…by Catherine
What were you doing ten years ago?
I was quitting my job as editorial supervisor to the world’s largest weekly medical publication, The Journal of Biological Chemistry. I felt dead inside. Just dead. I faced mortality for the first time in my life, and I genuinely believed that if I stayed in that job any longer, I was going to die of a heart attack. I worked from home as a freelance writer/editor until I realized that I just could not stay out of the classroom. Going back to teaching saved my life. Now, I find it funny that I am taking aggressive measures to transition from full-time educator to full-time writer.
Five things to do today
It’s late, so I’ll do my five things for Sunday…

1. get up early to re-outline my once-finished book Cold Rock to begin the final process of last-round edits.

2. Pray to the weather gods that the rains stay in the sky, at least until 4 or 5 (I’d like to spend 11-5 at the pool with no weather-related closings…

3. Read another 60 pages of Lamott’s Lessons in Faith. Love this book. Love it even more knowing that Anne spent two years at Goucher, studying writing. 30 years later, so was I.

4. Time time time with my family.

5. composing a necessary and detailed email to my friend Catherine about a new writers’ group we’re starting.

Four places you have lived
I’ve been all around the world…

Well, not exactly. I’ve been all around the US, especially when I was younger. I ended up in New England in November/December ’92, writing full-time. That was the last time I lived out of state. Since then, I’ve moved from Cockeysville to Hampstead, to Towson (three places, four years). Before all of that, though, I lived in two log cabins in southern Maryland. Best days of my life when it comes to living that dream.

Five things you would purchase if you were a billionaire
1. Buy lots of land in New England, North Carolina, or western Maryland.
2. Air tickets to attend Maui writers’ workshops, among others.
3. A complete Apple Trifecta: iPhone, MacBook Pro, another 150-gig iPod!
4. Old abandoned (but structurally sound) cabins and homes and convert them into writing houses.
5. New socks.
Six people I want to know more about
1. Salinger
2. Hemingway
3. My grandfather
4. My father

5. Natalie Goldberg

6. Anne Lamott

Now I’ll tag…. Michelle and Janet and anyone else who wants to play.