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Mondays @ 4pm EST
This workshop is best suited for Latinas who are trying to figure out their identities outside of the family structure. Online classes commence Jan. 5 and end March 20.
All Biscayne Writers Online Workshops are donation-based and take place HERE. Questions? Email “us.”

Jan 5: Who are you and what is a memoir?
Jan 12: Who do you want to be and how should you tell your memoir?
Jan 19: Fiction or Non-Fiction?
Jan 26: The Timeline of Your Life
Feb 2: The Soundtrack of Your Life
Feb 9: The Themes and Historical Contexts of Your Life
Feb 16: The Geography of Your Life
Feb 23: Your Cultural DNA – Family, Ethnicity, Race
March 2: The Friends(s) of Your Life
March 9: The Career(s) of Your Life
March 16: The Love(s) of Your Life
March 23: Post-Workshop In-Person Gathering

Jan. 5: Who are you and what is a memoir?
I started writing my memoir when I was 10 years old. I didn’t know it at the time. But I was. It all started in Mr. Berman’s 5th grade class. He would give us a prompt on the blackboard:

Hawaiian Shirts are…

Hurricane Gloria is…

I would like to change places with…

My favorite TV show is…

I love Mr. Berman. He helped me realize at a very young age that I was born to write. The trouble was that I wrote about anything and everything and it’s not until now that I’ve been able to organize all of it!

I’ve written all kinds of stories about my experiences. But which one is the memoir? Is ALL of it the Memoir? Before trying to make this decision, first, you need to ask yourself one simple question:

Who am I?

You may start with stating your name, where you were born, where you work and live. Then you may list your relationships – I’m mother to ____, I am sister to ____.

This is all a great starting point, but it’s not very interesting to read about unless you’re a market researcher.

You must go deeper to find out who you are. For me, I finally realized who I was when I stopped expecting other people to figure out who I was. This usually comes in the form of constantly hitting barriers (i.e., trial by error). Since my father taught me that I must do everything myself in order to be successful and more importantly, so that I could say, “I did it MYSELF!” That means I rarely asked for help, and when I did, I felt so guilty that I hoped the person would say, “No!” And they often did.

BAM! BAM! BAM! That’s the sound of me hitting glass ceiling after glass ceiling.

Your experiences – both good and bad – tell you more about who you are than those demographic boxes you probably started out with.

And the sum of these experiences add up to a unique memoir.

Does that mean people will be clamoring to read it?

Probably not. Don’t mean to burst your bubble. But if you are writing your memoir while fantasizing about your fame and fortune and book tour, you’re already shooting yourself (in the foot) AND not acting from an authentic frame of mind.

I decided to write my memoir NOW at the age of 33 rather than when I am 60 or older (when society says it is appropriate to engage in such exercises) so that I could examine my behavioral patterns since age 10 from an objective point of view. Why? So that I could break my cycles of destruction. In short, writing my memoir is psychotherapy. I don’t have money or health insurance to pay for a therapist and my family can only take so much of my never ending questions.

Besides. Neither my psychotherapist nor my family would be able to give me the answers I truly seek. As Sinead O’Connor once sang, “All that I needed was inside meeeeeeee!”

—
Truly inspired art comes from self-metamorphasis. A memoir is worth writing when you can write about the way you used to see things and compare them to how you see them now. Such a story has been told before. All stories have been told before. Hollywood has each one boxed and packaged so well with an exclusive and powerful distribution platform most of us don’t have access to. And most of their stories are watered down in order to appeal to a mass audience.

Being that none of us are working for investors expecting to make their money back, ala “The Producers,” and a publisher isn’t going to ask you to change this or that about your story, it’s best to tell this story for yourself. This is pure, inspired ART in the words of propaganda artist Shepard Fairey.

Now, down the road, if your story happens to capture the attention of people at the Miami Film Festival March 6-15 or the Miami Book Fair November 8-15…well, then, you can deal with that when that time comes.

For now, block out all marketing and selling plans NOW.

You have a story to write.

Jan 12: Who do you want to be and how should you tell your memoir?

When I was growing up and people would ask, “What do you want to be when you grow up, little girl?”

I would say matter-of-factly, “An actress and a lawyer.”

Such unashamed ambition was a normal thing for a suburban Latina princess to say. It is the way evolution works.

My mother’s dream was to become a Rockette. She ended up going to Eli Whitney to learn how to become a secretary, and subsequently landed a job at the famous Citibank building in New York City making $10,000 a year.

“That wasn’t a bad salary back then,” my father told me recently.

My mother was so clever that she found a way to dress like a Rockette while being a secretary. Her “fashionable” look often got her cornered in her pre-sexual harassment office by her boss.

“I thought I looked cute!” She says now when she remembers her life as a single woman conquering big, bad Manhattan. Only 10 years before, she was a bird who had traveled from the island of Puerto Rico, and landed on the island of Brooklyn along with 5 other siblings. It was the typical “When I was Puerto Rican” story that Esmeralda Santiago summed up for her generation.

My mother was the American Dream. But there is a twist here that relates to my life now that I just found out about.

Although my mother had a job and was living the fabulous life of a working girl in Manhattan, there was no “Sex in the City” storylines for her because a good, traditional Puerto Rican girl must live home with her parents. She had her own room and her own cool phone.

“When my nieces came over, I used to give them little secretarial jobs and then pay them for their time.”

OMG!!!! My mother didn’t know it, but she was an EMPLOYER, a BOSS, an INVESTOR.

When she told me this bit of information over the Christmas holiday, I almost fell on the floor.

“What? What’s the big deal?”

“Mom, all this time, I have been trying to understand myself and why I have been doing the things I have been doing over the past 10 years. And now I know. I am picking up where you left off.”

My mother left her job at the Citibank building when I was born. But not until I was born. That means while I was gestating in her belly, I was listening to the sounds of corporate America. I was learning by osmosis how the whole freaking THING works.

This is not to say that my mother stopped being an investor. Like Esmeralda Santiago’s mother, she nurtured the dreams of her children. Mothers and fathers are the true angel investors, not these people who claim a percentage of your company in exchange for their expertise. Because I don’t have children, I didn’t realize this fact, so I chased investor after investor metaphorically asking, “Are you my mother? Are you my father?”

Now I understand Dr. Seuss’s children’s book after all these years, and now I understand that parents deserve much of the credit and payback for an entrepreneur’s success.

Am I an actress now? Yes. In business, I play many different roles:

The princess is the CFO.
The gypsy is the marketing director.
Kemila Velan is the sales director.
The Devil’s Advocate is the artist.
Gysela MyAmi is the strategist.

Am I a lawyer now? Yes. In business, I have to know tax law, copyright law, business law.

So, actress + lawyer = Biscayne Writers, Inc., which produces online writing workshops for the blogosphere.

Jan 19: Fiction or Non-Fiction?
After talking with my mom this past Friday night, I realized I need to wait a few more years before I can write an authoritative memoir that honors my family – I don’t want to be one of those authors who gets excommunicated from the family because I’ve publicized all our secrets in the name of fame and fortune. My Tia agreed, and we even discussed converting all the family drama into fiction in order to protect my parents who are incredibly private people.

My yoga self says, “No, no! Nothing is sacred, everyone is going through the same things in life, and it is better to share than to stay inside your turtle shell.”

But yoga self can rationalize anything – sometimes to the point that I think I’m an Orwellian double-speak propaganda monger. That whole “nothing is good, nothing is bad” doesn’t quite fly with conservative born-again Christian Pentacostal Puerto Ricans who see in black and white.

My yoga self is also named Kemila Velan so she thinks she can get away with anything, the little devil…oh wait, she’s an angel now.

So, what to do? How could I possibly continue this workshop now?

Let’s talk about Esmeralda Santiago’s memoirs, “When I was Puerto Rican” and “Almost a Woman.” These memoirs are non-fiction. She manages to honor her Mami by talking about all her sacrifices for her children, but she DOES expose Mami’s very private life as well — the boyfriends, the children out of wedlock…but Mami is a multi-dimensional character and there is no way the reader would view her the way the social workers and teachers at the New York School of the Performing Arts do.

“Hasn’t your mother ever heard of birth control?” says actress Sandy Dennis to Santiago during the filming of a movie at the school.

I wonder what Santiago’s mother thought of the memoir? Maybe because it was honest, she didn’t mind her business being out there. Maybe because the book was a bestseller and is educational, rather than salacious, Santiago’s mother approved of it? And maybe Santiago shared the manuscript with her Mami before it went to the publisher?

These are questions I can ask Esmeralda Santiago when she comes to Miami in May for The Writer’s Institute.

In the meantime, I found this video of author Grant Flint giving a talk to a writing group on which makes the better novel: Fiction or Non-Fiction…check it out.

Perhaps another way to tell the memoir is through live theater. The Miami Bombshells are debuting their collective memoir at the Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre.

BOMBSHELLS: A MUSICAL EXPLOSION OF LIFE, LOVE, AND TELLING IT ALL!
January 14 – February 8, 2009

BOMBSHELLS is based on the true story of The Miami Bombshells, a circle of six perfectly imperfect women who grew from stressed out strangers to lifelong friends. By airing their dirty laundry, through laughter, tears and unbreakable spirit, they support one another in everything from love and family, to sex and secrets. For tickets and information, please call the Miracle Theatre.  Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre, 280 Miracle Mile, (305) 444-9293, www.actorsplayhouse.org

Perhaps the memoir can be told several ways, and it doesn’t just have to be one, single memoir. For me, it looks like I will be telling my memoir in every way since I have such a hard time making a decision:

1. Non-fiction Novel, Esmeralda Santiago style
2. Graphic Novel style (like Latin USA: A Cartoon History by Ilan Stavans and Lalo Alcaraz and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi)
3. Comic book style (like Wonderwoman)
4. Animated film style (again, like Persepolis)
5. Film style (like Marie Antoinette)
6. Fiction novel style (like The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand)
7. Business book style (like The Girl’s Guide to Being a Boss by Caitlin Friedman and Kimberly Yorio)
8. Children’s book style (like Soledad Sigh-Sighs by Rigoberto Gonzalez)
9. Short story style (like Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe)
10. Surrealist novella style (The Story of the Eye by Georges Batailles)
11. Diary style (like Dear Diary by Lesley Arfin)
12. Travelogue style (like Yoga School Dropout by Lucy Edge)

“12 Different Ways to Write The Same Story.” Yeah. This sounds good. Like being a serial entrepreneur, except I’m making stories, not companies. It’s insane to think about writing 12 different stories when I haven’t even finished one. Well, I did finish one, once – it was called “Sirens” about a tranny hooker living in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco. This was my first attempt at fiction. I started off with a big bang and then it kind of fizzled at the end because I really didn’t know where I was going. Should I go back to this story and finish it now? Ugh. No. I don’t want to. The second story I’m almost finished with is “Love Cubed.” But there are a lot of politics involved, again, making sure that I am not disparaging anyone, so it is certainly not ready yet for publication. The third story that I’m even closer to finishing is actually a sci-fi script. I think this is the one I need to be focusing on RIGHT NOW.

OK, it’s settled. So, next week, I’ll be talking about this particular story’s timeline. It’s not linear – I figured since it’s sci-fi, I could play with the time element a little bit. OK, until next time…Amen. Namaste. Ciao.

January 26: The Timeline of Your Life
30 Years. I base my timeline on the first film that made an impact on my life: “Back to the Future,” which functions in spans of 30 years in the past and 30 years in the future. I saw this film at 10 years old, which is also when my story happens to begin. I was 10 when I started publishing my writing (in my 5th grade journal, as I mentioned earlier), and I was 10 when I wrote my first report about current events: Hurricane Gloria.

1985

1986
In 1986 I ruled the skule. Like so many others, I grew up in the suburbs in the 1980s. They told me I could do and be anything. I would flip through magazines trying to decide which heartthrob I would marry. I had it all. I was the prettiest, the smartest, the meanest. What is Heather #1 doing in the afterlife, I wonder? Probably Chief Marketing Officer for a Fortune 500 Company, right?

1987
In 1987 my family moved to Orlando. Just like the tree at the end of the street two years before, they uprooted me and expected me to grow in the new pot into which they were planting me. I had a sour attitude. Orlando felt plastic. The subdivisions separated by long expanses of road seemed unhealthy for regular human exchange…which is probably what my father preferred, as a product of Brooklyn, where people living on top of each other meant bad influences. Maybe this is how Long Island was set up, too, but in my 12-year-old mind, we had moved to Disney World! Twenty-two years later I still feel this way about Orlando, and my favorite thing to do is go to Flea World, where there are real people and the atmosphere is like a marketplace similar to the ones I walked through in Thailand and India…otherwise Orlando is mall country…consumer country…downtown Orlando is OK, where there are mom and pop record stores and art galleries…cafes with free wifi and spoken word. This is my subculture inside Orlando where my family lives…my baby nephew Cohen…rice and beans…investing money with my dad…making movies with my dad…living at home with my parents until I get married, like a nice Puerto Rican girl…making believe that 1993 through 2008 was just a dream, like Dorothy’s trip to Oz. Suburban existence can’t kill my spirit now that I know what is outside my four bedroom walls.

1988
I adjusted relatively well because I won “Miss Giggles” and a Math Project award for my binary trivia game. And I got an invitation to the Cotillion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rNfZxgkH7k

1989
I started high school and went to band camp.

1990
I watched the new year’s ball drop in Church Street Station and marveled at the idea of the ’90s and all the new spacey technology it would bring.

1991
I started swimming and playing water polo.

Lip Dub! Disney’s Little Mermaid from Julia Allison on Vimeo.

1992
I got a 1200 on my SAT.

1993
I won state championship water polo and was voted on the prom court before heading off to college with a full-tuition scholarship.

1994
I studied abroad in London.

1995
I transferred to UNC-Chapel Hill to study journalism.

1996
I won a scholarship for $2,500.

1997
I graduated from college and moved to Ann Arbor, Mich.

1998
I worked at MichiganLive.com and moved to Colorado.

1999
I served in AmeriCorps in Colorado and moved to San Francisco to work for Latino.com to be a part of the “Latin boom” and the “dot.com” boom.

2000
I shook my ass when I wasn’t sitting in front of a computer.

2001
I got laid off from my dot.com and started freelancing for Children’s Book Press and Youth Outlook Magazine.

2002
I went to Mexico City for the first time.

2003
I protested the declaration of war in Iraq and when Bush didn’t listen, I flew to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala before moving to Miami.

2004
I wrote my first column, “The Devil’s Advocate” and traveled to Thailand.

2005
I bought my first home, appeared on HGTV, “My First Place,” incorporated my first business, Biscayne Writers, and got certified as a yoga teacher.

2006
I traveled to India and got my first big client, “The Angel Journal.”

2007
I got mugged and got my second big client, “Ethical Markets.”

2008
I got my third big client, “Stan Lee” and then “The Standard Hotel” and “Elastic Artists.” The first two were spec projects that didn’t pay me anything. The third paid more than I ever made as a freelancer.

2009
I produce a mash-up film called “The Genesis of Change.”

I exhibit it at Art Basel.

2010
I produce my first feature film.

2011
I produce my second feature film.

2012
I retire and publish a book.

2013
I publish another book.

2014
I publish lots of books.

2015
Who knows? The world may be underwater by this point.

Feb 2: The Soundtrack of Your Life
1985-1987 Egowar by Gang Gang Dance
1987-1990 Three Days by Jane’s Addiction
1991 World Clique by Deee Lite
1992-1993 Fluffy Clouds by The Orb
1996 Sleep to Dream by Fiona Apple
2000 East West Rock Together by Kruder & Dorfmeister
2001 Your Girl by Blue States
2002 I Love It When Things Work Out for the Best (Freedom from Stress) by Deuce Eclipse
2003 Channel Z by the B-52’s
2004 N-Type by Dubstep Allstars Volumes
2005 Up the Beach by Jane’s Addiction
2006 Break On Thru to the Other Side by The Doors
2007 Awoh by JME
2008 Backward by Kode 9
2009 Pick Yourself Up by Wiley
2010
2011
2012 Classic Girl by Jane’s Addiction

Feb 9: The Themes and Historical Contexts of Your Life
My consciousness as I currently know it began when I was 10 years old, 1985, the same year I experienced my first hurricane. The chaotic energy uprooted trees that had been sturdy for decades and maybe even centuries. Air stirred up from the Caribbean waters to my Long Island world which never matched the TV and now the same image in the TV was the same outside my window for the very first time. My world was transforming. My power was increasing day by day after Gloria howled through, foreshadowing the uprooting of my Muladhara Chakra.

Who could know that 30 years from that time (2015), I would be a wealthy, healthy, happy, loving, prolific storyteller married to a wealthy, healthy, happy, loving prolific artist with my roots planted in four different cities?

Another theme is wisdom teeth. I was born with only one, so I have spent most of my life in search of the other three:
Miami – Gateway to the Americas
Denver – Capital of the West
San Francisco – Gateway to Asia
London – Gateway to Europe

Feb 16: The Geography of Your Life
“Oh! The Places You Go” is the Dr. Seuss book for the suburban high school graduate. We were educated and pampered for 18 years, and now it was up to us to use our big B-R-A-I-Ns to solve the problems of the world. I set my intention long before high school graduation. “I will live in different cities for years at a time!”

And I did.

And it was good for a time.

But what was it all for? Just for the experience? As a writer, I was looking for adventures to write about.

This is the Virtual Gypsy section of my memoir.

Feb 23: Your Cultural DNA – Family, Ethnicity, Race
OK, so we established long ago that my memoir is unique because I am 100 percent Puerto Rican raised in the suburbs of New York and Florida. This is significant because I haven’t read any bestselling books from this perspective yet. If I am wrong, please send me an email. It’s an interesting perspective within the quilt of Americana because it is a mix of Latin, Black, Hip Hop, Pop, Gen X, sarcasm and educated opinion all in one. And then add the female thing on top of that and you’ve got secret sauce never before seen by the mainstream media…well, I am lying – Rosario Dawson is representing very well. When I watch her, I feel like I am watching my sister interact with her friends. For example, in “Death Proof” by Quentin Tarantino, she is particularly unique compared to her strong-minded sisters – a white girl from Australia and a black girl with a knack for driving fast (I am ignoring the white girl cheerleader on purpose). Rosario is just as strong-minded, but when it comes to men, she still plays the hard-to-get “I’m a challenge” thing.

This is particularly Latin to me – not that I’ve played this game myself…and why? I grew up among white girls who didn’t have time for playing hard to get. It was all about being free, independent and experimenting however you felt. Here’s a good excerpt from my memoir that illustrates this point:

As I lay next to him on his bed, with a healthy space in between us…the giddy shakes travel into my belly. I feel like I need to pee. So I go to the toilet. Not much comes out. Ugh. What is wrong with me?

I wash my hands.

I return to the bed. I try a few different positions. I can’t get comfortable.

He turns on the music and mutes the film. “Fluffy Clouds” by the Orb.

The fluttering in my belly has stopped.

This movie is dragging on and on. When will he reach for me? When will he hold my hand? I have learned that if I want to be happy, I must be patient. I must not be the aggressor. So I wait. And wait. I go to the toilet again. I wash my hands. I go back to the bed. Shift positions 8 more times.

Just about the time when the film has hit its cheesiest moment, he scoops me up in one sweep of his arms. My head is buried in his neck. He is hugging me. His body heat is warming me. His energy centers are lining up with mine. His legs intertwine mine. Words to describe stop at this point. The letters are jumbled. The feelings are oxymoronic. Relief mixes with sexual tension; affection mixes with the desire to bite. The little girl in me feels safe again. The woman in me wants to meet this man halfway…maybe even go full-speed…100%. Cuz it doesn’t work when you only go halfway. It’s all or nothing.

We kiss. It is sweet. It is erotic. I touch his hair. It is thick. I hold his hand. I play with his fingers. He plays with mine. It is sweet. It is erotic. I flip over and he spoons me. He squeezes me tight. It is sweet. It is erotic.

He plays an opera. I can’t remember the name. I’ve heard it before. It adds a dynamic to our tangoing energy I’ve never experienced before. We are dancing in bed. With our clothes on. I roll on top of him. He rolls on top of me. He pretzels my leg with his. He runs his hand over my belly, and under my sweater but he doesn’t go further. Still a gentleman. I’m still a lady.

He pulls my hair. I pull his. I bite his neck. He scratches my back. I moan. I purr. I have transformed.

“Like a little kitten,” he says with that voice that puts me in a trance.

How long can this go on? We are adults. Adults eventually move on to adult things. I can’t be a child for too much longer.

We will break the rules. Why? Because…well, I’ve been breaking them for too long. I can’t go backwards. I want to go forward. But I promised myself. I promised that this time I would just be a nice girl. A lady who goes out on dates and talks before kissing. Learns about more than one man so she can choose the best.

I am fooling myself. I am a lion and I can’t be tamed. I don’t want to be tamed. Maybe this means I will pay bigger and harder consequences later in life. I will be 40…my looks, my body fading…my self-esteem crushed and thrown into a gutter…because I wasn’t patient enough to allow the right man to come into my life…kneel down on one knee, and ask me to travel with him for the rest of our lives…before giving my naked self to him.

“A man is motivated by sex. You gotta hold out on him until you get what you need and want in life,” says my mother and all the married American women.

I don’t want to travel with an ape. I want to travel with an extraterrestrial. And if sex is my only bargaining tool, then I am an ape too.

“It is on your feet, not off them, that you will attract the right danna,” says the older geisha to the younger one.

I tell myself that I used my mind and soul – not my body – to bring this man into my life. He is here. I am here. I want to get to know him better. This man is worthy. I have chosen to spend my time with him. This is how a lady lives her life. She makes conscious, deliberate choices. And I chose this man to direct me. Because he is sincere. He says what he means. He is not trying to bullshit. He is not just “putting the moves on me” so he can get a quickie and then be on his merry way. I could doubt his motives. I could mistrust him and think in my mind that he just wants to use me and leave me. Maybe that is the truth…I don’t know what is in his mind. But it’s not my job to know what is in his mind. I only have to know what is good for me.

In every other country in the world, sex is “no big deal.” In the U.S., we have a Puritanical view of sex. And if you are a Puerto Rican girl, who grew up with a strict Christian grandmother, who forbade my mother to wear make-up or anything fashionable (although, my mom broke all those rules. Go mom!)…well, this cultural DNA is inside you. It is deep. It takes a lot, a lot, a lot of yoga to free yourself from this ideology…although, even the yoga sutras teach that sex is a sacred, spiritual act between two human beings.

My problem is the “lenchak dynamic” that ensues post-coital ecstasy. That feeling that you can’t live without the person…that your entire world revolves around this person to the point that you forget who YOU are and all HIS needs take priority over yours. Then you start to expect things from him. You get impatient. And then you become half a person instead of the full, whole, dynamic human being that you are meant to be.

I don’t want a man to be my sole source of happiness. This is not healthy. I would like to EVENTUALLY have a man fit into the FORMULA: Family + work + spiritual life + travel + making art + love = my happiness.

March 2: The Friends(s) of Your Life
Since I lived in multiple cities between 1993 and 2003, I made many friends, with whom I still keep in touch. Facebook makes sure of that. No wonder it is a $15 billion dollar company. It is evil and brilliant all at the same time. I also lost a lot of friends along the way, and these were the times that I learned most about myself. And then there are the rare friends who become family. Here is an excerpt from my memoir that illustrates this:

I first met the Indigo Fairy Princess at a party in San Francisco. She was bubbly and pretty and talked to everyone in the room without prejudice or judgment. I immediately liked her. But I didn’t actually become friends with her until a year later, when I was throwing a birthday party at my flat in Russian Hill. I was moving out, so it was perfect – no furniture and plenty of space to dance and spill drinks. And because I had just started dating the beautiful Salvadoran artist, I decided I was a curator and made the party into an art show. We called it, “The Pedicure Show” and all my Urban Mermaidz were required to wear open-toed shoes to floss their beautiful pedicures. Read more…

March 9: The Career(s) of Your Life
I won a New America Media Award for an article I published on Latino.com about a Latina comedienne named Marga Gomez in 2001. I didn’t understand completely WHY at the time, but almost 10 years later, after seeing La Marga perform at the Colony Theater in Miami Beach this past January, I realize it’s because Marga represented a very particular market: the smart, suburban Latina who speaks predominately English. Moreover, Latino.com was a dot.com launched by a Puerto Rican woman by the name of Lavonne Luquis. The power of 3 women, all representing an emerging market. I understand now.

The company went bust in 2001, like every other dot.com without a solid business plan, and this also makes sense to me because that layoff led me to become managing editor of Youth Outlook Magazine, a department of New America Media, between 2001 and 2003. Once Bush declared war, I was fed up, so I left the country to travel the world and find out who I am and what I should be writing about.

Five years and 7 countries later, I am back in San Francisco, and it just so happens to be at the same time of this new Orwellian political and economic era. The big news? The San Francisco Chronicle is going out of business, along with the Rocky Mountain News, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and in the next few months, we will be seeing other major newspapers biting it.

This is huge for me! The career of my life was supposed to be “JOURNALIST.” In 1993, after dissecting a fetal pig in freshman biology lab, I switched my major from marine biology to journalism. Fifteen years later, we’re all hanging on to the railings of the Titanic – editors on equal par with rookie reporters on equal par with the advertising account executives – and only a few of us will survive.

March 16: The Love(s) of Your Life
This is the personal part of the memoir that will probably take me years to dissect and rearrange into fiction. In general, though, love has derailed me from my own path at least 5 or 6 times. Or, I should say, love led the way – who knows, really, but I do think that I truly followed my heart from place to place, whether it was a man or a career or just the city itself. Here is another excerpt from my memoir that illustrates this:

The dread started yesterday afternoon…

It began as a nagging melancholy and slowly escalated to a full-blown nervous breakdown at 2 a.m. in the prison of his living space. At a certain point I was asking myself why I was crying, why I was full of despair. And I couldn’t even answer.

It’s just an overwhelming feeling of loss. Saddness. Disappointment. Horror. Fear. Rage.

Did Mamita ever feel this way when she was 32? Or was she so busy living her life she didn’t have time for existential crises?

I am no doubt keeping myself busy with more freelance projects than I care to juggle. It all feels like a waste of time.

When I am NOT forlorn, and I AM feeling positive, I see that the freelance projects are all pieces of the PUZZLE.

I felt this same despair last Saturday night after being with people I don’t RESPECT.

Why am I killing myself so deliberately? I looked in the mirror when I finally got out of bed and I saw a sad G-I-R-L. A girl who rarely smiles. A girl who gets slapped in the face more often than she is hugged…and told by her loved ones that she is loved.

Just three days ago, the power of my inner strength was beaming without shame, with confidence, with a sense of purpose. How does that light diffuse so quickly? Why do I let it? Because I am weak. I am undisciplined. I am free to make time for these hours of misery. I seem to enjoy the misery. I seem to feed off the misery like a junkie. My muscles are soft. My head is soft.

If I want the fire in my belly to keep burning, I have to add wood to the fire. I can’t wait for someone else to do it while I eat bon-bons and grapes.

Why did I think the yellow brick road would be an easy ride? Even in the movies, it’s never easy, and as Stan Lee said, “Who wants to watch a story with no conflict?”

The magic is in how the conflicts are resolved. We all want to share those experiences.

This is what the Chi War is all about. It has nothing to do with guns or Iraq or politics. The W-A-R is inside.

When someone asks me what I want for my birthday, and I say, “Peace on Earth,” P-E-A-C-E is a state of mind when chaos swirls around and earth is my body.

Hurricanes are a manifestation of millions of people experiencing inner turmoil. Although Oprah and Eckhart Tolle mean well by their worldwide webcasts by spreading knowledge that people can use to assuage this turmoil, they are also creating a trendy self-help track that many people buy into as a quick fix. They watch 8 webcasts and then continue doing everything the same in their lives.

This is not to say that I don’t believe in planting S-E-E-Ds. But I am a pot into which many seeds have been thrown and there isn’t room for them all to grow. Christianity is bumping into Hinduism; Budhism is bumping into American consumerism; Disney is bumping into reality; Ethical Markets is vying for space with Get-Rich-Quick. And then there are the weeds. The massive amount of weeding to upkeep this amount of healthy growth is enough to make all the seeds wither and then mushrooms are the only things that grow with strength and confidence.

I won’t pitch anymore ideas to this man. I should know by now that he is not interested. He tells me he doesn’t care.

I am wondering now if I have successfully followed my heart to a place, a man AND a career that all happen to be synced up at the same time. OMG! I think I may have finished writing my memoir!! I mean, at least this part of it. Now that I understand where I have been, I know where I am going for the next 33 years…and this seems a good point to end the first section.

Post-Workshop In-Person Gatherings
Tuesday, March 24 John Martin’s Restaurant at 253 Miracle Mile in Coral Gables. For further info, call John Hopkins, late of the Herald, at 305-803-7008. Everyone is welcome.

Wednesday, March 25 Starbucks, 3305 Sheridan St., Hollywood, on Wednesday, March 25, at 7 p.m.