Lily Writes

Before the Characters Were Unlocked

Before I retired from my job and claimed control over my daily writing routine.
Before I believed I could write my own books and send them into the world.
Before there was Lily P. Archer.

There were blocks. Big ones.

These days, in the firehose of creativity and release I’m experiencing, it’s easy to forget the decades of silence—the suppression, the censorship—I lived under. But back then? The barricade was real. So real I didn’t even recognize it. I slammed into it daily, reining myself in, suffocating the voice that kept begging to be heard.

Inside, I was struggling. I journaled. I devoured self-help books. I searched for mentors, jobs, role models—anything that could fill the aching emptiness I carried. Sometimes the pain dulled, distracted by busyness. But it always returned, whispering:

There’s something else you want to do. Something you’re afraid to admit. If you try, people will see who you really are. And they might not like it. Maybe it’s not good enough.

I went to therapy. For years. Eventually, I admitted my secret desire: I wanted to be a writer. At that time, I had twelve manuscripts hidden in a box in the basement, written on an old typewriter. My therapist urged me to go get them, to bring them into the light, to take the dream seriously.

So I did. I pulled out the box—only to discover that the cat had peed on them. Twenty years of words, destroyed. It felt like the ultimate critique. I threw them out. (He was a rescue cat and a bit of a challenge. We still loved him.)

And then I waited another fifteen years before I dared to try again.

So what changed?

I stopped writing for anyone else.
I stopped imagining readers at all.

I just started writing what I wanted to read.
Book 1 was for me. Then Book 2. Book 3. Book 4.

My “dirty little secret” began to grow—characters, worlds, storylines piling up on my hard drive. Still, I told myself: No one will ever read these. This is just for me.

But then I thought… wouldn’t it be nice to hold one in my hands? To see it as a paperback? Just for me.

I already knew how to publish through Kindle Direct—I’d helped senior citizens in my parents’ retirement home turn their memoirs into books, helped others bring their legacy stories to life. Why not me?

So I did it.

And then—someone bought a copy.
And then people started reading on Kindle Unlimited.
And then feedback began trickling in from readers in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Germany, Australia…

Meanwhile, I couldn’t even convince my sisters to read my books. And yet strangers, halfway around the world, were connecting with my characters.

And suddenly, the floodgates opened. Characters clamored, Me next! Me next!

Now, with each story, I push myself a little further. I challenge myself to layer more, to write more nuance, to stretch the edges of my craft. To become the writer I once thought I couldn’t be.

Maybe that’s why the writer’s block finally shattered.

Because it was never about writing for others.

It was about writing for me.