Blurring the Lines

Writing Beneath Us (what started as a tongue-in-cheek “reptilian story”) has been an unexpected challenge, one that’s forced me to find balance between fiction and truth.

It began as a joke. A local sinkhole. A few sarcastic updates. Then somewhere along the way, it started taking shape as something deeper, a story about community, survival, and the parts of ourselves that crawl up from the dark when the ground gives way.

But I’ll be honest, breaking into fiction has been tougher than I thought. Nonfiction, for me, has always been natural. It’s real. It’s lived. It comes from places I’ve actually stood. Fiction, on the other hand, asks you to step just far enough away from reality to see it differently. It lets you tell the truth, just not literally.

The tricky part is finding that balance. How do you write a story that’s wild enough to pull readers in, but grounded enough to still feel true? That’s the space I’m trying to live in right now. Somewhere between memory and myth. Between the echoes of what happened, and the imagination of what could.

Maybe that’s why I keep drifting between nonfiction and fiction, it’s not about choosing sides. It’s about exploring both ways of telling the same story.

Because sometimes the best way to tell the truth… is to hide it in plain sight.

"Sometimes fiction isn’t an escape, it’s how we process what’s real."