I was born at home in a blizzard so tall, the doctor snowshoed to our house and climbed in the window of the second floor. My sister danced ballet to the Nutcracker Suite, while my dad took slide photographs so we could watch ourselves being born on every one of our birthdays, until as teenagers, my sister and I burned the negatives.

How I ran from writing

I grew up like most kids: fistfights and riding bikes, surfing and skiing, tying knots at boy scouts and warding off angry Samoan girls wielding machetes.

I went to college and wrote a few short stories, worked my way into a few full length screenplays, wrote some articles for the local paper and told all my friends I was a writer. 

I had SO many ideas.

But I never published anything.

I assumed it was because my writing was no good.

That wouldn't have mattered because I NEVER SHOWED ANYTHING TO AN AGENT OR PUBLISHER! 

I spent years crafting stories only let them sit in a dusty corner of my computer screen. It was more like I was a writer so I could tell people about the stories I was going to write, and then I never had to take the realistic next step of publishing my work and letting an audience see it.

It could have been me being a perfectionist, but then again maybe I knew my content wasn't that good. I never sent it to a publisher because it wasn't my best work, and I didn't even know how to get the best work out of my head and onto the page.

How you can never really run from your dreams

I was dying slowly, the poison taking hold of my brain. The words were too many. I poured them out as fast as I could, but I had plenty of time. 

I couldn't walk anymore. I couldn't take another step. My body was frozen and immobile.

I was trapped inside an overworked head that was rebelling against me. My own immune system was attacking my healthy joints because it thought the enemy was within - and in a way it was right.

One doctor recommended carving out my hips and replacing them with plastic ones. He said "You will never run again with or without the surgery, but at least you won't be in so much pain."

I researched my condition for years and discovered that to combat the disease that prevented my movement, I needed to move. I needed to keep moving. I needed to never stop.

I am not particularly religious, but I was already on my knees, humbled by my own body.

Thank you, quirky universe.

What a grand metaphor. 

I will never stop.

i found myself buried under my why

I caught my slippery little baby, Wilder Love Fox, on January 15th, 2015. I was supposed to announce the gender, but I couldn't say anything - my throat was too tight.

The midwife leaned close and whispered, "it's a girl."

I just smiled. I fell in love that morning. And I found my 'Why.'

I'm not just in this world to watch sunsets and jump off cliffs into the ocean anymore.

I can't just tell people about what I plan to write and be satisfied. I need to write it so they can read it! So my daughter Wilder can read it. So I can be happy knowing I lived the life I should have, that no matter how hard it got, I stuck with it and showed up, day after day.

And I did it. I started writing until I finished a book.

Then I kept writing until I finished another book.

I am still writing.

I will never stop.