Hunter Can Wait, The Lesbians Are Calling

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I think I’m switching gears with the book.

Which is both exciting and deeply annoying, because if you’ve been around for more than five minutes, you know I’ve been talking about Hunter and Peyton for what feels like 84 years. Technically, it’s been closer to two, but emotionally? Victorian widow timeline.

And the thing is, I still love that story.

That’s the part I need to make clear before anyone thinks I’m just tossing the whole thing into the fictional woods and pretending it never happened. Hunter and Peyton are not dead. Their story is not cancelled. The duology is not being deleted from my brain, my notes app, my Google Docs, or whatever cursed little corner of my soul Hunter has been renting out this entire time.

It’s still there. It’s just not working right now.

And I hate admitting that, because I know the story. I know the beats. I know how I want it to feel. I know what Hunter is carrying, I know what Peyton is carrying, I know the tension, the guilt, the history, the way their story is supposed to unfold. I know the best friends, the emotional chaos, the whole little world I’ve been building around them.

But knowing a story and getting it out properly are apparently two completely different beasts.

Rude, honestly.

For the last couple years, I’ve been trying to force it. Not always in a dramatic way, but definitely in a stubborn way. I kept thinking if I just sat with it longer, pushed harder, reworked the opening again, moved the pieces around one more time, the book would finally click the way I wanted it to.

And maybe one day it will.

But right now, it feels like I keep dragging it across the floor and calling that progress.

At some point, you have to admit when something is fighting you.

Not because it’s wrong. Not because it’s bad. Not because it doesn’t deserve to be written. Sometimes a story just isn’t ready for the version of you trying to write it. Or maybe you’re not ready for that version of the story yet. Maybe the timing is off. Maybe the structure needs to change. Maybe the whole thing needs to sit in the corner with a juice box and think about what it’s done.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that I can’t keep treating “not working” like it means “try harder in the exact same way.”

That is how you make yourself hate something you actually love.

And I don’t want to hate Hunter and Peyton.

I don’t want to resent the book because I forced myself to keep wrestling with it when my brain was clearly asking for a different door. I want to come back to it when I can see it better. When I have a new game plan. When it feels less like I’m trying to pull teeth out of a manuscript with kitchen tongs.

So while I figure out what that story needs, I’m switching gears.

And this part feels different.

I’ve always known I wanted to write a sapphic romance.

Like, always. It’s been sitting in the back of my brain for years, waving a little gay flag, waiting for me to stop being distracted by emotionally complicated men with guitars and childhood trauma.

Hunter took charge first, because of course he did. Very on brand of him, honestly. He kicked the door open, threw his feelings everywhere, and demanded that his and Peyton’s story be written before anyone else got a turn.

And I listened for a while.

But now?

Now I think it’s time for the sapphic romance.

This new book is going to be loosely based on my girlfriend and me, which feels both terrifying and kind of perfect. Not a direct retelling, obviously. I’m not about to publish our entire emotional audit for public consumption. But the bones of it? The shape of it? The idea of two women who knew each other when they were younger, drifted apart, lived whole lives, became different people, and then somehow found their way back to each other in their 30s?

Yeah.

That feels like something.

Because there is something about that kind of love that hits differently. It’s not “we met once and immediately knew.” It’s not perfectly timed. It’s not clean. It’s years of life happening in between. Bad timing, old versions of yourself, choices you made before you understood who you were, things you had to survive before you could become the person who could love someone properly.

And then somehow, after all that, there they are again.

Same person. Different lifetime.

That is romance to me.

Not just the cute parts, although obviously there will be cute parts because I am not a monster. But the weight of it. The “how did we end up back here?” of it all. The softness of finding someone again when you are finally more yourself than you were the first time.

That’s the story my brain wants right now.

And I think I need to trust that.

Because if there’s anything I’m learning about creativity, it’s that forcing the wrong thing at the wrong time does not make you disciplined.

Sometimes it just makes you miserable with a word count.

And honestly, I have spent enough of my life forcing things that weren’t working.

I forced a marriage to a cis white male to work, for fuck’s sake. I think we can all agree I have done enough community service in the land of “maybe if I try harder, this will magically become right.”

So no, I’m not doing that with my book.

Not anymore.

If Hunter and Peyton need time, they can have time. If that duology needs a new structure, a new approach, or a full sit-down with the emotional HR department, fine. I will get there. I still believe in that story.

But right now, the sapphic book feels alive in a way the other one hasn’t lately.

It feels closer to my chest. It feels like something I can reach for without having to fight my own brain every step of the way. It feels like a story I can write from a place that makes sense for who I am now, not who I was when Hunter first started yelling in my head.

And maybe that’s the point.

Maybe switching gears doesn’t mean quitting. Maybe it means paying attention.

Maybe it means knowing when to stop trying to force one door open and actually turn toward the one that’s already cracked.

I think that’s hard for me, because I don’t like feeling like I didn’t finish something. I don’t like the idea of people thinking I’m bouncing between projects or abandoning one shiny idea for another. But this doesn’t feel like chasing something shiny. It feels like following the story that has momentum right now.

There’s a difference.

Hunter and Peyton will have their time.

The duology will still exist.

Just not first. Not right now.

Right now, I’m writing the sapphic romance.

I’m writing about women finding their way back to each other. About identity and timing and second chances. About small towns and city distance and old feelings that never really stayed buried. About the kind of love that waits in the background until you are finally ready to recognize it for what it was.

And honestly?

That feels right.

A little scary, yes. A little personal, absolutely. A little “oh god, am I really doing this?” obviously.

But right.

And I think I’ve spent enough time ignoring what feels right because I was too busy trying to make something else work.

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So this is me switching gears.

Not giving up.

Not starting over.

Just finally listening to the story that’s actually asking to be written.

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Sometimes the story you’re meant to write first isn’t the one that shouted the loudest. It’s the one that finally feels like home.

Talk soon, Kass ☕🌿