Bornfamous

I’m fine, no worries here. The air is even clean, thanks to a change in the wind. But the fire news just keeps getting worse. We lost a firefighter today, an entire town yesterday, and the end is not in sight.
I’m too overwhelmed to try to summarize it all, but here’s California Wildfires at [...]

10/28/2003 8:44 AM
Five more days to NaNoWriMo. Well, four if you don’t count Saturday, which is the first day to start writing. I don’t know how I will ever be able to write 50,000 words in one month. It just seems impossible, since I can’t even make myself do 2500 words a day, even as [...]

Here’s what the news stations media are calling it: “Firestorm 2003″. Dramatic to the end, but even Fox News is having a hard time overdramatizing what is happening here. You’ll hear the numbers on the news eventually: at least 11 dead, two dozen more deaths being “investigated”; at last count [although nobody's had time to [...]

The morning dawned an eery yellow but the sky remained dark to the west, a black cloud spreading. Back home in Minnesota, the mustard glow can mean only one thing: tornado weather. But here in Southern California, it’s a different story. I knew there must be a fire somewhere not far away. A big [...]

10/25/2003 3:16 PM
Did somebody say 2500 words? A day? Me? Nah. Couldn’t be. I wouldn’t commit to something as ridiculous as that. What, do you think I’m stupid or something? Don’t answer that. All right, so I promised–no, VOWED–to write 2500 words a day. I didn’t mention WHICH days, did I? So I’m off the [...]

I’ve had a migraine almost every day for the past two weeks–maybe three, I can’t remember now. I’ve tried everything I could think of: Imitrex, Excedrin Migraine, Vicodin, compulsive laundering and showering to wash the fragrance/chems out of clothes/bedding and off of me. I don’t know what else to do. Wait–yes I do: I need [...]

I have a hard enough time telling people who speak my language that their fragrances make me sick. How do you tell a housekeeper from the county who only speaks Spanish? I looked it up, of course. With sign language, I told her that her perfume gives me terrible headaches. “No mas, por favor!”
But [...]

The blog is reopened. Yay!

In many other cultures, solitude is considered something to be desired, not feared. Monks are admired and even supported by their community for doing the hard spiritual work for everyone. Hermits are not suspect, like here. They have a long, remarkable history.
I wonder why we are so afraid to be alone? I skirt the edges [...]

Okay, so I haven’t even started today’s 2500–except for these few words–but at least I have gotten back to typing Bob’s book. And that’s the important thing.

Only 10 days to NaNoWriMo! The horror! The horror!
Well, at least I have that one sentence that says it all in a nutshell–just in case I forget what it’s about: “A teenage girl resents her new stepfather and rebels, but when he is nearly killed by a gang of thugs, she discovers to her amazement [...]

I’ve decided to go back to an old technique I learned from a writing teacher many years ago: write 2500 words a day–any words, every day. It’s a lot like Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages, and it’s a good way to jump start change. I started yesterday. Hopefully, it will get me in shape for NaNoWriMo, [...]

10/20/2003 9:36 AM
So I’m trying to figure out which voice to listen to–the one that says, “Do this,” or the one that says, “Don’t.” I’m going a little crazy here. I get in these ridiculous little arguments with myself about which one to listen to, which makes yet a THIRD voice in my head. [Not [...]

10/19/2003 8:42 AM
Off we go…into the wild blue yonder…
Yes, I’m doing the good old 2500 words a day thing again. A little voice told me just now to get my ass in gear. NaNoWriMo is less than two weeks away and I need to have some habits started by then, so this is it. I [...]

They say that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. I’m starting to believe it. A teacher has appeared. I am must be ready.
This little exchange, plus a couple of emails between nakedjen and me, seems to have triggered a shift in my thinking that led to a moment this morning that I [...]