Huge apologies for the strange bot-posts. I think it’s fixed now, but will keep an eye on it.

It’s my fault. This site has been dormant for several years now and frankly, I’ve neglected its upkeep. It was just a matter of time before bad things would happen.

But I’ve been thinking about reviving Complete Flake soon and moving it over to Substack, where security is much tighter. I have a series about ADHD money management in the works. If that interests you, stay tuned!

Hang on,

LaVonne

You might have noticed that I haven’t written here for quite a while. I’ve certainly noticed, and I feel awful about it. I made a promise when I started writing online that I would keep writing and sharing what I wrote. But I just haven’t been able to figure out how to manage both a blog and a Patreon page. What gets priority—The Complete Flake, which has had a small but loyal following for years? Or Patreon, where a few supporters actually send me money?

I was torn, frankly, and that led to a long spell of writer’s block.

Finally, I had to ask myself what it was that I really wanted. The answer took a while but when it came, I was taken aback. Way back. I remembered, as a teen, reading the local paper and getting hooked on several columns, weekly or daily essays written about whatever the columnist was thinking about. Nothing fancy. No politics. Just interesting, well-written stories about life.

I urgently wanted do what they did, but I didn’t know how.

When the internet arrived and I first discovered blogs, I was transfixed. This was it! So I started my first blog, called Jump 2 Books (because I thought the term “jump 2” would be the cool kids’ way to refer to “hyperlinking” from one place on the web to another. Yeah, not so much.)

It was a children’s book review site, aimed at parents, that was a “proud affiliate” of a new company called Amazon. I made a grand total of $26 over the course of a year or so, and that blew my mind.

But I soon learned that to make an actual living at this thing called affiliate marketing, I would have to become obsessed with numbers, traffic, ROI, Google AdSense, and a bunch of other stuff that bored me to tears. And I realized that, with my ADHD mind, boredom was a sure recipe for failure. I did not want to be an affiliate marketer, I wanted to be a writer.

Then, I remembered the newspaper column idea. Wasn’t a blog the internet equivalent of a column, one that any writer could publish on their own? No need for gatekeepers. The internet was the Wild West!

So I started a new blog (called Born Famous after an unfinished movie script I had long ago given up on.) There, I wrote whatever I was thinking about, practiced getting better at it, and connected with a small community of other bloggers who did the same.

That evolved into The Complete Flake, purportedly about embracing ADHD and trying to figure out how to get shit done in spite of myself. To no one’s surprise, I lost interest in that subject pretty quickly, and once again wrote whatever I felt like writing.

And then, as you may have guessed, I fizzled out. Forgot what it was I was trying to do. Got addicted to social media. Set up a Patreon page. Got stuck.

Life happened. I moved into a van and traveled a bit. Made new friends. Got a puppy. Wound up, of all things, in a movie. Settled down in the mountains. Walked with my dog, Scout, in the forest twice a day, and felt truly content for the first time in my life. This, I knew, was my place.

I want to write about this. So, I’ve started a newsletter on Substack.

It’s called Walk with Me, where I take you along as I walk Scout. Sometimes I write about nature and the wildlife we spot along the way. Other times I just write about what I’m thinking. I think a lot about writing, so I’ll share some of that, too, and tell you what I’m reading.

In the next couple of weeks, I’ll be shutting down Patreon and archiving the blog. Instead, twice-weekly issues will come by email to everyone who wants them, completely free of charge, without you taking any additional action at all. Meanwhile, you can catch up with previous issues here.

There’s no requirement to support my writing financially, but if you wish you can sign up for either $5/month or $50/year (or a special Founding Member option of $200/year.) Patreon pledges will be cancelled.

Like I said, we’re just moving to a new location and finding a new focus. All you have to do is relax and enjoy the walk.

See you soon.

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1. Saturday, September 5: Packed up, hitched up the Squeeze Inn (Linda May’s tiny trailer that was featured in the film), and drove away, confident that Scout would be fine in the company of the dog sitter I’d hired.
2. Apologized to Linda for the passenger-side window that wouldn’t go up all the way.
3. Drove into increasingly smoky air to Los Angeles, yelling conversation over the wind, sleeping overnight in our separate rigs at campsites and rest stops along the way. Discovered we could feel each other move around through the hitch connection. Weird.
4. Sunday, September 6: Linda couldn’t open the passenger side door of the van any more. The lock wouldn’t unlock. After that, Linda had to crawl out of her seat to exit the van through the back door. TIRED.
5. Monday, September 7: Got a text from the dog sitter: He had to leave town, family emergency. Frantically arranged for neighbors to feed and walk Scout, but she would now be alone in the cabin most of the time, including all night. WORRIED.
6. Tuesday, September 8: Got word from a neighbor that a cold snap and an early winter storm had set in. The cabin is not heated. Worried some more.
7. After a night in Flagstaff, we decided to forget about our planned day of rest there and drove to the Grand Canyon instead. Walked the glass Skywalk over the canyon. Wow!
8. Spent the night at a beautiful nearby trailhead.
9. Next morning: headed out early. Got lost and wound up at a dead end near Lake Mead. Finally got on the right road.
10. The cruise control got wonky and turned off every time I clicked a turn signal.
11. As we pulled into a Barstow parking lot for the night, a couple in a car stopped and told us the Squeeze Inn’s brake lights weren’t working.
12. Thursday, September 10: Next morning, drove to Walmart and bought portable lights for the trailer. It was hot, but Linda wired it up and got UNDER the Squeeze Inn to duct-tape the wires in place. I supervised from a safe distance.
13. The brake lights still didn’t work, but the turn signals did. Decided to chance it and go anyway.
14. Got to Pasadena late and promptly missed an exit, winding up completely turned around. Meanwhile, we kept getting increasingly impatient texts from the people awaiting us (so someone with more skills than I have could back the Squeeze Inn into the hotel parking space). It was STRESSFUL and we were TIRED. Mild-mannered Linda, as usual, refused to let it get to her. I didn’t.
15. Got parked and after venting, fell into bed.
16. Friday, September 11, PREMIERE DAY: Showered, relaxed, visited old friends, ate too many free snacks provided by Searchlight Studios (which paid for our hotel too). Sweet.
17. Word from back home was that the snow had melted and all was now mud, tracked by said dog into the cabin and onto the bed. Oh, well.
18. Linda’s family arrived and her makeup-artist granddaughter did our makeup and hair. Got dressed up in the duds we bought in Santa Fe. Looked FABULOUS.
    

    LaVonne Ellis

    

    Linda May

19. Towed the Squeeze Inn to the Rose Bowl, where the drive-in premiere was about to begin, and had an amazing time.
20. FREE FOOD TRUCKS!
21. Everyone said we looked FABULOUS.
22. My younger son joined us and we all tried to remember to keep our masks on. NO HUGGING!
23. The COVID police kept telling us all to get back in our vehicles. We finally did.
24. The movie was even better than I had imagined. I didn’t even mind that my scenes were cut (I did get a nice close-up, though.) Linda May and Charlene Swankie were treated like the movie stars they now are (and forever will be). They hung out with Frances McDormand and director Chloe Zhao, and loved every second.
25. The “Nomads,” as we were called, were given the red carpet treatment. It was awesome.
    
26. Afterwards, we drove back to the hotel and visited with Nomadland (the book) author Jessica Bruder and her bestie, Julia, until we all started nodding off.
27. The ball was over. Time for us Cinderellas to go back to real life.
28. Next morning, we packed up again, grabbed some more free snacks for the trip home, and went back to the Rose Bowl, where journalists waited to interview Linda. I hid in the van and snacked.
29. Linda’s family came to take her for a visit in Santa Monica. I went to visit my son in Sylmar.
30. Later, they dropped Linda off and we hit the road, trying to get out of the HORRIBLE, smoky air. We couldn’t.
31. Stopped for the night in Yucaipa, where my mechanic friend, Lou, and his lovely yoga-teacher wife, Cyndy, awaited with dinner. They showed us the nearby hills where firefighters had stopped the flames just in time to save their neighborhood.
32. Slept in our respective rigs but didn’t rest well. It was hard to breathe.
33. In the morning, Lou topped off the van’s fluids, checked everything, fixed the AC, the window, the door lock, and the cruise control–no charge. Wow, thanks, Lou!
34. Thanks to Lou, driving back for three days was a breeze, even in 100º+ temps (ahh, AC!). Linda and I talked all the way about what a wonderful time we had at the premiere and how amazing the movie was.
35. The air cleared up as soon as we entered New Mexico.
36. Got home to blue skies and a wildly happy dog (who apparently survived without major PTSD). Walked and cuddled her, then went straight to bed.

The End (or, as we say in Hollywood: “And Scene.”)

So here I am, with apologies and an explanation—and some big announcements

Last year, I lucked into several opportunities to get published, starting with an essay for a Forbes Magazine website called Wealth Simple, then an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times, then another one (scroll down), and another (scroll down). (After the first LA Times piece, it was super flattering to be asked for two more!) Then this week, my latest essay came out. It felt like my writing career was finally launched.

Just one problem. If you’ve followed a few of those links, you might have noticed they are all on the same subject: living in a van. I jumped at the chance to be published by using what I had (van dwelling) that just happened to be a hot topic with editors, but I don’t want to be known as The Lady in the Van. There is an uncomfortable feeling that I’ve become seen as a homeless object of pity but more than that, I don’t want to make a career out of my lifestyle. Some people do very well at it, but I want to write about other things.

But let me back up and explain why I disappeared from this blog for so long. Or can I? Not sure I understand it myself, except that when I was in that whirl of getting published, I couldn’t think of anything to say here. Especially after an editor mentioned reading my blog and finding a story I had written that I also used in my submission to her. Oops. That’s a no-no. Editors don’t like to publish stuff that’s already out here in cyberspace.

But there are so many great little stories in this twenty-plus-year blogging journey (I started my first blog in 1997!), it seems like a waste to never share them again. And more stories were happening all the time. Does wanting to get published mean I can’t ever blog what I’m thinking again, because I might want to use it for an article? I didn’t know.

So, I got stuck

But I get stuck too often and way too easily. It’s the reason I started The Complete Flake ten years ago, to work on and blog about my efforts to overcome what I liked to call my world-class procrastination habit. (Notice I have NOT overcome it.) That morphed into a brief exploration of more general flakiness aka ADD or ADHD. Eventually, I wrote a short Kindle book about it, Getting Sh*t Done. Then, I morphed yet again into a memoirist and a children’s book author. And as you know, seven years ago I moved into a van and started traveling, which gave me something else to write about.

Phew! That makes me sound way more productive than I feel. Trust me, stretched out over what is becoming a long life, there’s been plenty of time for doing nothing.

And now, more changes are afoot:

Big announcement #1

Last year, I had the amazing experience of playing myself in a major motion picture! I know, right? And now, it’s finally going to premiere at multiple film festivals on Sept. 11 (odd choice of dates, I know) and my best friend, Linda May, and I are going to the premiere at a socially-distanced drive-in movie at the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena. Nomadland is based on the book by Jessica Bruder, and it’s already getting Oscar buzz! It stars Frances McDormand, David Straithern, Linda May (yes, my bff!) and another van-dwelling friend, Charlene Swankie. Many of our van-dwelling friends were also in the movie. Crazy wonderful. I promise to tell you all about the premiere. Linda and I embark on our road trip to LA in a couple of days. So exciting!

Big announcement #2

Last spring, at the beginning of the pandemic, I stopped living in my van. I bought a tiny, one-room cabin on Linda May’s property in the high desert of northern New Mexico. It’s beautiful here and I love it. Being neighbors with my best friend is the best part.

Big announcement #3

I’ve come full circle back to dealing with my “flakiness”, and Getting Sh*t Done. I am rewriting and updating the book with plans to relaunch a new edition in December.

But this process has brought me face-to-face with my own demons. The more I learn about my diagnosed ADD/ADHD (which, I believe, is the real problem for me and the people I’m writing for), the more I see myself and my history. To be honest, I’ve shed a few tears for my young, innocent self who never heard of Attention Deficit Disorder and thought she was somehow broken. She wasn’t.

I do suffer from CFS (Can’t Finish Sh*t), CRS (Can’t Remember Sh*t), and SDS (Severe Distractibility Syndrome), among other ailments for which I’ve made up silly names. It’s frustrating and embarrassing. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to hide my flakiness, trying (and failing) to force myself to act normal, and sometimes accidentally discovering true-to-myself ways to be successful (and wondering how the hell that happened).

So, I’m diving deep to learn how that happened, why it often doesn’t happen, and how to make it happen naturally, without forcing it—because that never works. I will be sharing with you what I learn as I do the research and write the new edition of Getting Sh*t Done.

I hope what I find helps you, too. xoxo