hands around the warm mug, letting it thaw her fingers. The glow from her laptop screen bathed the small table in pale light.
But this?
This was different.
The freedom of fiction — no constraint, just her imagination. It felt more daunting than liberating. She suddenly longed for the com- forting rigidity of legal statutes, the predicta- ble cadence of courtroom procedures. She sighed, glancing toward the kitchen window. The sun was fully up now, and she was getting nowhere with her writing. May- be she just needed to let the story percolate. Kat reached for her coffee, took a slow sip, and stared at the blinking cursor once more.
“Chapter 1.”
The cursor blinked expectantly. She drummed her fingers against the tabletop. With a deep breath, she placed her fingers on the keyboard and began to type. “The waves crashed violently against the shore, a storm brewing on the horizon." She read it back. Crashed violently? Ugh. Cliché. She hit delete.
She tried again.
Kat sighed, shutting her laptop with a quiet
“Detective Morgan studied the bloodied footprints trailing down the dock, the salt air thick with the scent of decay." Kat frowned. Too much, too soon. She did- n’t want to start with blood— she wanted suspense, not gore. She tapped the backspace key harder than necessary, the small dinette table wobbling slightly beneath her frustration. Kat leaned back with a groan, rubbing her temples. “What did you expect, Kat? That you’d write a best -selling thriller right out of the gate?” “Of course, I did,” she admitted to herself, a wry smile tugging at the corner of her lips. After all, she had spent years crafting air- tight arguments, dismantling opposing counsel’s defenses with precision. Writing had always come easily. Legal briefs, closing statements, depositions — she could wield language like a weapon.
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