My Writing Style: How My Oregon Roots Shape Every Story I Write

I get asked sometimes why I write the stories I do. Why small towns? Why secrets? Why families that look fine on the outside but are held together with duct tape and denial? Why so many Oregon backroads and riverbanks and pine trees that feel like they could talk if they felt like it?

Long answer. Right on the heels of an idea comes a character. Usually the protagonist, acting like they’ve been waiting for me to show up. They hand me their mess and expect me to make sense of it.

I am not a plotter. I do not outline. I do not color code anything. There is no wall of sticky notes in my office. If there ever is, assume I have been replaced by a pod person. I write by feel. Curiosity. Gut. I follow the characters the way you follow a noise in the dark. You know something is out there. You just do not know if it is a raccoon or the start of a whole new life.

Usually it starts with a moment. A single scene. Sometimes just a line of dialogue that refuses to be quiet. In Memories of an Ash Covered Sky it is Chief Wilcox gripping the steering wheel before dawn or Sky standing on the side of the highway with a backpack, a challenging past, and limited options. A quiet cul de sac where the houses look normal enough until you pay attention. Or Mitch Wilde in The Rogue River Incident, shoulder-deep in trouble he cannot escape, firing off some smart ass remark while trying to pretend he has his life together. Mitch is the part of me that cannot resist chasing a trail just to see where it goes. The outdoor wanderer. The guy with a camera always ready. The cyclist who thinks a long ride will fix whatever he refuses to talk about. He pushes into the world the same way I do. Fast. Curious. A little reckless. Always hoping the view around the bend is worth it.

Truth is, I never had the patience required for plotting. Ask my family. Even as a kid I could not sit still. Legs always aching from growing too fast. Energy of a baby goat. Curiosity pulling me toward whatever might be around the corner. As long as it was not scary. If it scared me, then suddenly I could wait forever. I could out-plot the most dedicated strategist if it meant avoiding whatever monster my imagination cooked up in the dark. I was never accused of being fearless as a kid. Unless you put me on a bicycle and told me to jump off a mound of gravel. "Okay, I can do that."

That streak never left. I follow the things that spark. I linger on the things that make me nervous. And somewhere in that mix a story takes shape.

Those flashes show up uninvited. I chase them. The chase turns into a book.

The same themes keep bubbling up, whether I ask for them or not. Families trying to find their way back to each other. People carrying a past they wish they could undo, learning to live with the parts that will not let go. Secrets that sit in the center of a life like a boulder that will not budge no matter how many times you try to roll it out of the way. Fresh starts that do not erase anything but give a little breathing room, a little light, a chance to move forward without breaking under the weight. I never sit down and decide to write about forgiveness or redemption or any of that. The characters show up hauling their stories, their pain, their guilt, their hope. I try to keep up. And so far I do not stop writing until I feel them settle. Until something in their world finds even the smallest sense of closure, a moment where they can finally breathe again.

Place is baked into all of it. Southern Oregon is home base in my head. The Rogue River. The mystery and depth of Crater Lake. The sharp, clean magnificence of Mt. McLoughlin. The wide desolation of the Oregon Outback. The kind of highway that shifts from pretty to lonely in ten minutes flat. The forests that feel peaceful at noon and unsettling by dusk. I like that tension. Calm on the surface, something else moving underneath. It is probably why my stories feel like they could happen on the next street over. Because they could.

Writing as a pantser* means I am discovering everything right alongside the reader. One chapter at a time. One clue at a time. One honest moment at a time. I do not know the ending when I start. Half the time I do not know what is coming two scenes from now. I write to find out what happens. It feels less like making something up and more like opening a door and describing what is already there.

People sometimes think writers pick their stories off a shelf. I do not. The stories pick me. They show up with bruises, bad decisions, a little bit of hope, and say something like, this happened. Tell it the way it feels. Not the cleaned up version. The real one.

So that is why I write what I write. Because these characters wander in out of nowhere and refuse to leave. Because Oregon keeps offering me one more what if. Because I am a sucker for second chances, even messy ones. Especially messy ones. And because, like you, I can't wait to see what happens.

And, because there is something honest in sitting down, taking a breath, and letting the story walk ahead while you try to keep up.

Thanks for reading.

*A plotter plans their story in detail before writing, using an outline to guide the narrative, while a pantser writes "by the seat of their pants," discovering the story as they go with little to no pre-planning. A third style, the plantser, combines elements of both methods, using a basic outline but filling in details spontaneously.