People assume chaos is loud — all noise and motion. For me, it’s quieter. It slips in when I’m not paying attention. Thoughts wander even when my body sits still. ADHD, the inattentive kind, isn’t about bouncing off walls. It’s more like autumn leaves drifting — beautiful, scattered, and hard to catch.
That’s why I need discipline. My lifeline. I need a to-do list for everything I have to accomplish. But when it comes to fiction, I can only handle the barest outlines. Anything more and the story stops moving.
Structure doesn’t control creativity — it allows it to exist. Routines, notes, reminders, lists… they hold ideas long enough for me to catch them. Without them, stories would stay half-formed sparks. And trust me, I have folders full of those sparks — abandoned beginnings, floating ideas, paragraphs that may never see the light of day. The stories that do get out into the world? They’re the ones where I’ve found a discipline that works for me.
And my characters? They live in the same tension. Some are loud and reckless. Some are quiet and careful. All of them balance acting in the moment with preparing for what comes next.
I’m drawn to rogues, mercenaries, and antiheroes not because they’re reckless, but because they push against systems that don’t fit them. They break rules, but with purpose. They stumble, adapt, improvise — not out of chaos, but because they notice angles most people miss.
Quiet sparks that start rebellions have always been more compelling to me than loud, immediate defiance.
My protagonists don’t roar; they smolder. They slip past obstacles, question authority, and do the right thing even when it means stepping outside the lines. Maybe that resonates because my mind works the same way — wandering, curious, always searching for the meaningful threads beneath the surface distractions.
And then there’s Bad Karma. She dares and wins because she trains, reviews, and prepares to act in the moment — whatever the moment requires.
Discipline helps me catch those threads.
Chaos helps me tug on them.
Writing, for me, is a balance: routines that ground me, paired with characters who remind me that coloring outside the lines is where truth hides. Structure and rebellion. That’s exactly where stories come alive.
If you’re drawn to characters who don’t fit neatly into boxes, who quietly bend the rules for the right reasons, who fight their battles in ways that aren’t always obvious… then you’re right at home here.
Keith Hedger's Home for Fiction 