Origin Story

I've often said throughout my life that I wrote like my life depended on it. Because often it did.

That may sound dramatic. But writing was one of the few (and sometimes only) healthy outlets I had to deal with my less than pleasant youth. By the time I was a teenager, my homelife had deteriorated to the point that, in a desperate attempt to escape, I ran away for three months. I struck out into the streets armed with nothing but a knife and a cutthroat cigarette smile to protect me. The only items in my backpack were two changes of clothes, some basic toiletry supplies, and (most importantly) a binder stuffed full of all the poetry and prose I had ever written.

I was willing to leave everything else behind. Because nothing else mattered.

Cut to midlife, when I found myself in a similar state of spectacular disarray. After a failed marriage and the loss of my most beloved canine companion that got me through that particularly painful divorce, I was lower than low. Again, I craved escape. Only not just from my life, but life itself.

In the midst of severe depression and self-destructive ideation, I turned to an old coping mechanism I'd repressed and mostly abandoned over time. I started writing, but not just recreationally. I was manic, writing late into the night, isolating and losing all sense of time.

Just like it did when I was younger, writing didn't just give me an outlet. It gave me a purpose. It distracted me from dark thoughts and old demons that threatened to manifest themselves into reality. Once again, I was writing like my life depended on it.

About three weeks later, I realized the story that started with that one sentence ("How do you tame a wild thought?") had become a full-fledged book. Soon after, I became a published author of that book. After some reflection, I realized I'd become something else too.

Or rather, someone.

I had begun to view my past marriage and penchant for monogamy as a prison. Empowered by this new perspective, I decided to adopt a new attitude—one that didn't deny my primal needs or limit my opportunities for happiness and sexual satisfaction.

After an unexpected one night stand in Chicago that marked the end of my unintended celibacy since my divorce, I remembered something. That I was once a voracious sexual being who thrived on passionate exploration.

I spent the rest of that summer reacquainting myself with that wild woman I once knew. It turned out to be the best year of my fucking life.

Rogue Merlot was officially born to the world in 2024. But she was always there inside of me, a green-eyed Goddess that refused to be tamed. And even when she was kept in chains, she eventually broke through like the savage warrior she is.

Now she wears all her inner scars as proudly as her outer tattoos, piercings, and edgy hair. Because she has never been normal or mainstream. She has always been the outcast, the underdog, the anti-heroine. She has always been a fighter, a rebel, and a survivor.

She has always been me. And I will always be her.

Rogue Merlot has longed to meet the whole world because nothing less will satisfy. I've longed for the whole world to meet her. And now you can, through my words.

I'm reminded again of that one thought that kickstarted the character Jessie James West in True To My Name—How do you tame a wild thought?

The same way you tame a wild woman—you don't.

You make it (and her) a reality.

Here's to happy reading . . . and those wild, wine-soaked nights :)

Rogue Merlot