[AAC Cadet Leader]

October 29, 2007
Taking up this book writing task yet again, is putting me in a deep state of confusion, but I am determined this time to follow it through to completion. Aside from being the best mother I can be to my two children, getting this book done is the other most important task of my life and is still an unfulfilled promise I made twenty years ago.

Why am I so confused? To begin with, I don’t consider myself a writer, I find it to be a boring chore, but I do have one heck of an interesting story to tell. And re-opening the storage bins and revisiting the amount of information I have to pile through to decide what to include, is overwhelming.

I’ve been scratching my brain for the last few days, wondering if writing this secondary, interim book, before completing the original book is really a good idea or if I should just go ahead one more time and rewrite the original book so I never have to write again. I don’t see how I can make an interesting interim book, that has all fresh writings and doesn’t overlap my original writings too much. And I don’t know if I’ll have the energy to do the bigger, meatier version of the journey after spending months writing an abbreviated version, so you can see my dilemma. The task of combing through all of the material, typing and scanning, and deciding which of all of the journal entries, logbook entries, 4500 slides I took and hundreds of other photos and letter bits to include, is mind-boggling to me.

All that, while the same time, creating a new digitally formatted multi-media presentation from the one I had before my kids were born - the one that I used to haul around the country in footlockers, containing an audio system, a dozen slide carousels and a three-stack projection system.

The present tenuous circumstances of not having enough money to buy the three of us food, gasoline and pay the rent, adds the biggest hurdle to cross, while at the same time is a great driving force that spurs me on with optimism that a book and speaking tour will be our ticket out of poverty.

Presently my kids and I live in a small, rental house with no insulation, two roll around oil-filled electric radiators to heat the place, and our water supply comes in through two hoses from the neighbor’s backyard. Even though my landlady hasn’t made the necessary basic improvements to our heat and water in the seven years we’ve lived here, she just sent a letter last week, informing me that she will be raising my rent again, this time adding another $150 per month, starting in January 2008. I've got to learn how to sell more of my paintings. I already pay my landlady 90% of my annual earnings as a full-time high school substitute teacher. I guess she needs all of my wages and more. Excuse me for ranting… and don’t even get me started on the issue of…

[saved for the printed version. maybe.]

When my kids and I moved in here seven years ago, we had to get creative about storage space. We sleep on mattresses that sit atop bed foundations consisting of rectangular, plastic storage bins that hold their old toys and games, our out-of-season clothes, linens, and sewing and craft supplies. Another dozen or so of the bins contain my 1988 materials, including my maps, lists of names and addresses, letters and photos and video news tapes sent to my mother during the journey.

One bin contains my pilot logbook that I created with the help of a book bindery in Orlando, Florida, just for the journey and an incomplete typed up version of the same logbook. The logbook by itself would make a very interesting book. I started typing it into a computer spreadsheet program about five years ago, by examining my tiny cursive handwriting in the comments sections with a magnifying glass. Then my old computer died and the several experts I had look at the old square floppy discs weren't able to transfer the 2.0 programs I used to modern software, so all of that work was in vein...

But I’m going to get this done this time, one way or another!