I Wrote A Novel!

I've been writing my own things since I was seven years old, when I wrote my first poem that wasn't an assignment for class. My father took that funky little poem with it's not-always-exactly-rhyming lines and called each of his six siblings and read the entire thing to them over the phone.

This, I thought, was powerful. This is what I want to do. Nothing else I did ever brought me that kind of reaction from my dad or my mom. So my future was chosen.

Of course, I mostly wrote short stories growing up, and the beginnings of novels. In college it was all short stories and expository pieces. When I went back to school to get my technical writing degree, what I wrote was even further removed from my dream of writing a novel.

I'm Rambling Blue Today

Today I have no umph. I don't care about much, I'm not particularly hungry but I was craving ice cream and cookies before lunch (peanut butter and butter on english muffins). There is a dark chocolate bar in the fridge but I don't have any real compulsion to go get it. I feel vague and kinda numb.

I'm feeling depressed.

Nothing specific I can think of, except that I am still struggling and needing therapy and meds (and the meds are probably forever, at least some of them). 

I even woke up feeling kinda good because my mom was in my dreams and it was her voice saying the kinds of things she would say (I think we were shopping). It felt nice waking up with her voice in my head.

But since then the day has gone downhill. I keep saying I'll go to the farmer's market on Thursdays (3pm to 7pm), but I don't want to today. I don't want contact with strangers. I want my mom, but that aside, I'd like to be with one of my close friends. Maybe they'd hold my hand and stroke my hair and tell me it's all going to be okay, because I feel like it's all going to be bad and just fall apart.

Still alive, not exactly kicking tho'

Yes, it has been a very long time. I apologize. When I feel overwhelmed, I tend to conserve my energy.

I will write more posts. As for now, check out The Tribune. I've been writing articles. But there was a big smash-up today and now "I be uh editore". That's okay: I'm not aggressive and I found many things were actually painful for me to do (calling the same source very five minutes for updates on breaking news, that sort of thing).

Some articles were a pleasure, tho', so I hope I get other chances for those types.

Writing for a newspaper has taught me a great deal. Editing will teach me more. I love learning, even if I'm making only $10/hour and now working only 10 hours/week. And my unemployment is due to run out at any time.

What the hell! It's only money, right? And if I run out next year, can I live in someone's basement? Or attic? Or little shack/garage out back? I'll be good....

Love you all.

Who Am I and Why Am I Blogging?

As of this writing at the beginning of my travels, I am 47 years old. I am a caucasian female with a couple of undergraduate degrees, and a long career in high tech that I abandoned during the high tech crash in 2001 when I went to live near my mom and grandma on the Oregon Coast.

I have hit a wall in my life: what do I do next? A many-year contract editing scientific reports for a government department ended and I found myself uninterested in and unwilling to simply return to high tech, perhaps in Portland OR, which would be a simple choice for most people. And I finally wanted to put in some very real time and effort on my own writing: can I do anything of my own? What do I want to write? Can I make anything of it? I am finding that full-on mental clarity and serenity demand that I write.

So I decided to take time off, to travel. My early, grandiose dreams of a year in Europe finally spiraled into a one- or two-month road trip in the US. I decided to pursue warmth and sunlight. Even though it is now November, the southwestern states will be warmer and sunnier than even the central Oregon Coast was this summer!

I sold and donated large portions of my belongings and finally ended up with two 5x8x10 storage units. (One of them is stacked to the rafters with boxes! I will have to hire movers because I am not taking them down myself.) I had hoped to end up with just one, but that’s how it goes. I imagine I will sort more things out to sell or donate once I am not hell-bent on getting underway!

My constant traveling companions are a black sheepskin teddy bear named Tobias (Mr. Tobias Bear for long, “Tobe” for short), a baby Aloe Vera plant which is currently unnamed (“Al” seems so trite), and a tiny black plush cat who is keeping her name to herself so far. The Aloe is the 5th or 6th generation of the same plant I started with about 15 years ago.

I am taking this trip to get away from my usual life and see who and what I am when I am not surrounded by people who know me in one way. I need space and time to write where I don’t have all the things that I ordinarily let distract me. And I need to be warm, to have sunlight. After 31 years in the Pacific Northwest, 29 of it in the gray and rainy parts, I can no longer stand the gray and rainy parts. Besides, I’ve never been to Arizona and New Mexico and Texas, and a whole lot of other states.

I am writing this blog to keep my friends and family up to date (so I don’t have to write the same things to each of them in email), to keep myself writing something on a regular basis, and to learn blogging (I want to return to at least some of my high-tech roots).

Perhaps, if I am fortunate, I will also be able to use some of the entries as part of my portfolio when I am ready to return to the workforce. My one fear in this arena is that potential employers will look at my 7+ years away from writing as meaning I cannot write any longer. But writing isn’t like being current with the latest software; writing is a skill that you keep, like riding a bicycle or blowing bubbles or reading a book. And editing—for a writer—is a very good way to hone one’s self-editing and rewriting skills. I think a smart employer will know this, and I want to work for a smart employer.

You will find that I use complicated grammatical structures and a wider variety of punctuation than you find in most written pieces. I like playing with them. And my language and tone tend to vary widely depending on what I am writing. I’m not sure if this means I have yet to find my voice, my voice is highly flexible, or my voice has multiple-personality disorder! We shall see.