HELP. I Keep Dreaming About the END OF THE WORLD.

Yours truly as a young survival enthusiast.
This was at the family cabin, my wilderness.

I will be the first person in the room to say that I do not want the end of the world to come anytime soon. I mean, look. I like my Netflix, I enjoy my electric blanket and I adore hot showers. Without them, I would be considerably grouchy and quite possibly, entirely intolerable. I like technology. My entire business is basically digital. So why do I keep having dreams about the end of the world? 
I BLAME MY BOOKS. I see no reason to beat around the bush here. I have been writing post-apocalyptic fiction at a rather frenetic pace for three years now, and I feel like I'm becoming more than just a closet prepper. I'm becoming a post-ap nerd. A survivalist enthusiast. Shows like The Walking Dead are like documentaries to me. I have a problem, ladies and gentlemen. The majority of the time, I close my eyes and night and dream about survival situations. Oops, are those ashes falling from the sky? I wake up in the middle of the night and am gripped by a sudden urge to throw my belongings into a backpack and squirrel away supplies in a hidden compartment in the floor. 

SURVIVAL. 

It's all about staying alive. While I'm clearly exaggerating here (or am I?), I have been fascinated with survival stories since an extremely young age. I noticed my fascination with the subject when I was about six years old, refusing to come inside and claiming that the sand-dollar tree in my backyard was my new abode. Forget oatmeal and scrambled eggs. Mud pies would just have to suffice. 

Always hiking. Exploring.
Notice the survival backpack.
Just saying.

It's really not a huge surprise to me that I ended up writing post-apocalyptic fiction in high school. As an adult, writing it professionally has been an incredibly insightful journey, and I find myself driving down the street some days, thinking to myself, What if it all ended right now? What would I do? 

Depressing? Yeah, a little. But accurate. Let's face it: we're all a bit fascinated with the "what if" questions of life. For myself, being inundated with end-of-the-world facts and fiction has sunk so deep into my brain, it will probably take a lifetime to stop dreaming about it. But you know what? I'm okay with that, because it's one of the story premises that I love. It's my absolute favorite. So excuse me while I work on my tenth post-apocalyptic book...happy reading. And remember: be prepared for ANYTHING.