Category: Writing
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Organizing in Scrivener #amwriting
Right now I’m writing in WordPress online. I write using whatever is handy — WordPress, Word, Google Docs, Pages on my iPad, emails to myself, even paper and journals (unfortunately, I cannot read my handwriting and I type faster). When I first purchased Scrivener, I either copied and pasted or imported my blog posts from…
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Finished Scrivener Tutorial!
October 2015, I last modified the import of my blog into Scrivener thinking I’d massage my writing into a book. The next month, my mother had a stroke. Never got back to the book or to figuring out Scrivener. Just finished the tutorial. Enrolled in National Association of Memoir Writers‘ online memoir writing course and…
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I Don’t Want to Write About #Suicide for #WorldSuicidePreventionDay
Poem recalling suicide of extended family member and my own suicidality at 18
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Barely Fiction: Kate.2
In the early 60s on a pleasant August morning in San Francisco, Kate entered this world as the first daughter of her parents, Brandan and Ruby O’Brien, both firstborns in their respective families. They, all three of them, were members of the firstborn club — the club of overachievers, of type A personalities. Three type…
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I do not whisper. I ROAR.
Motherhood transformed me. My identity changed. Now it changes again. I have constantly reinvented myself over my lifetime. As a pre-med biochemistry major at UCLA, I was miserable and suicidal. Then I studied part-time at a community college, biding time to find my direction. Finding a niche as a legal studies major at UC Berkeley, I tried to…
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Barely Fiction: Kate.1
Her true and legal name is Kitt Kathleen O’Malley. She loves her name and is grateful her parents came up with it — a great stage name if there ever was one. Her first name is typically a nickname for Katherine or Kathleen, so her name is redundant. She had thought that Katherine meant catharsis,…
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Book Reviews: fAdE tO bLuE and mOnOchrOme
fAdE tO bLuE by H.M. Jones fAdE tO bLuE is H.M. Jones‘ prequel to mOnOchrOme. Those of us who read Monochrome met the fascinating character Ishmael. This prequel gives us Ishmael’s back story and explains more about how the hellish world of Monochrome works. Monochrome is a creative metaphor for depression, specifically suicidal depression. Ishmael’s childhood was filled with trauma…
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Hypomania, Praise, and Self-Talk
Photo thanks to Gustavo Espíndola The praise came. Kitt loved to please. The more praise she received, the better she felt. The more she achieved, the higher she soared, until she couldn’t. Her body couldn’t keep up. She broke down, couldn’t get out of bed, and beat herself up for falling, for failing. Talking to…
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Dancing to White Noise #flashfiction
Within the white noise of the fan, she heard music and she danced. Her mind arranged the notes. Her body responded. Music and dance made sense. White noise, not so much. The white noise bombarded her senses — too many notes. She picked out those that felt beautiful, that made sense to her. Her mind…
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Writing to Discipline My Thoughts
This morning I attended an OC Writers’ write-in. I haven’t attended a writers’ group in a long time. Been isolating myself and focusing on my son rather than my writing, rather than myself. Today, I left him home in bed, then left the meeting early to get him to class on time. When I got…