The story behind Lani and Elliot

When I first started writing Coffee Breaks and Complications, I honestly didn’t know what it was going to turn into. I just knew I needed an outlet and I wanted to write something that felt real, authentic and fun.

The only idea I had, in terms of a starting point, was two people who didn’t quite understand each other but couldn’t seem to stay out of each other’s way.

I wanted it to have an air of nostalgia, like the old-school early noughties rom-coms I was so obsessed growing up, but I also wanted it to reflect me; a Black British woman, closer to 30 than I care to admit, with a mouth like a sailor, just trying the get through life with minimal breakdowns.

It was something that I never really saw or read growing up but, looking back, could have really used.

The setting came quite naturally. London felt like the perfect backdrop — busy, fast-paced, the type of city where things get done (everything except politics, but that’s a different story).

And then came the characters.

Lani came to me quite quickly.

She’s ambitious, she’s focused, she’s funny and she likes to feel in control of her life. Her character was shaped by so many strong women in my life as well as a little bit of the person I wish I was.

She is 100% unapologetically herself no matter what, and that’s one of the many reasons I loved writing her.

Elliot was more of a challenge. First of all writing as a guy is WEIRD, the amount of times I deleted complete paragraphs because his voice wasn’t quite right was unbelievable.

But the more I wrote as him, the more I got into the groove I realised that while he was a challenge for me to write he could also be a challenge for Lani in the story and that’s where it clicked!

Lani and Elliot don’t communicate well.

They assume.
They misread each other.
They react instead of asking questions.

And yet… they keep coming back to each other.

At its core, Coffee Breaks and Complications is about connection. It’s about timing, and miscommunication, and the moments where you have to decide whether to keep pretending something doesn’t matter… or finally admit that it does.

And I can’t bloody believe I wrote it!!