The Soundtrack of Survival

I have always processed life through music. Music runs in my veins.

Not in a passive way. Not just background noise while I cook or drive. Music has always been structural for me, a way to understand what I am feeling when words do not fit.

Before I wrote novels, I wrote lyrics.

Long before publishing, before businesses, before the worlds I build now, I was in bands. I stood under stage lights. I learned how to hold a microphone and pour something internal into sound. Those years shaped me in ways I did not fully understand at the time and have stayed with me ever since. I regret giving up on music in that way, but I followed another path and let music come with me.

I left home at nineteen to join a girl band. Part of that was ambition. Part of it was survival. When you grow up in noise and instability, stage lights feel like clarity. Applause can feel like love. Rhythm feels like order. A song has a beginning, middle, and end. Real life rarely does.

I learned to contain emotion young. I learned to stay steady. I learned that not every feeling needed to be displayed. But music gave those feelings somewhere safe to exist. I did not have to explain myself. I did not have to perform vulnerability in front of people. I could sit in a song and let it translate what I could not.

That habit never left me.

Now I write books instead of lyrics, but the process is the same. A single line in a song can unlock an entire story for me. A restrained vocal can build a character. A bridge that cracks without breaking can shape the emotional spine of something much bigger.

Recently, I wrote something again in lyric form.

A series of ages.
Moments that shaped me.
The architecture that formed from chaos. The why to who I became and why I write the books I do.

I do not play musical instruments. I have always been terrible at coming up with melodies. Rhythm lives in my head, but it never quite lands in my hands. So treat this as a poem if you like. I once won an award for a poem, so I am comfortable leaving words to stand on their own.

If you happen to read it and hear a song in it, then hell yes, feel free to reach out. I would love to hear this turn into something musical.

Fortress

(Verse 1 – 6)
Six years old I came home to quiet,
House still warm but something violent.
They said she’s gone, just holiday air,
Two weeks later the truth laid bare.

Next-door shadows, closed front gate,
I learned early love can vacate.
Didn’t scream, didn’t beg
Just folded feeling in my chest.

(Verse 2 – 9)
Nine years old and I packed my case,
Stuffed in my quiet, left that place.
Didn’t cry in the doorway light
I chose distance over fight.

I don’t shatter when rooms explode,
I memorise the exit code.
Door in sight, back to the wall
I don’t get caught, I don’t let fall.

(Pre-Chorus)
Flirt too close, I step aside.
Attention’s cheap I watch for lies.

(Chorus)
I’m not cold, I’m calculated,
Every boundary calibrated.
I don’t open just to prove
I can bend or that I can move.
I built steel from what I saw
Love without a safety law.
Call it guarded, call it strong
I survived. I carried on.

(Verse 3 – 12 & 16)
Twelve in a chair with a painted face,
They said I’d learned to displace.
Blank expression, steady tone
I’d already raised my own backbone.

Sixteen, a letter in my hand,
Accused of lies, I didn’t understand.
Turns out they’d already known
I’d been searched for what wasn’t shown.

(Pre-Chorus)
Truth doesn’t always shout and cry
Sometimes it just learns to survive.

(Chorus)
I’m not broken, I’m refined,
Every scar a sharpened line.
And when I flinch, I don’t explain,
because I built my peace from pain.
If I love, it’s rare and clean
Chosen, earned, and fiercely seen.

(Verse 4 – 18, 19, 20)
Eighteen and eyes on neon signs,
Dreamed in stage lights, bold headlines.
Loaded ambition in a case,
Left that house without a trace.

Nineteen, a city, loud and fast,
Fame felt close, I ran at haste.
Twenty and the spotlight flickers thin,
Dreams don’t always let you win.

(Pre-Chorus)
I don’t break when plans fall through,
I just rebuild, start something new.

(Verse 5 – 21)
Twenty-one and it started slow,
Friendship first, then undertow.
He said love but held it tight,
Used affection like a fight.

Taught me how a kiss can bruise,
How charm can twist, and truth can lose.
So I learned again, recalibrate
Love without respect’s a melting plate.

(Chorus)
I’m not cold, I’m educated,
Every heartbreak annotated.
I don’t run, and I don’t chase,
I won’t trade my centre place.
Call it guarded, call it wise,
but I’ve seen love weaponised.

(Bridge – adult voice)
Don’t mistake the calm for small,
I’ve stood steady through it all.
You see distant, I see aware
I learned young to self-repair.

(Final Chorus)
I’m not hardened, I’m awake,
Every lesson shaped my shape.
If I hesitate, I have learned
Not every fire should be burned.
I’m not distant, I remain
I built my peace from every pain.
Call it fortress, call it frame
I survived and kept my name.

I survived and learned to heal.
Chin up. Eyes front, feet forward.
Let the past stay where it fell.
Leave the heartbreak back in hell.