About Me

Hey, I’m R.P. Lawrence. I write sci-fi and fantasy (with a bit of contemporary on the side). Right now I’m based in Paris, working full-time as a waiter and part-time building entire worlds from scratch.

I came to writing kind of late. I grew up thinking I wasn’t really allowed to write. Dyslexia and school adults can do that to you. But around 25, something shifted. I read Mushoku Tensei, started sketching out this weird concept about a character trapped in a white void, fighting through different video game worlds. It started out as a kind of narrative walkthrough/let's play concept (for Youtube), but the more I got into the characters and the world, the more I realized: I didn’t want to borrow other stories. I wanted to build my own.

After a short-lived (three-day) attempt to teach myself how to draw manga, I landed on the one medium I could shape entirely with the tools I already had: the novel.

Since then, writing has been the place where everything I love collides. Philosophy, storytelling, gaming, anime, and fashion (yeah, I used to be a stylist too). I grew up on Star Wars, Akira, Marvel, Ghibli, and a long list of manga that were way deeper than I realized at the time. My influences now range from The Poppy War to The Expanse to Dune (both the book and the films). Music, visual art, aesthetics, cultures, it all feeds my work.

When I’m not writing, I’m probably working a shift, then squeezing in 2–4 hours of writing in the evening. My days off are split: one for resting my brain, one for getting completely lost in the work. Paris can be inspiring, but also exhausting. It’s a lot of art and noise, which can either fill your creative tank or completely drain it.

What do I want readers to feel? That spark I felt the first time I watched The Clone Wars or got pulled into a Ghibli world. I want the stories to make you imagine your own adventures, but also to make you think, question, and re-imagine the way societies work.

This homepage is where I’ll share my process, my thoughts, my worldbuilding; all the messy behind-the-scenes stuff most writers keep hidden. If that sounds like your thing, stick around.

Oh, and if you’re wondering why I go by R.P. Lawrence... that’s a story for another time