Barbara Harris is doing well.

So right now, I’m working on the Steinbeck opening of “Four Days with Barbara Harris.” I’ve read copious amounts of literature on the Sonoran Desert, as she was living in “the Valley of the Sun” or, Scottsdale, Arizona.

There’s a desert writing prize I’m applying for in a few days, which gave me a good idea, as I’ve been eyeing this prize for a couple of years, wondering if there was a way to incorporate the land, the area we were in, as it struck me that we were in the desert.

And it turns out that the Sonoran is the lushest of the deserts, which I did not know. Barbara Harris and I, in my head, are trying to encourage people to be environmentalists. We’re in the desert currently, and I’m describing the topsoil, I’m in that section of East of Eden.

I think it’s true that this story is about connection, actually, so that’s why I started with that opening because it begins with the land. And I found evocative imagery that relates to her, rooting her in nature.

I’ll spend some time with the chapter outline next and keep moving that one along. I find it to be a juggle, there’s a publication with a FAME theme that agents read — so I’m going to submit a nonfiction about Barbara Harris.

I submitted something for another contest, but it’s like anything else, you get rejected. But at least, with this opening I’m doing for the contest, I’ll have the beginnings of a sample, so I’ll be able to move that along quickly.

And then, absurd, absurd. The sex scandal I was in, when I was four. I described Dr. J, my mother, as a Disney character, which is what she looks like, I mean—LOOK. And I describe Angelita as “the stork that flew in and snatched a baby back.” That’s what she LOOKS like.

Dr. J arranged for her youngest daughter and me to attend the same fancy prep school in LA for a couple of years. She 100% ignored me, hence Angelita’s weird smile. And, of course, my father took this picture, when we believed he was a child rapist, molester, a threat to me, simply.

Dr. J showed up in her limo, one day, randomly, I think, with my father. And we had a weird photo session.

I can’t analyze this snapshot. But that’s it, now you know everything I say is true. Dr. J = Disney.

“The whitest woman I have ever seen,” that’s what Angelita said.

”Unusual shade.”

“Very very likely” Alice Munro was molested, “very very likely.” Margaret Atwood said.

It’s rated PG. Which is what Dr. J was. What this whole spectacle was. Four years.

I’m working on a piece for EPIC, so I got to the end of a rough draft, and then, I went through my chapter outline again and refined it, as I was seeking to find the right scenes to tell the story. It’s tighter, and I’ll be moving onto the next draft. And from there, I’ll be able to extend my chapter outline into a book outline. That feels like the more relevant book, right now. I’ll adjust my website later.

I launched an undercover investigation into this sex scandal when I was eight, nine, on that cusp. it lasted four years and grew to include the Catholic Church as an organization. So that’s how I’m framing it, though the Catholic Church isn’t in the EPIC piece.

What’s really “funny,” is that I spent my time in church, when I was four, thinking about child abuse, sexual abuse, actively. My first field of study was “pure regards.” Dr. J had “a pure regard.” She had a pure quality to her, which was so strange because she was so impure.

Evidently, I reopened this investigation these years, which changed my life.

And though I had to go through so much resistance to get here, nobody reading it going to know what was true or not. It doesn’t sound good.

So that’s in progress, I hope to be done in the next couple of weeks. I always find writing takes longer than you want it to. Somewhere in that span, 2-4 weeks.

I’m going to get back to it.

Making peace with the past

Last night, I had a dream. Someone who came into my life last decade popped up, and I woke up in the middle of the night with anxiety about coming back because that relationship went so awry.

I sometimes regret my decisions at the top of my thirties, so I sat up in bed and tried to make space for my feelings and where I am now.

At the end of my twenties, I met an older gentleman who worked with plant medicines, so he brought me into a world. At a distance, first of all. We commenced an affair long distance, which, I wish, I didn’t do, so I put someone I met recently aside, as I contacted a friend of a friend who had a place in NYC online, and he sent me a video of his dick, truly.

He didn’t say, we should go out when you get back, or when I get back, he wanted to have sex online. Am I supposed to be flattered? Even the fact that he’s a friend of my friend freaked me out. I don’t know what their relationship was, has been, and I say that because of what happened with the person who reappeared in my dream. But I also saw a ferry traveling between Brooklyn and the East River, I saw a well-known actor hanging outside of a plane taking pictures, so I woke up feeling clearer, actually, about what I’m doing right now — that’s essentially what I’m doing. I’m hanging out of a plane, taking pictures of the view. That made me feel better because it directly related to my waking life.

I didn’t leap last month because I was scared, because I thought I would keep trying to bring work in, I don’t know if that’s silly, actually, but I found a job, another one, and I let that go, as this traveling has taken its toll, and I wasn’t thinking clearly in that moment. There was interference from various sectors in my life, and I didn’t want to spend my life on a computer, so, what can I say? I can’t believe I went into this plant medicine group and made it my main community. That’s where I met the man in my dream.

I had no instincts to go out and meet people, and I had to laugh; I had none. And this ex-boyfriend of mine, I had to put him aside, as a friend, even, because his attitude towards me was bizarre. In the end, he said, “you can contact me because you don’t have anyone,” when that’s not true, first of all, and why wouldn’t you just tell someone, as a therapist, basically, to go out and go make a life… it was so mixed up.

I have that basic desire now. I always had friends, but I traveled and didn’t successfully anchor myself somewhere and build a community. I have friends, and I can cultivate and strengthen my ties, but when I look back on it, I see that I had a strange system of operating. I ended up in a plant medicine group, and I didn’t need to over-focalize on my past, I didn’t need to spend that money, either. It really didn’t work for me. And this ex of mine brought me into this group —even though he admitted that I wasn’t introduced to this “work” properly. I came from a background that required sensitivity. I appeared and felt fine to him, and I’ve always been fine, but I had never opened that sex scandal I was in. My parents were both mentally ill, so.

And I just didn’t see it. I didn’t see any of it. Why would I mix up romance and drugs and therapy? I would never do it again, like this. And I don’t really care about drugs, to be frank, and why would I want to get involved with them? It’s way too complicated to the point that I would rather steer clear. And he’s a former addict. I don’t know anything about this world. I don’t know anything, and I don’t judge anyone, but why was I here? Exactly? Doing drugs with this guy? Outside a container, even? I couldn’t believe it. We began a relationship, at a distance, and he would visit once a month, and we would take these substances, you know what I mean? Why did we do this? To expand my mind? Explore new experiences? Today, I look back confused. I went to a group, my first time, to try a nonwestern framework as psychology was always my passion. I ended up in a relationship I had no interest in being in, and I was participating in the casual use of substances. Again, I don’t care, people take drugs from time to time, even my friend said that, but I got involved with this man, abroad, and came back to the US — though our relationship was on the rocks — because he wanted me to make a commitment that I couldn’t make. I wasn’t living in his city. And if I had been in touch with my anger, I would have just broken up with him.

And it didn’t help me at all, it was like the “guru” I met afterward, where I felt like my childhood story, in communicating it, didn’t bring me positive feedback, at all. I get I’m “gifted,” “special,” all this nonsense, not to say it’s not true, but I don’t know what exactly made me gifted or special. I became psychic — right here. Not to say I’m not intuitive, but it took me four years to work out the mess in my head, over this psychic period, so that finally, I could have a dream, even, where I felt like I recognized my own mind, even. The psychic period, man, that was a comedy routine.

I’m beginning a new book in my life, forget chapter. I just got here, as a person.

When I returned to the US, I stayed with my ex, first, before I continued on to LA, and I met an enigmatic gentleman, according to a lawyer, who I’ll name Pippin. I started hanging out with him, someone who is a drug addict, was a drug addict, I can’t do this. He takes these drugs all the time, and his genius, or something, makes his case different, I can’t do this, so he was permitted to take lots of drugs. This is who I got close to. And, to be honest, he’s a helper, he wanted to help me, and this help shadow followed me when the help didn’t help me — I didn’t have to take an apartment for free, write all day to be a writer, but this person seemed to know what that meant, though he didn’t. I got a job at a psychedelic publication when that was totally unnecessary. I needed to keep my goal clear. I did not need to “practice writing” like that. Practice writing on the weekends? Having a free place in NYC was amazing, I could have saved so much money, but I didn’t.

I ended up hooking up with one of his friends, and they had a deeper relationship than I knew, and what can I say? I don’t know what to say about plant medicines. I’ve read positive feedback about them, in that, they’re able to help people access repressed memories, such as abuse, so in that case, I cannot speak to what they brought up. I was not prepared. It went terribly, just terribly, with these two people. And I really wish that it didn’t, actually. And Pippin, why he called me to rub this guy in my face, I don’t know, because honestly, the second I heard that they had a deeper affair, the interest was gone. They had something going on, so I am not here. I never wanted to get involved. Pippin even called me once I left my job because of racism, which I didn’t understand, because he said, he didn’t want me to go through anymore pain? Over racism? Was this a setup? What was he talking about? He goes on some long chain — I do not care WHO told you what! His current girlfriend is lovely, I do not CARE for this person! It’s been years. She told him, he told him, like, that’s not true. My boss called you, no? I was so confused, why are YOU calling me? Ever left a job? Like they weren’t going to pay me. This Pippin, man. I don’t want you to go through any more pain, he said. And there are people protesting outside my window, literally speaking, over racism! I left because of racism. Okay? In the middle of these protests. I had three people on the phone speaking to me about racist comments. What was this phone call? Pippin acted like he liked me, seriously, even, when he didn’t. I got the message — I see him, in any way shape or form, and I’m Neapolitan, if I gotta throw a trash can, you see, I ain’t hesitating.

I guess all those people were rich, basically, and my ex said, “you’re my poorest friend,” okay. I had money, first of all. Second, why am I here then? This one drove me nuts.

Looking back, Giggino was right, my cousin, an aspect of my personality concerned him — I was too bright and open — acting like there aren’t people to watch out for, out there. I had a couple of tough parents within me, and I didn’t, at this juncture, take the regular high road: just get psychological support and try to work towards concrete goals.

But of course, I had decided that I wasn’t about that, so I went down a couple of roads in my thirties that brought out the worst in me, it felt, as the people who came into my life didn’t really know what they were talking about. They weren’t right, and I say that less because they hadn’t carried out their lives to great success, it’s just, that didn’t apply to me. Why these people wanted to help me, I don’t know. It did not help. I didn’t need help. I wasn’t unfortunate. I lived in the Chelsea Hotel, cool.

Now, I’m here, in a better place, I would never have gotten THAT wrapped up in this group. With Pippin, I would have suggested we get tea downstairs occasionally. I’m not going to take drugs with you. You know? Even as a friend. I would enjoy tea. I mean, I didn’t exactly get involved in a traditional or clinical setting. I would have gotten a regular job and worked on my writing career, not for a psychedelic publication that can’t pay me well, could, to practice writing in an area that doesn’t align with my goals.

But Giggino is — lovingly looking around with my sweet curls while watching soccer in Naples, Italy — I could express interest in anything, everything, so I had a problem with focus. This shaman said it, but his approach was so confusing, so this method didn’t work. Did he mildly show romantic interest in me even? What? I’m sorry but… I didn’t need this.

I would have never gotten involved with Pippin’s associate. Why would I be interested in him to begin with? Not to say he isn’t a nice lad, I guess, but he’s not my type. Now, I would take the Chelsea spot to save a crazy amount of money. NOW, I could really use that kind of setup for a couple of years, so I could put away that cash, recoup my losses. But you live and learn. I was living in LA, and I moved to NYC, I couldn’t sit still, though I guess NYC feels better, I don’t know. I don’t know if I’ll end up in NYC or LA, this time, because it’s a whole new world, I have no clue, but I’ll start in NYC because I’ve been abroad for four years. I am not talking to my current family, right now, either, because they scared the living shit out of me.

That was a real-world end.

I had a dream with this man last night, Pippin. After all, I exchanged with these two gentlemen in March 2020, because I wanted to get my money back, I had invested in a company. I got a message through my website at 5 AM, I was already up, about my actual bank being shut down. I received that message in my gut, directly, though I had been struggling with the physical experiences I started to have over whether or not there was abuse in my past, so that sent me into the worst experience of my life. Did they send it? My therapist thinks that they did. These gurus in LA thought I had attracted someone from Nigeria from the ether to deliver myself “the final blow,” and I do not speak to them anymore, either. Pippin, when it was all said and done, got on the phone with me — after I was in the hospital over this — and proceeded to fart long and hard at me on the phone. So I got the message, regardless. And my ex, his friend, in fact, said, “he sometimes treats people in unimaginable ways, I do not understand it,” so, in the end, he could have very well sent me that message that could have killed me.

Seeing Pippin in my dream frightened me. He told me that he can pull underhanded and even crazy shit. I woke up with anxiety, though it quickly dissipated. I mean, no offense, but why would he even care? I’m just some woman. I doubt he would be that bored, quite frankly, to even still think about me. I don’t. He’s persona non grata. Do I know you? But I had a fearful moment, last night. Stay away from me. All of you. This whole group. My ex still talks to me as if I were psychic, which is boring. I told him I do not subscribe anymore, and still, he insists. N-O.

What a year that was. That was my plant medicine experience. Anyway, that’s it for today. I am going back to New York next month, and I am finally making progress on my short story about Miracle Mile, the sex scandal I was in when I was four. I feel happy about it, happy about its potential, too, to resonate, and — I can’t totally unpack these dreams, if they actually reflect my feelings about myself, but I never had a problem with my self-worth or about my ability to succeed in life. I don’t think. I had a good/bad complex, which I know, that prevented me from performing, which is gone now.

I feel un-special, even, just a regular person these days. I don’t know what’s wrong with it. The guru — he really drove home that I was SPECIAL in ALL CAPS, when, what did that do for me? Did I not think I was special? I was so confused by these people! Are writers wrapped up in their specialness? Are people wrapped up in that? It didn’t appear like a good look— to be frank.

He believed I could make it big— and my cousin Chris would be the one to start to slow clap, you know? What is she doing? It didn’t matter. So I could make it big, folks, somehow, because I was SO SPECIAL? I don’t know what made me special, exactly. Was it my personality? My resilience? My talent in…? In what? What was so special about me? Was I that pretty to them?

But to this guru, anyone and everyone can make it big. So, Chris is still clapping. I’ll take it, I hope I make it. It’s just, wow, that decade really sucked the life out of me. I got psychics and gurus and drug addicts and geniuses. I missed Jersey, you know, just a regular place with regular people — my cousins. So I went on an adventure, and I’m trying to change my attitude about the whole thing.

I’m headed back to New York, the dream felt clear to me, and I needed to feel decisive. I’m hanging out outside a plane, taking pictures. I’ll go have fun, go meet people, pursue what I want to, and hopefully, I’ll have a successful forties. I’ll make it, as this guru thought I could at the top of the last decade. I guess. I would suggest action over meditation, to be honest. I’d like to meet someone. No more weird mentors, weird dynamics.

Gotta get back to my awesome short story about the sex scandal I was in, as I plan to sell that first, before I venture into the EPIC known as CHRISTMAS IN NAPLES, a sport, not a hallmark holiday. God bless.

How to make 7 figures on Substack, Once Upon a Time on Miracle Miracle

I read a post this morning about how a writer makes 7 figures on Substack, which has more to do with engagement than anything else. I’ve been reading Emma Gannon’s newsletter, thinking about value, so I don’t know what to do with it. I find engaging on these platforms a juggle because I don’t like being on the phone. I don’t like phones. I don’t like engaging on platforms. I have a one-minute limit before I have to disconnect. I’m trying to get over it, admittedly.

This morning, I read about how this writer carved their way to making a profit on Medium. It’s not talent, it’s persistence. I just don’t know what to do in my case. I’m not writing about writing, or writing about how to do something, not to say I have to, but this email I read suggested thinking about it like a business. What do I need to do from that perspective? People make money, a lot, in many ways now. I shouldn’t have a problem doing that. And I cannot seem to make money.

I’m working on a short story for EPIC Magazine; should I not do that? Should I just post this story on Substack? Promote on my own? It feels weird promoting — “I was in a sex scandal when I was four,” this is what I learned about overcoming your family, or “I had two parents who were mentally ill/ill, an invitation to revisit the slash.” My father ended up being diagnosed with Parkinson’s first, didn’t tell anyone, conveniently, and it ended up being Alzheimer’s. His problems were emotional. People with that disease, regardless, and he was diagnosed after Miracle Mile, develop mental health issues, and he had them. Most definitely. I can’t speak in definitive statements, yet, so that sucks, about whether or not that was true about him.

But a woman dying in a single bed, Dr. J, putting on dying displays while a grown man slips into the master bed, the image isn’t soothing. No one was talking to me, I was up against the door, at four, in the dark. Not knowing why she’s dying… or pretending to…and he’s acting like it’s not happening. I don’t have any recollection. I thought I just woke up… but now, I’m graining away, because of the experience I ended up going through. The story never made sense, in the past, to anyone, no one could even understand what I was saying, that’s the main piece of feedback I got. And years later, I was seven, not seventeen, and I realized I was back in my house at a Christmas party. I hadn’t seen my goddamn parents all evening. Not once. Why am I here? And she was upstairs dying… again. I knew that, automatically. Why did you throw a party to die? Looney tunes. I was in an episode of looney tunes. I didn’t even think of getting my father so — I contacted Angelita recently, she’s older now, but can she remember anything? What was I like after that? When she picked me up? I don’t have memories past this weird party. I didn’t sleep at my house, right? Because he was…a child molester? What did Dr. J say? We’re “working it out?”

What the hell was this situation?

I wanted to write something for EPIC because they have connections with publications and film, it seems, which is the direction I wanted to go in — I’m trying to be a story writer, at least in looking at the stories I have. I’m trying to get a book deal, evidently, though people say traditional publishing is dead, but I’m not sure in my case. I am trying to take the easiest way, I just don’t know what that is. Do I self-publish? Regardless, once I complete this short, I’ll be able to pitch an agent since I’m working on a chapter outline that I can expand.

I just thought that the sex scandal, Miracle Mile, particularly my “undercover investigation,” was a clearer sell; it makes the most sense. I like Christmas in Naples is a Sport, I just don’t know what to do with that, yet. Given the climate, the sex scandals, the pervasive problem of child abuse, and the sheer fact that I studied the psychology of it as a kid, I think Miracle Mile was the obvious direction to go in.

That’s what I’m doing: I’m starting at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club. Angelita recounts what Dr. J told her, that my father was a child rapist, and so, she decides to launch the game, and I take it from there.

There’s a part of me that wants to publish these sections online and promote them, bypassing the need to publish a short story with EPIC or some other publication, so I don’t know what to do, as I’m just trying to break in, just get one strong piece of work out there. I can ask them how they work, if they are interested in the story, and I can decide the best course of action from there. I feel antsy because I can’t quite steer, or I can’t think clearly about strategy. Do I start a Substack “once upon a time on miracle mile” and I just create content around that, instead of going the conventional route?

That’s what I’m thinking about right now.

But at least I’ll be able to pitch agents soon. I don’t know what it’s like, to be frank, book-wise, not that I haven’t been reading, but I’m working on a short story, and I can easily turn it into a book. Not every agent asks for comps upfront; they ask for pages, and the thing is, the first page: I was in a sex scandal when I was four, and I launched an undercover investigation about it when I was nine.

I’m almost there. I just don’t feel smart right now because I can’t utilize these platforms to help me reach my goal. I read about a woman who got a book deal off her Substack. Given the story, it feels weird sending content about abuse to someone’s inbox. I’ll figure this part out. I just feel that I’m not thinking outside the box, that I might not be taking the most efficient route. Which is why I’m writing a blog as I go.

I’m finishing this story for EPIC because they are there, looking for extraordinary stories. So that is my goal — and I’m working through the outline… so I’m going to get back to work. I’ll stay another month in Turkey, I guess, I hate that I’m here, and yesterday, I flipped out, I just wanted to get back to NYC, but maybe I’ll be done, or at least close to being done. I don’t know, it’s a tense moment.

Given where I am — I wonder about uprooting myself this second. Talking with my crypto friend, he said, because I was thinking about liquidating some of that, “um, it might go up at the end of the year? So, it’s almost like, you might be on the brink of recuperating what you lost, so — don’t do it, unless you have to?” So do I need to sit tight, a second? Hard to tell, to be honest, as I’ve reached breaking points. Just based on where I am at.

I made some headway, hopefully, this time; structure, admittedly, has been a struggle for me, but I think I had a breakthrough. I have a few ends floating around, it seems, but I’m going to question whether or not it was a lie, as everyone will, at step one, I’m pretty sure. So I could open my heart in some capacity in the end, as the whole thing was scored to love songs, or make peace with a villain as Dr. J was a villain archetypically…so I’ll figure this part out, but at least the journey is clearer.

All the best.