists because I’ve been done with shrinking my voice to fit algorithms, timelines, or trends. I’m here to write honestly, live intentionally, and let the work speak for itself. No reinvention. Just continuation—with purpose.

So as we step from one dumpster fire into another (lets just set the expectation now), Are we team New Year New ME, or are we team leave what isn’t working and keep moving forward? Because the 2nd seems like a whole ass better option. So I pose this question for you my dear reader: What are you leaving behind and what are you carrying forward with you?

 Tell me in the comments. I’m always here listening. And BTW if you don’t have anything going on Saturday nights, Come watch me and my crew. Links Below! Hope to See you there!

Be Brave, Be Bold, But ALWAYS Stay Humble.

https://www.twitch.tv/holdmypenpromptcast

www.youtube.com/@HoldMyPenPromptcast

Plot Twists and Laundry: Which Will Claim My Sanity First?

Hey Peps. Bet you were wondering where I have been. Well…. I hit burn out at the speed of light, crashing head first into the brick wall of life at the speed of sound. Factor in the day to day writing, lack of sales and stress… You have a recipe for disaster.  So, the only thing I could do for the last little bit is take two giant ass steps back.

While I was gone though, I did start working on a new book. Well, not new new it was something that I had been dabbling with since the summer but really hunkered down working on. Cuts and Cufflinks, a biker billionaire romance. Here’s the fun part… She’s the biker. With any real luck it will be out in time for Indie in Indy next Aug. 

Now for the burning questions that seem to be raging through my fans minds… When is the next book in the 4 Queens for 4 Kings series going to be coming out… well there is no real answer for that one. I will finish the stories. I have not abandoned the Queens. Its just hard for me to look at them right now. The people that the queens were based off of either have moved on in more ways than one or no longer want to be part of the project. This leaves me with a sinking sorrow. 

See, there’s a special kind of madness that happens when your creative life and your real life collide. One minute, you’re knee-deep in a scene where your characters are arguing over who gets the last word—and the next, you’re elbow-deep in a pile of laundry that smells like someone fought a war in it. Both situations require strategy, emotional stamina, and possibly caffeine in IV form.

I’ve decided that writing and laundry are basically the same battle in different outfits. Both pile up when you’re not looking. Both demand attention right when you’ve found your flow. And both can make you question every life choice that brought you here. The Never-Ending Spin Cycle

Writing is just another spin cycle, isn’t it? You think you’re done with revisions, but then one character whispers, “Actually, I think I’d rather stab someone in this scene.” Suddenly, you’re replotting three chapters and questioning whether you’ve accidentally written a thriller instead of a romance. Meanwhile, your dryer beeps—again—and you realize you’ve washed the same load three times because you keep forgetting to switch it over.

At this point, I’m convinced the dryer and my manuscript are in cahoots. Every time I think I’ve made progress, they both reset themselves out of spite.

The Great Character vs. Sock Conspiracy

I’ve lost track of how many socks have disappeared and how many characters have refused to follow the damn outline. Coincidence? I think not. Somewhere in the universe, there’s a parallel dimension filled with my lost socks, abandoned storylines, and plot bunnies reproducing faster than I can keep up.

The real villain in every story I write might just be the chaos of my own making. And honestly, that feels fair.

The Writer’s Juggle

Between deadlines, day jobs, parenting, and trying to keep the house from looking like a crime scene, it’s easy to feel like I’m barely keeping my head above water. My brain doesn’t know when to shut off, so while I’m folding towels, I’m also mentally rewriting dialogue. By the time I’ve finished the towels, I’ve forgotten the line entirely. Genius ideas apparently have a five-minute expiration date.

But the truth is, that juggling act—the chaos, the mess, the unglamorous day-to-day grind—is what fuels the stories. Every meltdown, every overloaded laundry basket, every sleepless night trying to untangle both real and fictional problems gives the words their weight.

Finding Sanity in the Madness

I used to think that to be productive, everything had to be perfect first. The house. The mood. The energy. The mythical balance that doesn’t actually exist. Now, I know better. The mess is part of it. The chaos is the process.

Some days, the words win. Some days, the laundry does.

And some days, I’m just grateful to survive both without crying into the hamper or keyboard.

So if you’re out there, staring down a blank page or a mountain of laundry—or both—just know this: you’re not alone in the spin cycle. Keep writing. Keep moving. Keep laughing when the dryer eats another sock. Because one day, you’ll look up from the chaos and realize you’ve created something beautiful out of the mess.

Even if it’s just a story and a single matching pair of socks.

Be Brave, Be Bold, But Always Stay Humble

Sleep Deprivation and Storytelling: The Ugly Truth

    Buckle up buttercup, this is gunna be a long one.

    There’s this romanticized idea that writers thrive on chaos. You’ve seen it in movies, in memes, in the way people joke about surviving on nothing but caffeine, nicotine, cold pizza, and “the muse”, that has jokes. We laugh at all the misconceptions of what a writer/ author physically looks like. Why? Because it's funny, and unfortunately, there is a small or large grain of truth to it. But there’s a darker side to it that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough. Sleep deprivation isn’t just some quirky “writer's life” tag line. It’s brutal. It’s ugly. And sometimes, it’s dangerous.

I’m not talking about the occasional late night where you’re in the zone and lose track of time. Or when you wake in the middle of the night needing to write something down, before you lose it. Then BAM, it's 6:15am and it’s time to get the kids up and ready for school. 

 I’m talking about days on end of being barely able to function because your brain refuses to shut down. Life, kicking you in ass after said late night, and now, you don’t get the chance to rest because you have other shit that needs your attention. 

For me, it’s usually a mix of both. Parenting, deadlines, and emotional overload collide until I’m staring at the ceiling at 3am, counting down the hours until I have to get up and do it all over again. A tightness in my chest is growing, because I think I’m letting everyone down. Then my mind shifts so hard into fifth gear you’d swear you heard the gears grind.

And let me tell you, writing through that kind of fog isn’t glamorous. It’s a war. War with fictional characters that scream loud enough to crack pains of glass. War with the setting because if I do it this way or that way it might not be believable. War with myself over the imposter syndrome, that seems to creep in just as shits going down. 

When I sit down at the keyboard after three hours of broken sleep, the words come out differently. Sometimes they flow too fast, like a dam cracked open and everything I’ve been holding back pours onto the page, unfiltered and raw. Other times, it’s like pulling teeth without novocaine. Slow, Painful, and Jagged while you're screaming and crying. 

The strange thing about writing while sleep-deprived is that the voice in your head doesn’t shut up, but your ability to catch it and shape it into something coherent falters. You end up with pieces of brilliance tangled in nonsense. Whole paragraphs where you go back the next day and think: Wow. That’s either the most honest thing I’ve ever written or complete garbage. Possibly both.

That’s the ugly truth: sleep deprivation doesn’t just affect your body; it twists your storytelling. And sometimes, the work you produce in those dark hours can’t be replicated in the light of day. Which becomes frustrating, if you finally found the voice for that one damn character that doesn’t seem to sound right at any other time.  

Now, let's talk about how the human husk starts keeping score.

Sleep deprivation doesn’t just make you cranky. It wrecks your body. The headaches, the short fuse, the endless coffee jitters that do nothing but dig you into a deeper hole. All of it adds up. And as much as I love being “the strong one,” I’ve had to learn (the hard way) that my body always cashes the checks my sleepless nights write. Which constantly leaves me owing spoons and/or fucks to give.

For me, it’s the shakes in my hands when I type too long. The pain in my wrists that seem to go up my arm from trying to keep my hands on home row. The crash that hits out of nowhere when I finally sit down after a day of sprinting from one task to the next. My patience with the people I love wears razor thin, and that guilt lingers far longer than the exhaustion itself. Sleep deprivation makes me feel like I’m failing twice. Once in the moment, and again when I see the fallout.

Storytelling on Empty isn’t something we talk about but we have all experienced it one way or another.

Here’s the catch: sleep deprivation doesn’t stop me from doing my job as a writer or parent. In fact, sometimes it fuels it. The ugly truth is that some of my rawest, most gut-punching scenes have come from nights when I was too tired to put up my usual walls. Exhaustion strips away the polish. It drags your subconscious into the spotlight and says: Okay, you’re too tired to censor this. Let’s go. 

That’s when characters reveal truths I wasn’t planning on. That’s when villains start sounding like people I know in real life. That’s when the plot twists cut a little deeper because they’re born from a place I wouldn’t touch if I had my full defenses up. But there’s a cost.

Every time I write on empty, I’m borrowing against tomorrow and all the other tomorrows. And eventually, tomorrow shows up wanting interest, a formal apology, and dinner. 

The Balance I Haven’t Mastered, so don’t feel bad if you haven’t either. After all, we are being honest here. 

I wish I could wrap this post up with some tidy advice like: Go to bed earlier! or Make sleep part of your self-care routine! But that wouldn’t be honest. The truth is, I haven’t mastered this balance. I probably never will as long as my “Office” is less than 10 steps from my bed. Because in my life there is no work like balance, there is only “Get up and do the damn thing” no matter what the “damn thing” happens to be. 

I write because I want and need to. I parent because I love my Gremlin more than anything. I push through the exhaustion because life doesn’t stop just because I’m tired, or had a bad day. And if I wait for the “perfect” rested moment to write, I might never write at all. Let’s face facts “perfection” is highly over rated. The mess and chaos are what make life worth living, when your body is screaming “you’ve lost your damn mind”.

So, I make peace with the ugly truth: some nights will bleed into mornings, and some mornings will start with Red Bull in hand, a cigarette hanging out of my mouth, and a messy bun from the day before instead of the put together MOM. My words will sometimes come out jagged, sometimes brilliant, sometimes both. That’s part of the deal I’ve struck with myself as both a writer and a human being surviving not only on but also with the chaos.

Why Do I Keep Going?

At the end of the day (or night), the stories matter. My son matters. My survival matters. And if the cost of telling the truth — in my life, in my fiction, in my blog posts — is a few more sleepless nights, then I’ll pay it. Because when push comes to shove, I know I have a gift. I have the ability to make others see, feel and experience something. And what kind of person would I be if I kept that to myself. Selfish that’s what I’d be.

But I’ll also admit, here in the raw light of honesty, that I’m tired. I’m bone-deep tired. And I know some of you reading this are too.

So maybe the only real advice I can offer is this: give yourself grace. If you’re writing through exhaustion, if you’re stumbling through the day, if you’re holding it all together with caffeine and stubbornness, and the will to not end up on an episode of SNAPPED, you’re not alone. The stories will come. They always do. The house will eventually get cleaned. It always does. The kids will be fed. Even in the ugly truth of sleep deprivation, everything finds a way.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s where the most real storytelling happens. Drop some comments about your struggle bus moments.

REMEMBER:

Be Brave, Be Bold, But Always Stay Humble.