layout: post title: “Text Is Art” date: 2026-06-02 —

6/2/26 — 10:00 AM — sunny, no clouds

I put the first two chapters into an AI voice today so I could listen to them. My mind processes audio better than text.

Text distracts me. To me it’s art. I look between the lines and see shapes — trees, eyes, veins, clouds. Especially handwriting. I look at the marks themselves, how a pencil leaves scratchy impressions on paper, how a pen leaves dollops of ink that sometimes smear when they’re fresh and you accidentally drag your hand across them.

Before I had a computer I had a very difficult time taking notes in school. It didn’t matter what information was on the page. The page itself was the thing I was looking at.

I’m writing a book. With text. That I can’t stop looking at like it’s a drawing.

layout: post title: “Trees Have Personalities” date: 2026-06-02 —

6/2/26 — 10:23 AM — still cloudless

I’ve always been interested in trees. They have different personalities.

In college I would go to the park and think about the trees dancing — especially the big oak ones. Like something was kicking its legs up into the sky and flailing its arms around in the air and just got stuck like that forever.

One day I was driving on the freeway and I swore the trees had freckles. Just little spots of interest scattered across them.

There’s a tree outside right now that looks particularly happy. Bold and shiny. Just the right size and shape — like it knew exactly what it wanted to be and became it without any fuss. Its leaves look like spinning pinwheels. Some of them are brown but they’re meant to be brown. Not wilting. Just decided.

And the little rose bush next to it — that one has freckles. Its flowers are like puckered lips blowing kisses to the birds.

layout: post title: “What Did I Get Myself Into” date: 2026-06-02 —

6/2/26 — 10:26 PM — clear night sky

Last night I wrote a song. One night. I sang it to my opera teacher this morning and she asked me to send it so she could turn it into sheet music.

Then it was night and I was alone and I panicked.

Not because anything went wrong. Because something went right. I sent the song. I sent the last scene of chapter two for context. I shared something I made with people who might take it seriously — and that’s a thing I have not done since 2002.

I used to draw and paint. Around 2010 it went completely stale and I stopped. I wasn’t looking for writing. I started singing a few years ago because it engaged my body in a way painting stopped doing, and somewhere in that process I started writing, and suddenly I could see painting again in a completely new way. And now there are songs arriving at night and a novel with a tutor giving me real notes and a blog documenting all of it.

I have no idea how I got here.

The panic last night wasn’t about the quality of the work. It was about stepping into a bigger identity than the one I was used to. Being someone who makes things and shares them like they’re worth something. That’s a strange feeling when you’ve spent a long time not doing that.

But I sent it anyway.

My tutor says the song is good backstory for Hector even if it doesn’t end up in the book. My opera teacher asked for it in writing so she could notate it. That’s not politeness. That’s people responding to work with action.

I’m still scared. But I sent it anyway.