Chicken Alfredo and the Accidentally Intentional Author

I’ve mentioned how I started writing: I got cranky when an RPG romance didn’t go how I wanted it to.

So, how did I leap from Star Wars fan fiction to attempting my own work?

First, I had a lot of ideas and I wasn’t afraid to write them down, work them into that Star Wars fiction. No one would ever see this, so I just let it take me wherever. It was a kind of safe space. No one could see how bad I was at writing—messy punctuation, typos and all that. It was just escapism. Over time, I got fussy about quality and continuity. I started reviewing things. Fixing those typos. Correcting the inconsistencies that crept in because I hadn’t been organized. I naturally got better at typing, through repetition.

At some point, I started to care if that ramble was well written. I can’t recall when.

In late 2024, I had an idea that I was really passionate about. I wanted to do a proper job of it: research it well, make it something real enough to be true. It didn’t belong in the Star Wars story. It would be like splicing a lightsaber duel into a Jane Austen movie.

That’s where I started writing for myself, making my own world. This story was the foundation of “Since You Came Home.”

It was all done on an iPad: scribbled into an app called Paperless*, broken into chapters with vague and terrible titles. It was given the working title “Attorney” because I didn’t think it would ever matter. This was never getting published… right?

Well…

Cyclone Alfred hit in early March 2025. It was the first cyclone in many years, and no one knew how the region would cope.

Alfred didn’t help to ease the tension at all, looping back in on his own path and dawdling his way to the coast. He was supposed to make landfall around Thursday morning. He finally made landfall Saturday night. The saga was so drawn out, my son nicknamed the storm “Chicken Alfredo.”

It was funny to the kids, but I was still petrified. I was using my “Attorney” story as a diversion. Somewhere in here, I started wondering if maybe my story was good enough to share. The thought simmered.

Alfred finally hit around 9pm, Saturday 8th March. He did some damage near the coastline. The impact in my area was negligible. However, I’d managed to do a lot more research on this story and it was shaping up quite well.

I was at work a few weeks later when I suddenly decided to have a crack at publishing this book. I researched what would be required, discovered a few useful tools and places, just decided I was going to do it.

I was never planning to publish my work. I just got stressed out by a cyclone. But maybe, this was what I wanted all along.

*Paperless is fantastic, by the way. Very good for creating an outline and I had no trouble moving this into Scrivener.