Hey there! I'm Carolyn Rust, and my love for writing dumb stories dates back to the 90s when parents didn't even know where their kids were most of the time. When I wasn't running wild in the neighborhood with my gang of Razor scootin' friends, I was dangerously hacking away at my own stories with scissors and a stapler.

The irony is, even though I loved to write, my elementary school reading grades sucked, and the teacher said I might be "delayed." For years, I thought I hated reading because that's what grades meant, right? Low grade = you suck. Then one day in the school library, I stumbled upon The Redwall series by Brian Jacques. That guy literally changed everything for me. Out of nowhere, I was reading 300-page stories within the timelines AND passing all my reading tests. I was in the 4th grade when I realized I didn't hate reading...

I just hated reading shitty books.

Throughout high school, I began writing my own fantasy stories on stacks of notebook paper between classes and after school, using Jacques' series as my main inspiration. I started a handful of stories I never finished because I had no f*cking clue what I was doing, but I JUST. COULDN'T. STOP. My interests changed as I matured and realized that the dark, desolate real world was nothing like the children's books I'd been reading for all those years. I no longer cared about extraordinary fantasy realms and instead shifted to more contemporary genres that were more relatable.

My SAT scores were abysmal... as were my chances of getting into college. I was too dumb because a standardized test said so, duh! Anyway, I did the next best thing: I joined the Army. I had no issues getting in there because being alive was the primary criterion for acceptance.

In 2013, while deployed to Afghanistan, an idea for a story hit me in a dream (I know, so cliche, right? But shut up... it's true!) I started on the project immediately, using a super shitty laptop I'd bought from a Marine buddy for $75. The poor thing was beat to shit and couldn't do much, but it ran Facebook and Microsoft Word, and gosh darn it, that's all I needed. For the months I was in the Sandbox, I wrote during my free time between military patrols, annoying guard duties, and the indirect fire from enemy mortars.

One day, I was nestled in my bunk, balancing my laptop and a to-go plate of French toast on my lap, (0/10, don't recommend!) and I was trying to open one of those single-serve tubs of fake syrup when WHAM, it flew out of my hands all over the keyboard. (I'd like to blame some cool reason, like a fiery explosion, but no, it was just my own dumbass's fault.) That right there was the most challenging obstacle to overcome thus far. Half the keyboard was perpetually sticky, and the keys stayed stuck when I typed. Just so you know, I have a real issue with sticky, okay? I'd have to pry up the keys with my knife, then delete all the jjjjjjjjjjjjjj kkkkkkkkkkkk yyyyyyy that had sprung up. The K was the worst, and eventually I just ripped the plastic key off entirely and used the little nub left behind.

But I COULDN'T STOP writing!

Y'all, it's now 2024. It's been TEN years since I started that story. I have rewritten it dozens of times and restarted it from scratch at least once. I've gone through three other laptops. I've given up several times, leaving the manuscript untouched for over a year. Then, the nagging urge would make me blow off the virtual dust and keep going. I've gotten married, had kids, moved six times, been broke and on government assistance, bought a house with our last dollar, and everything else in between. I've watched thousands of hours of writing videos and read hundreds of pages of writing advice, but the most important thing I was missing was ultimately... life experience. Going through war, watching people's struggles, and just witnessing the world around me fed my imagination and finally allowed me to find my true writing voice. And it turned out to be dark, cynical, sarcastic, and violent... with a sprinkling of humor and hope added in. Hey, don't blame me, okay? At first, how I wrote scared me, and I tried to smother my voice and write in a tame, safe way. But that way sucked and felt soulless. I struggled with the fact that people would judge me. If you don't want to see the world like a salty soldier sees it, do me a favor and don't bother reading my books. But if you're a sarcastic sonofabitch with a bleak life view, and you wash your mental trauma down with dark humor as a coping mechanism, then maybe you'll enjoy my debut novel, KILL ME BEFORE I DIE. I plan to launch it at the beginning of 2025, so if you're interested, be sure to sign up for pre-launch notifications. 

In the meantime, feel free to hit me up on the contact page if you want to chat. I'd love to meet you and hear your story--Because everyone has one, after all.