How This Literary Form Found Me — Before I Even Knew I Was Creating One
Updated: Jun 27
I didn’t start writing with the intention
of creating a new form.
I wrote because I was hurting,
overwhelmed,
and trying to breathe.
I’ve always written that way —
short lines,
quick thoughts,
whatever my heart needed
to release in the moment.
As a mother of eight,
I don’t have the luxury of long,
polished paragraphs or
perfect grammar.
My life moves fast.
My mind moves fast.
And my writing has always come out
in bursts.
That’s how I’ve survived
transitions,
heartbreak,
and the weight
of everything I carry.
And to be honest,
I didn’t have the time
or the mental space
to fight with Microsoft Word —
the indents,
the spacing,
the grammar rules,
the “proper” structure.
I wasn’t trying to build perfect paragraphs.
I was trying to stay afloat.
So I wrote the only way I could —
freely,
breath by breath,
line by line.
And somewhere in that freedom,
the lyrical prose
began to rise
on its own.
When I finished pouring out my story —
the raw, unfiltered version —
I sat there in my ruins
Sad —
thinking,
Why would I air my most vulnerable moments?
Why would I put my whole heart on display
if it doesn’t help someone else?
I didn’t want to release something
that was just my pain on paper.
I needed it to mean something.
I needed it to give something.
I needed it to breathe life
into someone other than me.
That heaviness
is what pushed me
to create the Dispatches —
the grounding voice,
the breath,
the clarity
I needed
after releasing so much pain.
Later,
I added the
“For the Sister Who…" pages
because I realized
this structure wasn’t just about me.
It was about the busy woman,
the tired woman,
the mother,
the survivor —
the woman who doesn’t have time
to read 20 pages
to get one breakthrough.
I wrote the way I talk to myself,
the way God speaks to my spirit,
the way I wish someone had spoken to me
when I was younger
and breaking.
But here’s the thing —
I didn’t realize
I had created a new literary form
until I had to choose a genre:
memoir,
self‑help,
devotional,
spoken word—
and every single one of them fit,
but none of them fit completely.
My work was all four at once.
There was no shelf for it.
No category.
No place to put it.
So I built the shelf
myself.
That’s when I understood —
this wasn’t just
a stylistic choice.
This structure naturally delivers
maximum meaning,
maximum clarity,
and maximum healing
in the shortest amount of time —
because that’s what my life required.
And as I kept writing,
I realized
it wasn’t just helping me.
It was a rhythm
other busy women
could actually use —
women who need truth
they can absorb quickly,
breathe through,
and carry with them.
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