I am trying to get back to work. I can’t go back to an office, because of my paranoia, my anxiety, and my lack of motivation in terms of social interactions, but I could, if I try hard enough, work from home. That is why I am taking the creative nonfiction (CNF) certificate program at UCLA.

I can do the certificate all online and I should finish the program with the basics I need for pitching magazines about stories and actually getting hired to write essays and articles.

Being a writer is the only dream I have ever had. When I had my first episode of psychosis in my twenties, I tucked that dream away, because I could no longer focus enough to read or write.

I am fifty now and I am coming to this field very late (I see twenty-somethings and thirty-year-olds publishing constantly), but hopefully I can continue to carve out a place for my voice.

I want to be a busy writer, and today, that wish has come true. I have an essay due for school tomorrow, a Psych Central blog that needs to be written, a blog post for this blog that needs to be written, and an artist’s bio/portrait page that needs to be submitted for two essays that were accepted into a book (that will come out in March).

For me, this is a lot of work to get done in one day, because I don’t have a very long attention span, and ideas take days to percolate in my brain.  I am more of a day dreamer (searching for ideas) than I am a person who gets a lot of words on the page.

Here’s hoping today is a productive one, so that when our heads hit the pillows tonight, we know not a single moment was wasted.