Blog

I have not always loved to write, and I’m still figuring out exactly where my voice belongs.

For most people, “finding a niche” sounds like a business decision. For me, it feels more like a pilgrimage. I don’t sit down at the desk as if it were one thing. I come as the kid who learned to survive by observing everything, the veteran who has seen the sharp edges of the world, the man of faith who has wrestled with God in the dark, and the working writer who just plain loves language. So instead of choosing one lane, I’ve been writing my way through all of them.

Lately, that journey has taken some unexpected turns. I’ve been writing songs and letting AI sing them, taking the stories in my head and pushing them through a different kind of instrument. There’s something wild about hearing a melody you wrote come back to you in a voice that doesn’t get tired, doesn’t miss a note, and doesn’t bring its own ego to the mic. It’s not a replacement for real singers; it’s a tool that lets me experiment, stretch, and explore sound the way I am exploring sentences.

On the page, I’ve never stayed married to a single genre. I’ve written fiction that lets me test the “what ifs” of human nature, non‑fiction that tries to make sense of the world as it is, and memoir that pulls straight from the scars and miracles of my own life. Each form demands something different. Fiction wants imagination and empathy. Non‑fiction demands clarity and responsibility. Memoir asks for courage and honesty, even when the truth doesn’t make me look good. I’m drawn to all three, because each one lets me tell the truth from a different angle.

Then there’s poetry, the place I go when prose feels too blunt. Poetry lets me get away with saying the quiet parts out loud. A single line can do what ten paragraphs of explanation can’t. It’s where I distill the questions I can’t shake: pain, faith, justice, heartbreak, hope. Sometimes those poems never leave my notebook. Sometimes they become the seed of a song, a scene, or a chapter. Either way, poetry is where I keep my edges sharp.

And behind the scenes, there’s another version of me that not everyone knows about: Lex Nemo.

Under that alias, I write practical guides to help people navigate legal issues in Missouri, things most folks never learn until they’re already in trouble or standing in front of a clerk’s window, confused and frustrated. Lex Nemo exists so I can step into a different voice: calm, clear, and ruthlessly practical. It’s less about storytelling and more about service. The goal there isn’t to impress anyone; it’s to hand them a flashlight in a system that often feels designed to keep them in the dark.

So where does all that leave me?

On paper, it sounds scattered: music with AI vocals, fiction, non‑fiction, memoir, poetry, and legal guides under a pen name. But there’s a thread running through all of it. At the core, I write for people who are in the middle of something hard, a breakup, a court case, a crisis of faith, a season where nothing feels stable. Sometimes I bring comfort. Sometimes I bring clarity. Sometimes I just bring company.

I don’t know yet if my niche will end up being “faith‑soaked memoir,” “blue‑collar legal education,” “AI‑backed songwriting,” or something nobody has named yet. What I do know is this: I’m not going to find it by sitting still and thinking about it. I’m going to find it by writing, by following curiosity, by paying attention to what resonates with readers, and by paying even closer attention to what refuses to let go of me.

For now, I’m giving myself permission to experiment in public. To let the outlaw country fan sit next to the legal educator. To let the poet inform the songwriter. To let the memoirist and the fiction writer borrow from each other’s courage. And to let Lex Nemo keep quietly helping people stand a little taller when they walk into a Missouri courthouse.

If you’re reading this, you’re catching me mid‑journey, not at the destination. Maybe that’s the point. My niche isn’t a box I’ll climb into; it’s a trail I’m cutting as I go, one song, one story, one guide, one poem at a time.

Is there one of those directions, music, memoir, legal guides, or fiction, that you’d most like to see me lean into next?

I did not come to the page from an easy road. My story begins in foster homes, group homes, and DYS facilities, learning early how to survive systems that were never built with kids like me in mind. Those years hardened me in some ways, but they also carved out a stubborn belief that life could be different, that a future could be chosen instead of assigned.

At sixteen I earned my GED, at eighteen my diploma, and then I put on a uniform and stepped into two wars and countless humanitarian missions. Service taught me about sacrifice, responsibility, and what it means to stand in the gap when no one else will. Coming home did not end the battles. In 1995, in a blur of weeks, I was arrested, convicted of stealing, forgery, and possession of stolen property, and sent to the Missouri Department of Corrections for drug treatment—despite never having used drugs. It was during a time when Missouri prisons were so overcrowded that men were housed in tents, counties took months to transfer inmates, and some were shipped to Texas just to make space. I served every day of that sentence, but I refused to surrender my future.

Behind those walls and after release, rebuilding became my full‑time mission. I paid every dollar of child support before my child graduated high school, built and operated an electrical contracting company, launched a private investigations firm, earned real estate and life insurance licenses, opened a travel agency, worked as a tax consultant, became an Enrolled Agent with the IRS, finished a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering, and even spent a semester in law school. I poured myself into being a husband and stepfather, coaching youth football, leading Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, and serving as a Freemason, Shriner, and member of several appendant bodies—trying to give stability I never had.

Out of all of that came a burden for veterans walking their own hard roads, which grew into the nonprofit Veteran Hope Alliance, serving those who need food, camaraderie in the outdoors, and practical help getting to counseling or critical services. Today I stand as an author, veteran, and storyteller whose work spans legal self‑help, poetry, and true‑to‑life narratives rooted in real experience.

This is why I write. Every page I publish carries the weight of foster homes, foxholes, prison yards, and boardrooms. The legal guides exist because I have seen how fast the system can take your life apart and how confusing it can be to put it back together. The poetry comes from nights when words were the only way through grief, regret, and the stubborn little ember of hope that refused to die. The stories are stitched together from people I’ve met along the way—the broken, the resilient, the ones no one expects to rise again.

When you pick up one of my books or read a poem on this site, you are not getting theory; you are getting lessons paid for in years, scars, and second chances. I write to help everyday people face hard moments with clarity, courage, and the quiet assurance that they are not alone. These are truly words forged in fire, offered so that somewhere, someone staring at their own wreckage can begin to believe there is still a way forward.

Introduction

Words Forged in Fire: Why I Write