...and from where the head had been there was a lot of energy. In the same dream, or around the same time, there was an ambling quality of movement that coalesced into an image of a large Black man with a Paracelsus-like energy to him.

This was in Asheville (2016-2019). I had many big dreams and most of them were not pleasant. It felt like my connection to life was fragile in some ways, but the dreams kept an inner connection alive that got me through.

This was also where I began the process of separating from fiction, though I didn't know it at the time. I was struggling to use the same creative and storytelling skills I'd used while working in tech and in Hollywood, but I felt humiliated by the way my divorce had gone, by my inability to fight back, and feeling put out on the curb in general. I wanted revenge via success and threw myself in that direction.

I had powerful inner images that would not translate themselves into stories or drawings despite all my efforts (or would, but I couldn't put all the pieces together or got scared when I tried). I wrestled with this slippery thing. It always felt like I was in danger of violating something when I brought those skills to bear on things that seemed to live inside me.

These characters had strong and powerful personalities that I developed and could easily put into genre and begin to build. They were alive. I had a dream of a very powerful and intimidating merman with long black hair, a fierce gaze, and an impossibly long tail that I wanted to be an image I could translate, but I didn't have the skill to bring it forth.

Drawing was easier. I could get to the heart of things more quickly, and even if I felt critical of the drawings themselves, they'd be making something very clear.

Why did I stop working on fiction? I wasn't well. Around this time (2021) I couldn't fall asleep, never felt hungry, and often felt enraged by specific patterns in my environment that I was struggling to understand. It felt wrong to try and take these things that were part of my inner connection, or a story that had come from a moment when I felt my connection to my mother, and turn them into a product. They were there for my process.

Tidying has also been my primary way of talking for some time. It's as if I'm saying: I know this thing is really about that thing, so please help me understand that thing. It's me saying, I'm willing to let this go so I can understand more. It's also me saying, I care about myself and my health more than I care about success.

I guess tidying is also talking to someone who had gone missing. I really miss talking to my ex-husband.

I miss Harriet. I'm ashamed of how I treated her.

So when I let go of the novel I'd been working on for so long (and the previous incarnation of this blog) – fuck, I learned a lot about the nature of fiction and I learned it from an angle I won't forget.

And I used all those storytelling skills in a way I hadn't expected to. In my quest to use them to create the perfect story, I ended up looking at the story of my life in a way that would have otherwise been invisible.

I'm going to publish this because it's been sitting around for ages and it's also part of a process that helps me assemble thoughts over a long period of time.