Dreaming on the Edge of Becoming

Tonight I sit here dreaming.

I finally finished my “memoir”. I don’t even know what else to call it. It’s a small nonfiction book about my post–cardiac arrest life — the four years since death tried to claim me three times. I used that time as a slingshot. As proof. As a fucking declaration that life is meant to be lived, and lived loudly.

This book is me reclaiming my existence from a life built for and by others. It’s me dismantling the cages, brick by brick, and redesigning every piece of my future with ruthless precision. I refuse to leave this world with regrets left on the table.
I fucking refuse.

And now … the draft is done.
Done in the messiest, rawest, most honest way possible.

I decided to self-publish, which means I’m paying out of pocket for professionals — a proofreader (hired), a cover artist (currently hunting), and all the other grown-up author bullshit required to make a book real. Let’s be honest: people absolutely judge books by their covers. They shouldn’t, but they do. So the cover has to hit.

But while I wait for the proofreader and while I hope the artist I want says yes, I find myself dreaming about the life I’m designing in real time.

And I’m realistic — brutally so. This book probably won’t sell much at first. It’ll be a money sink. A labor of love. An expensive signal flare into the night.

And that’s okay.

Because this book is me telling the world that I’m a serious author. That I have a voice. That I came here to say something — and I’m not fucking leaving until I am heard.

I’m excited about all of it. Launching my career. The next books waiting to be written. The wild stubbornness it takes to drag a dream into existence. The momentum I refuse to let slip.

And let me be crystal clear: I finished writing this thing with a broken left radius, a plate and screws holding my wrist together… with pins running through the metatarsals behind three of my left toes… with a chunk of my lower lip gone… with numbness in my chin and under my eye… with a mild TBI… with soft tissue damage across my shoulders… and with pain riding shotgun the entire fucking way.

This book has been clawing its way out of me since my last cardiac arrest. And that ought to mean something. That should catapult me to the top of the “who fucking wants it most” list — whoever keeps that list.

So tonight, I think about the future. About what comes next.

This memoir is the launch pad that will eventually propel The Refusal into the world. This is me dipping my entire left foot — pins and all — into the writing pool and letting the universe know what’s coming.

I’m exploring marketing plans. Promotion strategies. Anything that helps me be taken seriously as the author I already am becoming.

And at the same time, the Keeper Universe keeps tugging at me. I’m excited to get back into those shadows. Rewrite the two short stories. Throw myself into The Refusal and push that beast across the finish line.

These things will happen.
I will promote my book.
I will build my readership.
I will keep showing up to the page like a serious author should.

This — all of it — will happen.

Because I didn’t survive all this shit to play small.