Night Owls.

This will be a sweet and short one, but…

I have a confession.

At fifteen years old I started posting on Wattpad. Within a few years, I had indie publishers and online writing platforms coming in my inbox asking that I publish it. I even had an agent from Harper Collins reach out, but at that point I had signed with an indie publisher. It was a seriously remarkable time in my life.

And what did I do? I said no. To all of them.

Including the one I signed with. I pulled out.

Oh but Nicole, why did you throw away those opportunities? You could’ve been a published author by now.

Oh, Nicole. You should’ve just taken them.

Soooo many writers wished they had what you had.

What do you mean she don’t eat no MEAT?

I’ve heard it all before. I was actually ashamed when I told my closest friends and family at the time—and that one dude who I had a situationship with before I even knew what a situationship was. He was the most livid one of all. Truth is, I think I unconsciously carry this guilt with me. No one smart enough would throw away opportunities like that… at least, that’s what I told myself.

I only very recently started to give myself back some grace.

I was a teenager, and no one knew what the hell I was getting myself into, least of all me. I was a scared little fish with too many fears. No one was guiding me, I had no one to talk to about this. I didn’t know if I was going to get in trouble. I couldn’t read contracts properly. I wasn’t sure if I was throwing away the chance to get it traditionally published. I was alone.

So I started giving out excuses like pamphlets. My major one? It’s not ready. It’s not perfect. It’s not “tradition publishing” worthy.

No. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t worthy. (Anyone relate?)

The irony?

That book on Wattpad is so loved. So goddamned loved. Till this day, I still receive votes and comments. And here I am, over 10 years later, stressing about it.

This is a fix only I can mend (and no, I’m not talking about my writing). It’s my self concept.

I don’t think I’ve ever truly been honest with myself about this, but I’m really fucking scared about being successful, because I doubt that I can handle it. All my best works, my best versions of self are either hidden or given away freely to others. I see great potential in other writers, business owners, vendors—anyone with a creative dream or business. I advocate for others.

So why not myself?

Well, that limiting belief stops after this article.

(I’m treating this as a diary entry meant to stay hidden in the dusty archives where no one will ever find it [ha!]).

Because from now on, I’m going to choose to no longer live by these fears anymore. If I need to be brazen about it, I will do it. I will tell myself, “this is good enough”. Each chapter, each post, each article—it is GOOD ENOUGH.

And I will take you along with me. Because if I’m deciding I’m worthy as hell, then so are you.

(Unless you are already think you’re worthy. In that case, hi, please feel free to post about it. Leave tips. That would be much appreciated.)

Stay chaotic.

NSK xx

If you’re anything like me, inspiration and the motivation to do the work happens after the sun goes down and you’re doing the math on how much sleep you can get before you need to wake up for the next day.

I hear it activates the dopamine. Which makes sense for me, considering I tend to be motivated when deadlines are approaching in the week and I have only saved the title with a fancy font that I’ve spent thirty minutes picking.

Well, for the last couple of nights, I’ve been writing my Contemporary Romance novel and made some drastic changes that actually make sense for the very first time since I’ve taken on this project, and will make a millionaire one day.

And I wanna talk about it.

Having fun with titles

She’s beauty. She’s grace. She’s a little on the cliche side but the substance is exquisite and I will not be changing my mind on it anymore.

Whenever I begin writing a project—whether that’s a series, a standalone, or journal entry that will have no business being public—I always have a title ready.

Why? Because creating titles is fun, creative, and it makes me think about what the story is going to be. No matter what story idea I have in mind, if there is no title, I find it difficult to pursue it. It’s how I wrote my story on Wattpad—and my other WIP’s.

So, I re-titled (again) my Dorm Room 210 book as Sunshine.

Okay. So, why Sunshine?

In my earlier drafts, the main character Noah gave the protagonist Lillian the nickname Sunshine because she was blonde and it paired well together with his last name, Sky. I didn’t think too hard on the motifs. The instinct was all about weather (thank you Jane Eyre, I will always love you for introducing me to weather symbolism). I love using weather in my books to explore a character’s emotional, mental and physical state, so the word “sunshine” needed to be central for my character’s arc.

Because like, how beautiful is the sun?

There’s so many ways one could incorporate the sun in a character, and someone like my protagonist, who’s a bloody spitfire compared to her older versions, is the epitome of the sun—and she doesn’t even know it.

Which is why I went, “Oh, okay. If the goal is for her to realise she is the sun but she’s not at the place where she recognises that in herself, then what’s it going to take for her to reach that point?”

Because if there’s one thing about me as a person AND a writer, is that the idea of the world around you is simply your mirror. So if someone in her world is like, “You’re a ball of sunshine,” and she’s in pissed-off mood, the sarcastic implications can read as tension, and the reader can go, “Oh, this isn’t warm Lillian anymore. This is, explosive-sun-mode-Lillian. They better run”.

Am I thinking too much into this?

No, actually. But thanks for asking.

Titles for me make way for the books I’m writing. I’ve been playing with editing apps since I was a young teen, and I’d make covers to accommodate them. It also makes sense that by changing the original title to Sunshine it puts more focus on the character. At least for me it does.

Sure enough, the new title has allowed me to get a better insight on my character—and my edits.

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From Long prose to Short

I don’t care what anyone says anymore.

I. Love. Short. Precise. Straight-to-the-point. Sentences.

I used to be the draft-one version of a Jane Austen novel where nothing and everything made sense because the slugfest had too much substance and the sentences drowned with many meaning variations that only sounded like pretty windchimes in my head but could’ve been reduced to a simple sentence.

Of course, I still write like that. But it’s apparent that this book doesn’t require it.

And that’s when my brain went from, “God, it’s like pulling out teeth” to “Holy shit, why did I ever stop writing in the first place?”

This was the perfectionist in me; comparing myself to other writers and “best-sellers” with over 400 pages of story. There’s nothing wrong with heavy description or complex sentences. In fact, I eat this up when I read or write fantasy.

I write witty and lyrical and sensory no matter the genre. But I get so passionate and intense in my descriptions that I forget what is actually happening in the story. I now understand that I can still be this witty, lyrical and sensory-type writer without needing my readers to visualise a renaissance painting in every paragraph.

Or chapter.

Which means my word count has plummeted massively.

First 2 chapters of my old draft: roughly 6000 words.

First 2 chapters of my re-write: 1500 words.

Night Owls. I did what I used to fear; I got rid of sentences I was attached to.

Funny enough, it wasn’t as painful this time round. But maybe that’s because you get bored after 15 years of writing the same book because you yourself as a writer and as an individual have grown and changed.

(This is a great reminder to remember: nothing is perfect and you shouldn’t be drafting your work expecting it as such. Because perfect doesn’t exist. What does is your perception of it. So decide what you’re doing is more than enough and move. on.)

Which brings me to my next point…

My self-concept

I’ll be keeping this nice and brief because everyone has ideas and beliefs about themselves that are specifically customized to the individual and should not be used as a comparison unless it’s to become aware of your own self.

I stopped telling myself I couldn’t write better.

I stopped looking at my stories (specifically this book) as a mess and started looking as it like gold.

I tell myself now that everyone who picks up this book will love it because it is exactly what they’re looking for. I am who they are looking for.

I decided that every written story is my idea of perfection. And any editor or reader taking on this project with me is only going to enhance it. That’s it. I’ve done the work.

I stopped comparing myself to other writers who have been published, or started writing only a year ago and scored a publishing deal. That’s bloody amazing! My journey is mine alone. There is no one else in my race. However long it takes me to reach my North Star is on purpose.

To routine or not routine…

Have a routine.

Just have one.

It doesn’t need to be strictly linear or measured to the exact hour every day. But you should have something to ground you when you are focusing on completing a goal.

A lot of what I understand about myself is that I struggled having a routine, let alone finish projects because my routine was out of place. I struggle feeling like I had sooo much to do, too little time, yet bored out of my mind when there was nothing to do BUT write.

Because I crave dopamine.

The answer isn’t “do more, add more, create more.” It is, “understand how you operate and use it to your advantage.”

I am learning who I am and working with it.

Now, my schedule changes and will change once the trimester is done. So, I’m aware that my current routine won’t last forever. However, I’m adaptable in my surroundings, so this isn’t a problem for me.

At this point in time, I’ve worked out that between waking up and 8pm, if I am not working or at uni, I cannot sit still. Which means sitting down to write is virtually like drinking quick-cement. So the days that I am at Uni are they days I get my most work done. They’re also the days I feel more inclined to write.

So then, on the days when I’m not at uni from 8pm is my writing time. Whatever type of writing that may be. (Yes. I started this article at 8pm. It’s currently 10.10pm. And it will be edited and published before 11pm.)

I also notice that my surroundings matter. A lot.

Being at home is a playground, and I will do everything but write. So I read. Or draw. Or cook. Or clean. If I feel like getting out of the house, I will. And sometimes—not always, depending on the day—I’ve gotten rid of the restlessness that I end up writing.

Again. I am not forcing myself to do anything I don’t want to do. I’m working with what I already have and creating a routine that fits my chaotic nature. Because I know when I have a purpose for that day, my brain goes, “Oh, let’s write!”

Why this matters.

Because I’m aware routines always burn me out. Whether it’s because my days are never the same and I feel like I’m being tortured, or there’s a subconscious belief of blaming myself when I can’t stick to it (very likely), there are always ramifications. I will either fall into a depressive episode, bed-rot, or I stop focusing on my desires and coast life until I shake out of the funk.

And from the point of view of an already burnt-out eldest daughter…? Well, you get the archetype.

Whereas being gentle on myself and taking on hobby’s that sustain me with energy builds the one thing I lacked for such a long time: trust.

Trust in myself. Trust in the world. Trust that everything I do has the impact I want it to have.

And when you finally situate yourself with something that you trust, every step taken gets easier. Eventually, I will have another routine that’s able to match my-then-capable state. Until then, this one is perfect for me.

So, Night Owls. I’ll ask you this:

What changes are you willing to make to your writing? Have you already implemented it? Let me know in the comments below! I would love to learn this about you.

Stay chaotic,

Nicole xx

Tory was that kind of temptation. I was exactly that kind of hunger.

I first knew Tory the way weather gets reported on Channel 9 news.

She entered my orbit through Lauren, my high school best friend. Lauren hid her wildness the way people hid good jewelry. Only during sleepovers would she unlock the case and let me look, but by morning, the evidence had to disappear. Her mother was a born-and-raised Macedonian woman with a level two security clearance and zero tolerance for misbehavior, and so Lauren had learned early to be two different people. I admired this. I also failed, for a long time, to understand that I was only ever invited to see one of them.

Tory bypassed all of it.

She and Tory belonged to the same world. The one with blurry selfies and innocent side-fridge photos on a high tilt angle, with captions that implied a life more interesting than mine. Their Facebook albums were a foreign country I was not permitted to enter. I was the girl at home, refreshing my feed. My house was a warm cage with good Wi-Fi. I had more freedom than I knew what to do with, for a girl standing behind glass.

I was also an extraordinary liar. I was fine with that. I was the smart one for staying home. Who wanted a life that gave Death permission to seek constant company? My nan was a woman made of steel and often passed by Death like a friend from Bingo when her ex husband was called to his whisky cabinet. Men often cosplayed behind closed doors for good women. That often led them to the abyss. I remembered when I found out about my father’s secret affair.

“Don’t do something you’d regret,” he used to tell me.

I had no idea what that even meant.

At the time, I had slipped into a cold chamber of my own making. My father was a proud man who enjoyed cosplaying a loving husband and devoted father. He built palace walls and bedframes made of metal. He meant well. I reminded myself of that whenever the costume came back on. The house was not a safe place to be unhappy, which meant I became very skilled at being unhappy elsewhere. Lauren understood this. She offered sleepovers, spare bedrooms, the temporary loan of her mother. I always said no. My dad worked nights. My baby sisters needed watching. My mother existed in the strange category of people you love but weren’t allowed to see enough of.

Then I turned eighteen. My parents were non-existent in each other’s lives. The grip loosened exactly one notch. I walked through the first available door, and it led, as all doors led back then, directly to Tory.

Tory was better in person.

Louder, yes. Sharper too. She had the same dry, slightly mean humour I had been running privately in my own head for years. She delivered it out loud in public, to the faces of people who deserved it. She was my inner voice that manifested my entire adolescence.

We talked shit about everyone, including ourselves. We made plans so elaborate they stopped being plans and became myths. Every city we’d ruin, every version of ourselves we’d kill to become one that liberated the place one day we would call home. When day ended and we went our separate ways home, it felt like wet hands pulling against skin in a rubbery grip. I had phantom bruising and blemishes no one had the cure to fix. No one understood how we always wanted to stay together.

After two years of growing our own private collection, Death finally came to collect. Except he was underqualified and smelt like shit. In exchange, I only received a newer pair of eyes.

Lauren and I fell apart the following year. She went bankrupt and expected me to pour from my own assets, like I was an eternal fountain of youth whenever her cup tarnished from poor choices. Tory filled the space with velocity.

I loved her. I loved Tory with the embarrassing, slightly feral intensity of someone who had spent years looking through a window and had finally been let inside. She was protective in the chaotic orbit we shared. When the wrong kind of men circled with the persistence of bad weather, she threw up a wall and encircled me in.

I could never cross the lines Tory crossed. One foot always remained outside the abyss. I held her in that space whenever her curiosity for warm weather won her over. She never stayed, the winter always beckoned her back in, but she trusted I remained close by. Our friendship bracelets were made of the same metal my dad used growing up.

“Call me when you get home,” she used to say.

“You know I always will,” was my automatic reply.

Tory wanted to talk every day. She found the time, regardless of what was happening in her life. My job required absolute obedience no matter the weather.

Tory had no obligation to others and entertained her social circle like a paid influencer. For a while, I tried doing that, too. I felt like an animal morphing into a creature scientists haven’t discovered yet. My stamina ran lower each time I pushed to become “better”. Better and better. There was always room for more of that.

I had asked Tory what made her the best at what she did.

“Spite,” she had said. Or maybe what was what I could only remember.

She made formulas from liquids and powders for her crazy nights and chaotic adventures. It was wild how often Death came to her door to only receive the wood slamming in his face.

The only potions I drank were liquid mana, and only while she was with me in abyss.

My nan died the beginning of November 2020.

My nan died. She left without an ounce of a goodbye. It was punishment for failing on my promise to visit her when lockdown laws loosened. She probably had a good chuckle when I saw her lying in her coffin. “Now you want to see me?” she would’ve said.

Her absence was the sudden removal of gravity. Everything she had held in place began to slowly and then very quickly drifted apart. Family gatherings were trialed at different tables. I had a man at the time cosplaying Hercules who watched his Meg lose her soul to Hades.

I became slow. Three beats behind. Operating on a delay, a live broadcast of the weather report facing a fault nobody wanted to take ownership of. Just a simple, “We’re experiencing technical difficulty.” A cold front would start by the time they announced its impending visit.

The network should’ve been a priority.

Tory called.

Tory planned.

Tory’s daily need for validation came through without apology.

I felt it with every cold press of the bracelet coiled around my wrist. You didn’t get to decide when to pick up the phone. You picked up the phone before the chill worsened.

It always ended the same. “Sorry, I’ll do better next time.”

I was such an extraordinary liar.

The ending with Tory was not clean. It was an insult to Lauren. At least the poor girl took the hike the second the door slammed in her face.

Tory was a cyclone without a warning bell. By the time the weather program reported a complete lockdown, she swooped and took and stole what was left. I had already given up my private collection, buried with my nan. She couldn’t understand why. No answer satisfied the abyss. It renegotiated. It found softer angles, gentler tones. Its very patience cornered me. But no matter how often it checked my pockets, I always came up empty.

The funny thing about becoming a hollowed thing was how easy it was to look through you. Tory did, four years later, when she reached out to apologise. She peered in, assessed the damage, and decided she could work with what remained. I almost admired the optimism.

But I was too far from such a familiarity that the abyss had no interest in sheltering someone who had nothing left to take.

She tried to remind me of the weight of my absence during those years. I told her the bracelet she gave me was rusting with soot in a dark alley. She didn’t like that at all and called me all the ways I had remained imperfectly the same during the worst year of my life.

Unreachable as I was to Tory, I learned to turn myself into a leafy sea dragon. I could no longer hold the premise that the abyss was owed anything for having let me in. When I finally said no she left. They always did when there was nothing left to collect.

My nan would not have taken my side. The woman had scars dressed as sleeves and mastered spitting the word “idiot” with a cup of coffee and a deep wet cough. She would have had no patience for my self-pity cosplay.

I lived in a glasshouse my entire life with the front door wide open and it took the abyss turning me away to notice. My nan would have found this extremely funny. She would have tapped the glass twice, looked me dead in the eye, and said, “Come out of there. Nobody’s looking.”

But I looked. I looked first.

I did.

Well, 8-year-old me did.

That was the first time I pulled an all-nighter. The only thing I had to worry about was missing play-time during recess.

I took a nap on the small, moldy benches under the shade where the kids with no hats were obligated to stay under, too exhausted from watching stars disappear and the sun-rising. That same day, my teacher sent a letter to my parents informing them of my unprompted behaviour that alerted concern for my wellbeing.

I couldn’t say if it was the beginning of the end to my disrupted sleeping patterns that I’ve experienced for the majority of my life.

What I could say for certain was that it woke up my love for astronomy.

When I decided to stay up all hours of the night to watch the starry night sky, I was terrified. I had all these thoughts circling my head:

What if I got caught?

What if someone drove by and noticed me staring?

What if I found something I couldn’t explain to anyone?

What if aliens came down to abduct me because I was way up past my bedtime?

I had no idea what would happen, but I made a conscious decision (even if it didn’t feel like one at the time) to see it for myself.

My sister was sleeping in the bed next to me. My dad was snoring from the next room over. The alarm popped off every couple of seconds. There was also a creak in the floorboards that made me feel like someone was walking.

But in the height of it all, it didn’t matter to me.

My senses were occupied by the clouds drifting past the stars that twinkled with wander. I imagined flying through the night sky, talking to each one like they were a friend, hanging with the moon while it read me stories of adventure.

I slept with my eyes wide open, day-dreaming in the same way the world was currently doing in their beds.

Then the stars were disappearing, and the clouds were taking on a different colour. The street-lamps turned off and the alarm sounded.

It was all bittersweet. I had not wanted it to end.

But I walked out of the room dressed in my school uniform, smiling to myself as my mum packed our school lunches. I accomplished something no adult encouraged me to do. I felt elated. I didn’t tell anyone. It was like it was a secret between me and the stars.

I couldn’t have waited to do it again.

Spoiler Alert: I did not do it again.

Spoiler Alert #2: I did it again when I began reading the Twilight series.

When was the last time you did something you loved for the sake of it? Maybe you dared yourself to stay up to watch the sunrise.

Share with me in the comments below! I love getting to know you. Thank you for getting to know me.

Stay chaotic.

Nicole S. Kaps xx

Imagine having the ability to wipe out someone’s entire life right now and re-write it however you wish in exchange for the dream life you want.

The catch is if you fumble someone’s story, it takes longer to reach your destination.

How long would you need?

A few hours? Months? Years?

Would the pressure of such a disservice on someone’s life feel too much that you rather just…stop?

I make a universal acknowledgement to all writers trying to make a living while also dealing with their fear of “messing up” to that paralyzing point. I mean it took me over two weeks to write that opening for crying out loud lol.

But when do you stop to decide you’re not messing up? When will “is this good enough?” turn into “it is good enough”?

Short answer: it’s already good enough

In my last post (and on Wattpad), I asked for guidance in helping to decide if I should publish the story I wrote at 15 or its rewritten version.

After Midnight Society

Writers...I'm lost.

Okay… so I’ve never been the one to ask for guidance about these things publicly. I’ve always been a “do it yourself”-type person. Eldest sister perfectionist if you will. It’s canon, I guess lol. So please bare with me…

Read more

2 months ago · 1 like · 2 comments · Nicole S. Kaps

I am so incredibly grateful for every single comment. Every response I received made it very clear how much support there is in the writing community.

But in these responses, one thing became very clear to me; I was putting way too much pressure on myself to try and be an expert in this field without any room for error.

Thankfully, that is not possible to do because making mistakes is what leads to a better outcome.

It’s normal to revise and hesitate and doubt that your writing can be as good as you wish it to be. But if you expect to go in with the mindset that “it needs to be perfect”, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Because that’s exactly what I had been doing for a very very VERY long time.

I doubted so much that I forgot what I have achieved as a writer and as a person.

I had wanted it to be so right that I couldn’t understand what wasn’t working.

Simple answer:

Believing that it wasn’t going to be good enough to compete with.

Overtime I stopped simply writing for the fun of it and made it so I had to perfect something that didn’t even exist yet.

Like this damn article!

No journey is linear

What are we doing trying to not mess up now when inevitably we will mess up again?

I’m learning to accept that I will have moments of being frustrated when I bring my novels together.

It may also be that “learning not to mess up” isn’t what we’re supposed to. I think messing up and learning how to navigate through the mess is what the writing journey is all about — and every single one of us is going to have a plethora of experiences within this field.

Someone’s advice will resonate one day and the next it won’t.

Someone’s experience will be the key to getting around that obstacle, and often times, it’ll lead to more confusion.

But if you’re anything like me and think, “What’s going to give me the answers faster?” I recommend one good practice.

Change the way you think.

The most straightforward approach you have heard in your entire life.

The most overused approach you have been suggested, too.

But still the most effective.

One simple newborn truth that you can start affirming can be as simple as, “Everything will work out for me because only I can write this book.” Or even, “I’m the only one who can write this book.”

For my perfectionist’s out there, I’ve given you the answer in the article — it’s already good enough. You are already enough.

was so wonderful for answering me on my last post (and I hope she doesn’t mind me mentioning her). I have to share this line of hers. It was an absolute killer and it quickly calmed me the hell down.

We are human beings with stories filled with plot holes and flaws and incomplete pieces of art. It is normal to want to try to be the best you could possibly be. But it wouldn’t be so bad to start thinking you already are the best you could be.

Margaret Atwood says this perfectly,

If I (you) waited for perfection... I (you) would never write a word.

I for one know this article isn’t perfect. I’ve decided it’s the best representation of who I am as a writer right now.

If you resonate with this article, I applaud you for still going. And I am also truly sorry that you ever felt this way.

Is there a book you’re currently writing that’s making you doubt yourself?

Feel free to share in the comments below. I’d love to cheer you on!

Stay chaotic,

Nicole S. Kaps

Upon my usual scroll and readings, I came across a post from a recent writer I subscribed to (shout out to ) about how not everyone will like your book. I found it intriguing to hear her experience and commented. This post had me thinking about my book on Wattpad, Dorm Room 210 and the current re-written version that’s now named Walls We Built and the different expressions of interests.

Backstory on this:

The version on Wattpad was written when I was fifteen and currently sits with over 65 Million reads. I’ve been contacted through various indie and online publishers during the era of its popularity and haven’t pressed further into it because, well—how is a teenage supposed to know what’s good business? At the time I wanted it traditionally published as I’ve seen many other Wattpad writers achieve, and declined the offers. Till this day, I don’t regret it.

Now I’m at the start of my 30’s with a much explicit rendered version that forgoes the original plot.

But I kept the original names, relationships, and trajectory that the OG story had. It almost feels like a fanfiction similar to how Fifty Shades started out (By the way, has anyone ever made a fanfic of their own story? Would it be egotistic to do such a thing? Moral question of the day). However, there are also brand new scenes, new characters, new subplots, new locations…

It’s a new story, essentially.

Now, this is where my indecisiveness becomes my downfall, so allow me to enunciate: I have no idea what the f— to do with these two stories.

I could…

• Publish the new story as it is and leave the original story as a Wattpad story—a sort of beginning of my writer’s journey, if you will.

OR

• Publish BOTH of them and change up any of the similarities in the new story so that it’s separate entirely. That’s two books/series right there.

My dilemma:

While my Wattpad book did a successful job in getting reads, it was still my very first novel BUT it’s very, very weird. Very cringe. Very…you could tell I had no idea what I was doing, even when I uploaded a newer draft, it was still all over the place.

For example, the “dorm” my protagonist and her love interest live in is a goddamn cottage-looking-house that’s separate from Housing on campus. I had no idea what life as a university/college student was like, then. I was 15! I grew up reading fantasy books and fanfiction. There was no logic.

I’m not ashamed of the story but in terms of quality? It could be better.

And if I aim to publish it, it will still need to be edited in some way.

I was thinking of taking the Wattpad book through a developmental editor? I could also just clean it up and publish as it is.

I’m not trying to show off (this is by far the LEAST way of going about it lol), I just need direction. The Wattpad book continues to get reads and comments to this day. I love what I built and achieved. I just want to start making a living out of writing (don’t we all).

Writers? What would you do if you were in my shoes? I really need your help.

Stay chaotic,

Nicole S. Kaps xoxo

As someone who has studied aspects of the conscious and subconscious mind—and is solemn to self-reflection—and applied these changes to my own self for the last 4 years, I’ve learned how to use these tools to better understand my characters so that readers have a way of understanding them better.

What I’ve come to understand—and love—is concept psychology.

Concepts play a huge role in shaping our understanding of the world around us.

From the moment we wake up until we fall asleep, our minds are constantly doing these things to our experiences:

• engaging

• recognising

• organising

• categorising

How I understand this

Your reality is experienced through a universal conditioning layered behind abstract thoughts and patterns that your subconscious mind stores to alert your body information.

This information can come across as warning signals to our triggers, fears and desires, safety and consistency (or lack of), worthiness, etc. It’s a belief-system—whether you’re consciously aware of them or not.

Think of your body and mind like an operating system. As the CEO of said system, you have the influence to determine what “truths” or awareness the system gets fed with, and how often it receives “updates” on these (but that’s for a later post).

How this cycle works

The workers of the mind send signals to the body based on the thoughts they receive. The body workers operate as the reactors and send signals to your emotional triggers, which will then feed information back to the mind.

This cycle is conditional. But what is clear is this: thoughts first —> physical reaction —> emotional triggers.

To sum it up, how we process information will reflect our awareness and reactions to the world around us.

How does this apply to our characters?

Taking on this concept, we know now that every character has a story they believe about themselves, the world, and the people they interact with—or don’t. It’s a condition based on their upbringing that determines how they respond.

To help categorise who gets what, we writers often place our characters through archetypes. Are few familiar ones are the Hero, the Caregiver, the Villain, the Love Interest, the Antagonist.

But archetypes only tell us what role a character plays. It doesn’t shape their story.

To fill this, we create a story for them that the reader can categorise them in.

Let’s take The Caregiver.

Their role is to take care of the Hero/the group. They are compassionate, supportive, and willing to put others before their own wellbeing.

But two Caregivers can behave very differently depending on what they believe about themselves.

Caregiver A may believe:

“I can help people because I’m valuable.”

This character can be someone who has been through the worst and has come out of it an expert. They are infamous in their own way. People often think good things about them and is sought out. If the Hero suddenly doesn’t need/want them anymore, they will step back and be ready when they are.

Caregiver B may believe:

“I’ll be abandoned if I stop helping people.”

This character can be someone still fighting a quiet war, who endured a horrible backstory, who isn’t favoured, who has been through the worst and come out of it still scarred. They’re the ones constantly proving their worth, who self-sacrifices without considering their own well-being. Maybe when the Hero doesn’t need/want them anymore, they instantly feel rejected and go into hiding.

You can always switch the two character’s beliefs and modify their story. Caregiver A might have lost their comrades or was left behind. Character B grew up in a privileged household and always supported those who needed them.

Let’s do another example: The Hero.

A Hero who starts the story believing they are capable and end up believing their worth depends on saving everyone will approach circumstances differently from a Hero who starts the story believing their worth needs to be proven and end up believing they are capable.

The archetype remains the same, but it’s the their subconscious beliefs that determines the outcome.

This is one of the reasons why I love studying character behaviour.

Whenever a character repeatedly makes a choice that frustrates readers, I find myself asking, “What would someone have to believe about themselves for this choice to make sense?”

Because people rarely act against their self-concept unless they’re trying to change it. And usually that happens when an incident occurs that requires them to change.

Because no one willingly changes unless they have to.

🌙 Reflection for the Night Owls:

Think about your current protagonist — or a character you love — and ask:

What do they believe about themselves that makes their behaviour feel logical based on their perspective?

Then, jot down anything you can think of for 10 minutes. Once you do that, you should find a theme coming through.

Here’s a fun little exercise to share!

If you had a character who helps people because it’s their best way to helping themselves, where do you think that story would’ve come from?

Let me know in the comments below! I’d love to read them.

Stay messy,

Nicole S. Kaps xoxo

I really enjoyed working on this piece. I hope you enjoy reading it!

Stay messy,

Nicole S. Kaps xoxo

I’m curled up against my man in his bed, the T.V playing my favourite movie as it always does in the background. His fingers thrum against the softness of my exposed back, the familiar pattern soothing me into an amnesia haze as he breathes softly down my face. My hand is a paw flexing against his warm torso. He likes having me in this spot with my thigh hitched over his.

His kiss against my forehead has me reaching up for more. “Haven’t you fallen asleep yet?” he asks.

I shake my head, rising above him. I signal for another one of his faux act of domestic affection before leaving the bed to secure a glass of refrigerated water.

There’s a smile on my face as I walk naked to the kitchen. I reach to grab the washed glasses from the top cupboard that I neatly stocked this morning. The washed floorboards still smell like Pino clean and the citrus candle I bought leaves its scent heavy in the air I can taste it. My man can only be grateful that I have his house in good condition.

I sit on top of the cool marble counter and kick my feet out in front of me. I’ve always wanted a kitchen like this with no restrictions in place, no beast barking an order as they get ready to snap at the stove being too high or the water running too long. I’m left to do what I want here, cook what I want here, be who I want here. It’s a paradise I refuse to wake up from, no matter how bad the winner in me screams to get my head out of the clouds.

I ask myself what I can do to never leave, and the little girl inside of me answers back, “Do whatever it takes to win.”

I check the time on my phone: 1.14 AM.

“Aren’t you going to go to sleep?” I ask when I slip under the bedsheets.

He’s curled in the blankets, eyes glued to the T.V and his hand resting on the same spot on my body. “I’m waiting for you.”

The screen light washes away the shadows near the window. He manoeuvres me how he likes with my back against the mattrass, pulling me against his chest just how I crave.

“Your heart’s racing,” he says. The second kiss of the night. “Is something wrong?”

“No, because you’re here. How did I ever get so lucky?”

“I think we both know who’s the luckiest. You’re so special to me. I’ll never let anything hurt you.”

I’d seen the sheep disguise men had knitted by hand in broad daylight and wondered why I feared for my life when their teeth turned against me. I learned it’s best to keep my distance in case their sharp talons ripped the softness out of me.

But my man’s teeth doesn’t pierce my skin like all the men before him. He doesn’t create distance when my nails turn into claws to keep him close to me. How can the war I’ve left behind convince me I’m still in danger when I could’ve died so many times within these six months?

Afterwards, he tucks the bedsheets around us, his arm caged around my middle, keeping me locked. I run my hands over his flushed skin. This is where I need to be.

From the nightstand, a phone vibrates. Light breaks through the darkness like a thief. No matter how hard I blink, it doesn’t go away. I reach to turn the notification off until I realise I’m holding his phone.

Seeing the red heart text message woke me up from my paradise.

I stare as the messages spawn with photos attached. Each one carrying a loaded gun. Ready, aim, fire.

The world around me starts spinning, shaking, disarraying beneath me, until the pressure of the world collapses and I fall.

The scream is muffled with the rush of the air as it whips past me. My hair lashes my face. The blanket tangles around my legs. There’s nothing to grab except air. Too much of it suffocates my lungs. My mouth falls dry. The air grows cold.

Colder.

Sharper.

Faster.

I shut my eyes.

Branches catch my body first, tearing through my naked skin. The blanket snags on a branch above me, yanking me hard against my shoulder. Bark scraps my chin, my stomach, my breasts.

I lie in the taste of salt and dust and leaves.

With a hiss, I sit and curl the fallen blanket around my body, my shaking fingers weak from the hit barely closing the fabric around me.

“Hello?” My voice barely travels out. It’s a mere tiny decimal. The forest doesn’t reply. I can’t make out the shapes, just the sharp whistle of the wind curling the branches in a wicked dance, the sound of a nearby ocean, and the sight of the full moon, far, far away.

Pain blossoms on my side when I stand. The shadows so thick they appear in solid blocks. There are no houses insight, no warmth beckoning me forward. No man waiting for me.

I swallow shards of the dirt down my throat.

Then a howl cuts through the night, and my entire body seizes before I run.

I run and run and run with nothing but his blanket covering my body. The heat beating in my lungs severed as my compass. The ground shakes and digs under my feet. The night crawls behind me with a warning, sending me further toward the unknown. Had I mistaken myself a warrior? All I fear now is my life.

The path takes me to a river glistening with the full moon’s attention. Seeing the light sings me further with all my might, until I collapse from the weight. My lungs gulf down the sweet air. No creature lurks behind me anymore as if the moon cursed them away.

The blanket falls from my shoulders as I dip my hands in the lukewarm stream. I gently clean the dry blood and run the water down my face, letting it rain down my back, where my man had touched me just moments ago. My energy evaporates like my sweat until there’s nothing left. I burry myself in my lap with the blanket stained and soaked and fraying from the edges.

I flex my fingers, trying to remember his warmth. I touch my lips where he last kissed me. A numbness as small as a mustard seed plants in my stomach where I let it slumber alongside of me.

Beneath the heat of the sun, a pair of bright blue eyes stare above me. I almost swallow my heart down my stomach. They belong to a child no older than four. Her wild hair matted and without care. She wears a ruined pink dress; her pale skin marks bruises and burns, and her smile is missing teeth. The few she has are shaped with a pointed end.

Nothing but a hiss comes out of her mouth before she rips the blanket off my shoulders, and nothing but surprise lapse my mental fortitude. The child runs with her feet and hands, and the blanket flairs behind her.

I watch her go as I sit butt naked in a forest with the sun cooking my skin raw.

He should’ve been here rescuing me. He should’ve taken me home, cradled me in his scent and pressed kisses into my hair and reassure me that I was his. I try to imagine his soft mouth and all I receive is the tongue of a snake in my ear. When I try to imagine his arms to stay around me, a more beautiful and slender hand touches me instead, her red heart printed on her chest and “I miss you” fanning my mouth.

I vomit into the stream beside me and shiver when the sun disappears behind the clouds. It will start to get cold. I need the blanket.

I stand with weakened legs and follow the trail of the little girl. The forest is a blanket of webs and sharp corners with traces of pollen and thick leaves coated in slime that leave my skin itching with hives. I stumble over invisible boulders and almost slice my foot open from twigs sticking up from the ground. The heat sinks into my bones with menacing pressure.

By the time I find the little girl, squatting near the ocean of a sandy beach, the blanket is no bigger than her body.

“What have you done!” I run, the sand spraying everywhere and catching in my mouth. The little girl shrieks, standing up to run. But the sand is heavier and dense, and it slows her. “Give it to me.”

I catch the corner and tug it hard enough to make her fall on her face. I drag the blanket toward me, but she doesn’t let it go, she doesn’t let up, even as the sand suffocates her.

“Leave it! This doesn’t belong to you.”

Her little body shakes as I pry her fingers off one by one away. When the blanket is free, I tie it around my body like a dress, the asymmetrical length covering only half of one leg.

The little girl does not move. I’m not even sure she’s breathing. I go to check until I hear the sobs as she cries out, “Lost, lost, lost, lost…”

Above us the clouds thicken to a murky grey and the roll of thunder collapses near the distance. The sudden change in pressure kickstarts a cold fear running down my spine. The little girl doesn’t move. She’s not even aware of what’s happening. How can she? She’s just a little girl.

I collapse beside the ball of innocence and try to pull her up from her armpits, but her shaken body remains as dead weight as she continues her mantra, “Lost, lost, lost, lost…” When I do manage to grab her hand, her whole body turns to me. “No!”

Her voice silences my arguments. Her blues are swallowed by ink, and the sharp edges of her teeth extend out from her mouth, pinching her lips. “No!” she screams again. “NO.”

Static runs in the air and the sand beneath us grows hot with every no delivered. What am I to do but drag her by her foot as her cries filter the ocean’s harsh wave brewing on the horizon. She forces herself to stay, kicking me in the stomach and aiming for my face. We will both be consumed.

I unwrap the blanket from my shivering body and tie one end around her waist and the other around mine. Her sharp fingernails leave marks all over my skin as I haul her over my uninjured shoulder and run as fast as the sand allows me.

I don’t stop.

My eardrums burst with pain when she presses her mouth to it, but I don’t stop. She pushes my head against the branch of a tree, catching my eye, but I don’t stop. I can’t stop.

She hugs my neck like a baby koala as we enter a clearing of an endless valley. Behind us, the clouds continue to fold in on itself, too wrapped in its disaster. Does it not realise I’m not stuck there anymore?

The little girl slips from my arms and lands on her bottom, and the blanket pulls me down with her. I clear my airways out as best as I can and, with my right eye swollen, untie the ruined material until we’re both free. My shoulder throbs and my legs cramp, but out here, the sky is kind. I close my other eye and finally—finally, I let myself cry.

A small hand presses against my side. Then another. A wet face buries itself against my chest. She clutches my hands silently and we do nothing but let the forest continue on living.

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This one was inspired by one of my characters from my WIP Dark Romantasy duology.

Trigger warning: elements of horror involved.

See my first short story here

Stay messy,
Xoxo
Nicole S. Kaps

Priestess of Nyttomb

Genre: Dark Fantasy, horror

The council meeting had ended with the usual acceptance of submission. Caz had stood immaculate in her dark chiffon robe and her teardrop crystal circlet, hands steady on invisible strings that made her older brother and his beloved Lady rose from their seats. The young Lord and Lady of the Seventh Judith had performed immaculately: skeletal marionettes in cream silk robes, translucent wings covered in thick luminous powder, moss and tendril vines, courtly gestures and voices rehearsed across the long years of their deaths. The youngest court of the Unseelie realm did not flinch.

When the great doors closed and the chamber emptied, the air carried salt and rotten peat, a cathedral of silence stretched uncomfortably. Caz always thought it sanctuary.

She did not let go of the strings at once. She held them taut within her mind, the bone construct that bound her sibling and his beloved’s form. They moved with an edge of abnormality toward their isolated room. Only those with a critical eye—or with absolute awareness, and Caz only knew of four—would guess there was something inexplicitly wrong about them. But all in Court knew not to question Caz, the Priestess of Nyttomb, the rightful heir to the Seventh Judith. And soon the Sinner’s Sun—the right-hand weapon to the Daughter of Judith herself, the Unseelie Queen.

Their room suffocated with a rotten tang that lodged in the back of Caz’s throat, where it permanently sat frozen like the ice rune around their room, forever immortal. They always slumped so convincingly once her concentration slipped. Tonight, however, something in their poise sat incorrect.

Lady Pervinca’s chin tilted up behind the make of her hood, where white silk robes bathed them in water ripples. The invisible string tethered to her brother’s wife pulled in a sharp defiance. Had Caz not been aware of such a fraction, she’d pass it off for merely a lapse in her exhaustion.

With a twist of her fingers, the string pulled the bones of Pervinca’s chin down. Lord Lapis’s hand then twitched on his lap—the lifeless shudder of bone manipulation, now resisting against her.

A cold malice shuddered down her spine, splitting up to her ribcage, and catching her breath. Caz narrowed her eyes and flicked her finger outward. The command sat hallow.

With forceful intent, more than she’d comfortable admit, she drew them upright again. The strings—a mere display to illuminate the necromantic fairy that she was—shivered with strain. She felt them slacken as though they were fraying rope and loosened beneath her grip.

The cold that split her ribcage travelled up her throat. She gathered more force. The Unseelie Lord and Lady rose, stiffly like wooden planks. She had performed this ritual a thousand times, a flawless performance of mind control.

Caz’s knees shook. “You will obey.”

Both the heads of the Lord and Lady lifted. Skin of luminescent powder that was refined to perfect eternity of their pore-less faery corpse frame stunned Caz frozen. The head of her brother lolled, the sound of bone cracking open from marinating in stiffness.

“Cassandyra,” came the voice. Thin as paper and full of spite. “You might think us gone, but we are here in every broken bone and paper-thin scrap of fae skin.”

The words should not have come. The Lord had not spoken without her manipulation since almost a millennia. The familiar rasp from her brother’s throat never sounded so plain.

The strings in Caz’s hands slipped. Her back collided with the cold stone of their door.

The Lady’s head turned. Glassy eyes beneath her onyx encrusted tiara amidst the sleek pinup of her hood caught her with uncanny focus. “You mock the masks of us, built our reign off our silence at the cost of the truth. Now you are to be made the Sinner’s Sun. You have no honour.”

Another trick by her exhausted mind, surely. The voices had a weight the Unseelie jests never could. Joints cracked with every movement toward her. Her body jerked toward their direction, but the comfort of her strings never came.

“You are nothing without us,” the Lord continued. “All power made to dance in an empty tomb by your hands. The birth of annihilation, all in your honour.”

“I am the Lady of the Seventh Judith.” Caz’s voice went ragged. “I am the Priestess of Nyttomb. You speak when I demand it of you.”

“You are our echo,” the Lady said. She stood high above Caz, cutting off what little light was left in the room. “Look closer: every triumph of yours is built on our death that had been given to you. You can only speak when our silence permits it. But where has your voice gone now, dear sister?”

Lord Lapis’ voice washed over his beloved. “Did you think we drank afraid, sister? Did you think we choked in silence still? Had we believed your rotten sin could weaponise us, we would have fallen in front of court and not shackled in our bedchamper.

“Cut the strings, Cassandrya,” her brother whispered now. His hand lifted higher, limp, wrapped fingers trembling like a marionette loosed from its master. “See if you stand without them.”

The marvellous young faery court was built on discarded corpses from the upper courts that made the architecture of the Seventh Judith that reeked with cold clumps of decay on crooked surfaces. Winter was once a gallows show, obscene and demonic and sour. Now Winter brimmed with a chilled delight because of what Caz had done.

This semblance of the Lord and Lady’s life conjured from silence that demanded a hearing was a sick twist of repulsive retaliation that left Caz bewildered as the strings that danced in her favour suddenly coiled around her neck.

The Lord and Lady stepped toward her in a halting union.

“Sister,” Lord Lapis said. “We are not masks.”

“We died because of your greed,” Lady Pervinca said. “You cannot feed on our protection forever.” She leaned closer, bones breaking under the tight wrap of her cloth, her corpse-breath sour with absence. “You cannot bind us. The strings cut both ways.”

Caz saw her reflection through their luminous eyes as her airways were becoming blocked.

The night they allowed death to swallow them and their beliefs was the night they condemned Caz to eternal nightmares. They had feared her traitorous act than they had loved her. They chose death as punishment for the atrocity she committed that seared her soul to the Court. Their jealousy had far outweighed her ugly.

If I fall, the Seventh falls. I cannot die and I regret that I can’t.

She rose to her feet. Her fingers hooked over the strings around her neck and pulled.

“The Lord and Lady condemned themselves,” she whispered, though only her fogged breath carried what should’ve been sound. Her freed airway took in the sharp air. “The Lord and Lady drank to the death, and the Lord and Lady gave me Court, and the Lord and Lady were powerful, but not as powerful as me. My power bought the Court its missing aid. Yours bought me your silence and obiediance.” She tightened her hold over the strings. Sharp stings after another, blood oozing down her wrist, splattering in thick drops before her. She trembled where she stood, her will blazed, fierce and terrible. “Your shameful act built this monster. You cannot hate it after all that you did to bring me here.”

Her brother’s corpse-mouth parted, a hallowed abyss of nightmare and black mucus. No sound, no fog escaped. Her brother’s eyes burned with a blinding sheer.

“You best believe,” Caz hissed, “that I am what this Realm needs. I am the abomination crafted by one thousand immortal faeries. The weak will fear me.”

The razor strings dampened to fraying spiderwebs, coating her palm with a mix of her sticky blood. Strings manifested over their bodies. Her sibling and his beloved glazed over once more. Their bones cracked into still units. Caz stood as she forced them to kneel, then brought their hands behind their backs, and with a sickened tear, had them rip our their wings. She forced a searing scream through their parted mouths, and she swelled with delight at the misery for just a moment. Later she would stitch them back and no fae would be the wiser.

She stood over them, hands trembling. She saw nothing but dirt stains under her fingers, no wet steaks ticked her neck. The price she paid was worth hiding the damage done.

With a deep hallow numbness, she looked at what she had made. The string belonged to her again. The silence deafened, just as it should be. The Seventh could not afford voices that were not hers. Court would not survive a chorus of unruly dead faeries.

“You made your decision,” she whispered with an of air of indifference. “Do not bother me with your tantrums ever again.”

She slipped from their room with a deafening click behind her, the ice rune activating around the door’s entrance. The mask of the Priestess fell back in place as she headed to find Zayj at the swamp for a night of turbulent training for the upcoming trials against those pathetic human hunters—for who was the Priestess ought to be afraid of?

Some of my short stories come in different parts, so if you like them and want to continue reading, just let me know and I’ll post more for you.

These stories were born as exercises, but I loved them all too much to keep them hidden. Consider this my writing portfolio, if you will.

This is purely for entertainment only. All scenes, characters and description are fake. My stories are dark, gritty and witty.

Trigger warnings: violence, profanity, mild-sexual content, blood.

Stay messy,
Xoxo
Nicole S. Kaps

Gravel mistakes

Part 1

Genre: dark romance & comedy

Emily believed in people better than I ever could. She was whimsical, hopeful and an all-round sweetheart with a killer gut-instinct. I believed all water-signs were like that, especially the Pisces. But whether her intuition was simply introspective or a side effect of spending seven weeks with her self-diagnosed, philosophical uncle who claimed to be the next Freud (I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. Then again, I never cared to dig deeper than the bottom of a carbonara bowl), Emily knew how to get me motivated.

“If you’re going to die, you better make sure he’s 6”4 with body tatts and a killer ass to grab onto. Just in case.”

I kept thinking about what she said as bullets planted into the warehouse walls, splinters and dust flying across my skin, sweaty air and petrol clogging my lungs. Another body dropped—a guy in leather and gold chains, a splash of red devouring the expensive white powder that coated the concrete like salt. What a waste. Not the cocaine—the killer. Emily would’ve liked him. He had a pleasant jawline, ideal for advertising overpriced razors, and a smirk that belonged on the front of a rom-com poster.

But considering he’d been five-inches away from carving my face with a jagged piece of broken glass, I remained firm in my decision.

Another reason to believe she saw the good in people: she would never let a bad decision devalue who you are. Not even a dead one.

A fresh round of gunfire split the air. I hit the ground, my palms slamming against cold grains of shattered glass embedding into my skin. My breath came short from the quick pain, as another hiss took over. Goddamn, my knees were killing me! I should’ve at least worn the knee pads Emily bought me.

Somewhere in the distance, another bottle cracked, men shout at each other to “Kill the bitch!”, like I was in some fucked-up Wizards of Oz Musical.

I clenched my teeth. I was getting caught in the middle of a shootout and wearing my vintage blouse to do so. Worse, she picked it up from dry-cleaning for me on her lunch break yesterday. “Thanks for being a good friend. Happy birthday” was written on a napkin.

(My birthday was December 19^th. We were in the middle of May.)

This was where Emily’s perfection got docked.

She’d check the blouse first before checking my wounds, because to her, a gift received was a gift cherished. Tarnish it and you might as well have told her to rot in hell. Then she’d leave me to deal with the aftermath while she slid in bed with her 5”10 man with a humiliation kink who swore he killed at least fifteen people in his entire life. (Who the fuck kept count of their kills and why was it always under twenty? At least try harder to impress her.)

Like me. I had just hit four hundred and three. I was still several bodies behind Emily though.

Several rounds of gunfire shot from my left blind spot, and the sound of heavy steel cap boots on crunchy glass were coming from my right. The third fucker was somewhere hiding, waiting. I loaded my gun and shot the surprise-attacker, scurried behind the dented station wagon and dodged the bullets missing my head by inches.

“Cockhead! You almost got me in the fucking eye.”

“That’s the fucking point!”

I shot three rounds. “They’re my best features, you fuck.”

A car engine rumbled to life. The angry Scandinavian who called me a bitch yelled for his henchman. At a quick scout the coast was clearer, and I went after my flirt in the cameo coat, shooting him in the leg. He fell on the rumble, but that was enough for the driver to make his getaway.

My lungs burned as I aimed my gun at the moaning asshole on the ground. I had a headache forming, my joints were yelling for a massage, and I still had no idea how I was going to tell Emily the blouse was damaged.

“Just before I paint the gravel with your brain meats, do you know anyone who can repair clothes real quick?”

Mr Mcflirter’s face was pale and covered in soot and sweat. He breathed much heavier than I did—no one told me breathing was a competition but this man was aiming for gold—and quite profoundly in a strangled voice said, “Corner street.”

I tilted my head. “No fucking way. Vintage too?”

“Rogan,” he managed out, huffing through a wounded thigh. “He does my—ugh, fuck—vests. Please…spare my, ugh…spare—”

“Okay, but like, vintage fabrics are so rare and you can tell if the thread is—ohh, the gun wound must seriously hurt if you’re howling like that.” I squatted beside him, poking him in the leg. “Did I get you in an artery?” He went to swipe. I shot him in the shoulder. “Jesus, what was that!”

“ARGH YOU BITCH! I was helping you.”

I hissed and stood. “I know, but then you got all aggressive on me and I reacted. Now I have to do my job. You’ve done pissed me off. I thought we had something for a moment.”

He lay bleeding against the gravel as I searched his person. His eyes were fluttering shut. My palm grazed the tent in his pants as I dug through the other end of his pockets. “Such a shame.” It was so rare to find big dick energy personified lately. It was like the mafia industry had it in for them.

“Just…” His breathing was thinning out. Some of his blood was staining my pants. “Get it…over...”

“Where’s the phone, darling?” I tapped the side of his face. Some of the glass still in my palms scraped his cheek. Oops. “Hey, hey, don’t go yet. I need to know where the Blackberry is.”

His pulse ran faint until I could hardly feel it anymore.

I stood from my position, spewing that another one of these hot specimens had to go. I wished they took a different career path, like stripping or male modeling.

Cold metal pressed up against the back of my head. “I could kill you right now.”

“Oh, fuck my life.” I hated how quickly screwed over I was. I threw my gun on the ground and help up my hands. My heart was pounding. I needed to calm down. “Thought there were only five of you. Don’t tell me I failed in basic math.”

“You’re not wrong. Kneel.”

He pushed on my shoulder until I kneeled beside the hot man’s dead body, the gravel digging into my knees. I should’ve warn the fucking knee pads. A pair of metal cuffs dangled in my face next. If it weren’t for the gun digging in my head, I would’ve scowled at him.

“In front or behind?” I asked him, taking the cold cuffs with bloody hands.

“It doesn’t matter.”

This time, I did scoff. “First time, then?” I cuffed myself at the front. “You should know giving someone choices could end you faster than your first ‘day one on the job’ post.”

The safety trigger disengaged.

I held up my cuffed hands. “You have me where you want me. Jesus, relax! Avenging for your buddy over here won’t give you the answers you’re looking for.”

“Your resources on Milo and the coke. I want them. Give them to me.”

I threw a smirk over my shoulder. “I only get told where to go. I don’t own any of the plans.” Emily did. That’s why I was here today and she was not. If something have had happened, at least one of us had a better chance at escaping.

“Then you’re going to tell me who does or I’ll blow your brain meats all over the gravel.”

“Whoa, whoa. Wait.” My heart rate skyrocketed. Hot anger ran through me. “You’ve been here the entire time and didn’t go after the fat cunt who got away? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Emily would’ve cut my own tongue off if she knew I was mouthing off at a time like that. But if my life was going to end, I needed the dumbass to know that he had done this all wrong.

“You could’ve stolen the car without us knowing. You would’ve gotten ahead of me! You could’ve already got what you wanted.”

The metal barrel was removed from my head. The crunch of the gavel accelerated my breathing until the man in possession of my possible death stood between me and the dead guy.

“Oh, fuck off,” I muttered underneath my breath. My neck strained to look up at him. Tatted up on both arms, he wore a black buttoned down shirt and tight fitted cargo pants defining every inch of muscle on his toned body. His brown eyes and cupid lips stretched to accommodate a knowing smile, as if the fucker knew exactly what was going through my mind.

He had to have known. I had only tried to kill him once my best friend dumped him…

Welcome to the very first You Decide post where your choice influences a part of the story. Yay!

How this works:

There will be numerous amount of articles posted where my Night Owls (which is you) get to make fun decisions through Multiple Choice questions for my Dark Romance novel, Walls We Build. This little fun activity is exclusive and will contain some mild spoilers to the book but not enough to spoil the entire book.

Your decision will not impact the plot or the ending. The storyline is set and predetermined beforehand. But the shenanigans and the quirks and little choices the characters make? All you.

I will be posting every 2 weeks to ensure that you get to be part of this journey with me. Every Choice will be live and in time with my current stage of writing this book. This is my (secret-not-so-secret) way to finish writing this manuscript so that it can finally go through the editing stage.

Here is the synopsis if you need it.

#1

We are currently at chapter 10.
The building Noah and Lillian live in is called The Lodge. It’s been a long time since the place allowed a party for all floors to take part in. It’s monitored, approved by Housing, with an 11pm time curfew. Noah spent some time convincing Housing to let this happen. If this party goes badly, there might not be another one.

Then there’s Lillian who Noah begged to stay and attend despite her prior reluctance. In order for her to attend, he made a promise. Now that’s she’s attending, all he wants to see is her having fun.

Night Owls. What should Noah do at the party?

(No matter what you vote for, they all lead to the same outcome).

A.

Noah spends most of the night making sure everything runs smoothly. His people-pleasing tendencies are running the show. Lillian isn’t the priority, but he sees her having fun.

B.

Noah decides to enjoy himself. He drifts between groups, plays party games and makes questionable decisions in front of Lillian, but he eventually convinces her to join him.

C.

Noah needs to make sure Lillian doesn’t disappear and back out of their deal , so he invites her into his world and gets to see a wild side of her he didn’t know she possessed.

D.

Noah attempts to balance responsibility, freedom and Lillian. This becomes a bit overwhelming for him until she steps in…

Let me know what you think! Excited to see the results 😊

Stay messy, Night Owls.

Xoxo

Nicole S. Kaps

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The. Same. Novel. Since. I. Was. Fifteen.

Timing stopped mattering to me as I got older. I believe novels are created the way they’re intended to be by the author’s capacity. The frustrating part is watching others draft three books in the same time it takes me to decide whether my protagonist is emotionally ready to hold someone’s hand.

When I first wrote my novel Dorm Room 210 on Wattpad, I was too focused on the community to worry about getting my grammar right. There was no voice narrating how I needed to write a better scene. I had readers waiting for the next update. High school was my Novel November. I was left alone with my imagination and whatever I thought love was at fifteen. Innocence prospered. I miss those days.

And with no proper training, the novel has gained over 65 million reads.

So, what changed?

I went from writing from instinct to writing to be worthy.

Night Owls. It was the thoughts. Oh, god do they sneak up on you without realising.

I listened to the ones in my head that told me I wasn’t good enough, that this book needed to be more than just a Wattpad standalone. It needed to be trad-publishing perfection. I needed it to be perfect before an agent ever saw it.

And so came the unwavering doubts.

My self-concept as a writer today has become something 15-year-old-me would’ve been intimidated by, 28-year-old-me would’ve been blithely confused by (without question), and 30-year-old-me is learning to understand.

Somewhere along my journey, writing stopped feeling instinctive. I would open my document ready to write 2,000 words, only to stare at the screen, paralysed by the idea that I could spend years building a world only for it never being good enough.

I’ve re-written this book over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again to the point where I’ve unintentionally created full-blown manuscripts of concepts I will be utilising for future novels.

Because despite the studying and the certificates and the bachelor’s degree and online classes, I was never really writing what I knew.

I was writing about who I was being.

I want to show you a contextual example from the old version and the new one. Just the first paragraph. (This will be something I do for future articles).

DORM ROOM 210 – WATTPAD

(CHAPTER ONE)

The leather grey chair I’m seated in is the cage that prevents the rush of wanting to leave. The people around me are loud; their voices bounce off the cream-coated walls decorating the reception room. My ears ring. I’m a nervous wreck. Whatever had led me to believe I could do this really had a sense of false hope. Everywhere I turn there’s someone looking back, giving me quick looks. They’re probably thinking I’m a weirdo.

vs.

WALLS WE BUILD – NEW VERSION

(CHAPTER ONE)

AT 4:05 A.M., on the morning of my move-in day, an email from Prestwick University’s Housing Department lights up my phone: Urgent: Room Transfer Notice.

And because I’m a visual person and enjoy making digital art, here are the covers I used on Wattpad every time I made edits. (Somewhere in my printed documents there is my original draft. The OG. One day I will find it and show you.)

I now know this:

Dorm Room 210 is not and can never be Walls We Build.

Walls We Build is not and can never be Dorm Room 210.

They are two completely different concepts, despite similarities in storyline and character naming. However, both harbour dark themes. One is posed through a YA lens, and the other Dark NA.

Dorm Room 210 could only have been written by the girl who believed finding love was enough to convince herself of her worth.

Walls We Build could only be written by the woman who learned it isn’t and shouldn’t.

I stand by the belief that books don’t take years to write because the story isn’t ready, but rather they take years because the writer isn’t the same person anymore.

If you or someone you know is taking what feels like a long time to write your book, maybe try asking which version of yourself is the one writing. If you might know the answer and feel like sharing, write them in the abyss below.

Stay messy, Night Owls.

Xoxo

Nicole S. Kaps

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AT 4:05 A.M., on the morning of my move-in day, an email from Prestwick University’s Housing Department lights up my phone: Urgent: Room Transfer Notice.

I spend the next four hours in the car with my aunt Jennifer, re-reading the email over and over and over again, until I’m sure I’ve gone insane.

Surely I would’ve been contacted about this sudden reassignment prior.

I watch the road instead and offer to drive when she stops singing. She naps in the passenger seat, and I breathe in the cool air of the summer’s morning before the sunrise cooks it, and I struggle with the ache forming in my chest. Like I’m experiencing loss all over again.

She takes over when we stop for petrol and breakfast. I’m so focused on keeping calm that I miss the moment of celebrating with Jennifer as we enter the university grounds. We slow down to match the speed limit. Around us are newer model cars filling the parking spaces, and young strangers attaching themselves to familiar faces.

“You’re overthinking again,” Jennifer said.

“No. Just…”

“Overwhelmed?” My aunt’s smile is blinding. She tends to be the more hopeful one out of us. I like that about her. “Oh, come on. You’re not seeing this? Look how massive these buildings are. And that lake. People are reading under trees… It’s all picturesque!”

In this thirty-nine-degree shit storm? No thanks.

It’s another ten minutes of driving and sightseeing until we find Metro Hall. Aunt Jennifer pulls up, hazard lights on while the car is in park. She turns to me with sullen, blue eyes and an upward tilt of her mouth.

“No, don’t.” My warning misses its mark when I begin tearing up.

She unbuckles her seat belt and pulls me in for a hug. “Oh, my little picante.”

“We promised no tears.” There’s green and orange paint stuck in her ash-blonde hair. She stays still while I remove it through hazy eyesight.

“I know, I’m so horrible telling my niece I’m going to miss her,” she says, moving back to give me space, patting my hand. “But I’m so happy for you. I still can’t believe you got accepted here. Not that I doubted you. It’s just—”

“They must see something in me our little town doesn’t.” I laugh so that it hides the shakiness in my body.

“Exactly! The sky is the limit now. You can do whatever and whoever you want without every maiden and her dog knowing. Oh, the freedom!”

A proper laugh escapes me. One good thing about leaving a small town and moving into the big city, no one’s going to care who you sleep with. “I’m not flying to a whole new country. It’s just a four-hour trip back home.”

“Oh, speaking of home!” She reaches into the glove box where a small jewellery box sits. “Keep this with you. I know your mum would’ve wanted you to have this. And your dad. But let’s be honest, your mum more.”

I swallow back a lump of pain as I stare at the small gold hummingbird pendant that Mum used to wear growing up, before Dad bought her a nine-carat gold and sapphire pendant for their twentieth anniversary.

“Thank you.”

“Want help putting it on?”

I’m about to say no, but Jennifer gestures for me to turn around. She clasps it around my neck quickly. The small hummingbird rests below my clavicle and sits above my light taupe t-shirt. I pull her into another hug, wishing I could bring her with me.

“Okay. Enough sap. Do you need help with your bags?”

“You can stay in the car, I’ll be fine.”

The minute I’m outside, the heat is stitching its way into my skin. I collect my bags from the back seat and boot, pulling them out onto the sidewalk.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Aunt Jennifer says, passenger window down. “I’ll have my car ready for pick up in a week if you want to come back home then. It’ll give you time to get comfortable.”

“Did you want to stay and grab a coffee with me?”

She reaches for me across the passenger side, and I grip my hand to hers. “If I didn’t have a wedding tonight, you know I would.”

“Will you be all right driving back?”

“I’ll be fine.” She blows me a kiss. “Thank you for letting me borrow the car, honey. Have fun, tell me all about your first day. Love you!”

“I love you, too.” My stomach twists as I watch her and my little red Hyundai drive away. The four-hour drive home would take her five if she took regular breaks.

It doesn’t take me long before the heat beckons me inside Metro Hall.

The lobby is mostly quiet, aside from a hysterical guy in a neon shirt crying to someone on his phone, and a couple murmuring by an info board. No frantic crowd otherwise. Just me—and the persistent feeling of lead sinking in my gut that the email I was sent wasn’t an accident at all.

My fingers tighten around the folded print-out of my original dorm confirmation email. A part of me still believes that I can walk up to the desk and someone will look at the screen, blink twice, and say, Oh! You’re right. Our mistake. Welcome to Metro Hall, Lillian.

The RA on duty, Renae, waits with a practiced smile.

“Hi.” I hold out my printout like a fragile offering. “I received an email this morning saying there’s been a change in dorms, but I’m renting a studio here at Metro Hall. I’ve had this room booked since October last year.”

She takes it with the delicacy of someone handling gum on their shoe, gives it a once-over, and then turns back to her screen. “What’s your name and student ID number?”

“Lillian Caldwell,” I say, shifting from foot to foot. “My ID number is at the top of the page.”

“Hm.” Her tone is light, like this is mildly interesting gossip. “Looks like you’ve been reassigned.”

A full-body sting swarms my entire body.

“No. That shouldn’t be possible. The room’s been paid for the entire trimester.”

Renae glances at the screen and gives me the look people save for toddlers who just spilled juice on the carpet. “I get it, but if Housing updated your assignment, that’s out of my hands.”

My throat tightens. My pulse starts thudding against my ears. “I don’t understand. How can it just be changed? Without a twenty-four-hour notice?”

“Well…” she draws the word out like a yawn, “technically, you were notified.”

I stare blankly at her as I feel my stomach tightening with dread.

“I understand your frustrations.” Her fingers resume their slow tap across the keyboard, casual as if we’re discussing paper preferences. “From what I can see, you’ve been moved to The Lodge. It’s a nicer building. Got some rooms with a killer view. And your room is 210. The second level.”

“Sorry, Renae? I didn’t ask for a view,” I say, sharper than intended. Adrenaline spikes under my skin. “I asked for this room. I planned around this room. So, I want this room.”

Her smile doesn’t falter, but she looks like she wants to kill me. “Once the system updates, we can’t override it here. Housing department made the arrangement, so it’s Housing department you need to speak to. You’ll have to contact them through the Student portal and submit a review under H.A.R.”

“The what?”

Her smile completely drops. “Housing Admissions Request. Do you want the email?”

Words have turned to silk in my mouth. I can feel my control slipping through my fingers, my vision prickling at the edges.

Renae tilts her head to the side. “I’ve had second-year students come down to ask me why they’ve been transferred to the room across from theirs, and I heard someone was transferred to a room off-campus.” She leans in and lowers her voice. “I did my Degree here four years ago, and nothing like this has ever happened before. I’m just as lost as you are.”

“So, there’s nothing you can do?” I ask in a slightly brute tone.

“It’s out of my hands.”

“Right.” I take my print and leave the building. I already didn’t feel like I mattered to begin with, but this was a whole other level of discard.

You don’t belong here.

I clench my jaw. The voice. I fucking hate when it comes back.

I can feel it beside me, cold and slick like oil against my skin. Familiar. Relentless. It shapes unfamiliar constellations behind my eyes, whispering everything I don’t want to hear.

You were never going to. You’re all kinds of fucked up.

Barely enough sleep, a four-hour panic attack in the car, and this is enough to kick me down.

This wasn’t part of the agreement when I made the arrangements to come here. I have a mind to open up my text messages and demand what the hell is going on. I don’t. It would breach the terms of the contract.

I head towards the shuttle that’ll take me to The Lodge with a deadened kind of focus, each step more robotic than the last.

God, the heat is eating at my lungs. Not even five minutes out, and my head’s getting light.

I knew I overpacked, but most of my belongings were full of fabrics and carefully selected clothing pieces. Save the sewing machine left in the granny flat with all of Aunt Jennifer’s painting supplies, and a couple of winter selections that had no business coming during the summer season. What’s a future designer without their equipment?

The air is thick with humidity, sticking to the back of my neck, gluing my shirt to my spine. Sweat prickles under my arms. There’s a pulsing kind of heat that makes everything feel heavier—my bags, my thoughts, my chest.

I walk towards the shuttle stop in a haze. I should find the next train and then crawl into bed, and pretend this day never happened.

I grip the handle of my suitcase tighter. Just get through the day. Just focus on the pavement, one foot after the other…

I gasp as I step over a dip in the concrete, tumbling to the side and colliding into someone. Solid and hot at first, then a sharp sting of cold. Liquid hits the side of my face. My suitcase tips. My head spins. The sticky scent of vanilla clings to my skin.

“Shit. Shit. Are you okay?” a voice says.

I sit up from the hot concrete and pinch my soaked shirt full of milkshake. There’s a heap of it on my face and some in my lap. There’s milkshake dripping into my bra.

Of course, this happens to you. You’re a fucking mess.

“Are you kidding me?” I hiss, a wedge slicing in the back of my throat. I refuse to cry. “Don’t bother asking me that.”

The guy in front of me recoils, holding an empty plastic cup in one hand and a tray of two milkshakes in the other. “You bumped into me. I was all the way over here.”

“You could’ve moved out of the way.” I grab a pink shirt from my suitcase, wiping myself down.

“You could’ve looked where you were going,” he says, “and pay for the drink you spilled.”

I stuff my face in the shirt and let out a muffled scream. It eases some of the buildup in my chest and keeps the voice quiet. I’m going straight home. I can’t do this. I’ll pay it all back. I’ll leave my future in the hands of my small town.

Who needs the uni experience? Why would anyone put themselves out there when being at home is much safer? Am I that much of a sucker for pain?

It’ll cost me a fair bit for Uber expenses. Not that it matters, I have the funds for it.

When I finally remove the shirt from my stuffy face, the strange guy ends up kneeling next to me. “Are you having heatstroke?”

“No.” I sniff, packing the shirt away. “How much do I owe you?”

“Nothing. I was kidding.”

“No, you weren’t.”

“I was. I’m sorry, this is on me.”

He sets my suitcase upright and ignores my protests about my duffle bags. So I ignore his outstretched hand.

“I mean it. You don’t have to pay for anything.” His eyes are brown and sharp. A little too patient and understanding for my mood.

“You’re just saying that because you made yourself look like a jerk.” The air ruffles our clothes while the guy stands there like a dehydrated fish.

I stare at my phone, then my suitcase, then the tree behind it. “I don’t care whether you apologise. It’s hot and I’m tired, and I need to go. Bye.” I head to the shuttle stop. My hair is sticking to my damp neck, and I’m starting to smell like warm milk.

He catches up. “Where are you headed?”

“To hell.”

He scoffs. “Is there room for one more person?”

“Where I’m going is none of your business.”

“So, not to The Lodge?” He gestures at nothing.

“Creepy how you know that.”

“Perks of being a Dean’s son. You kinda know what’s going on after visiting once or twice. Or several times.”

I slow down my pace. “Who’s the Dean?”

“See, if I told you, I’d have to kill you.” His musky smell hits me when he moves in closer and whispers obnoxiously, “I’m not supposed to be telling people my business, if you catch my drift.”

“And neither is me telling you where I’m going. I guess we’re both in the same boat about keeping information to ourselves.”

“This is different. I like helping people. Most people walking away with a suitcase from Metro Hall end up at The Lodge.” He points to a far-off corner in the distance washed out by too much light from the sun. “Or the cafe. They make good drinks.”

I eye his tray of drinks and his brown hair falling around his face. “The title doesn’t make you a tour guide, buddy.” I stop underneath a shady tree, a migraine forming behind my eyes. The shuttle bus stop is just to my right.

“It’s Noah.” He wipes his free hand on the back of his royal blue and vermilion shirt.

I lower my voice. “I don’t need your help, Noah. I’ve got this under control.”

He hums and checks the timetable. “Yeah, they’re not coming for another hour. I can take you to your dorm myself. It’s better than staying out here.”

I can’t breathe. The air’s too hot.

The migraine stretches, and my balance falters. Heavy acid rests at my throat as darkness swims in my vision. Noah steadies me.

“Whoa, whoa. Hang on, you’re all right.”

It hurts to open my eyes. “Fuck. I don’t feel well.”

“Have you had anything cold to drink?” He passes me a foamy cup. “Have some of this. It’s strawberry matcha. Or I’ve got a banana milkshake.”

“Yuck. No.” I dry heave. Shit. No. No, no, no! I’m going to be sick. “I need a bag,” I manage to say.

“I have one in my car.” Panic rises in his tone.

No other warning is given before I hurl up food from this morning’s trip, right onto the grassy patch of the tree.

I’m definitely going home.