The magically disappearing blog

I think this has gone on long enough. Time for a hiatus.

I started this blog back in 2008, when I was really grappling with my autistic identity. There was so much that seemed like it needed to change, and I wanted to call that out. I wanted to shed light on what is very confusing for a lot of folks who don’t understand Autism, but want to.

So, I did that. I shared. I posted. I posited. I conjected.

And then people were mean to me. They didn’t even bother trying to understand what I was saying and where I was coming from. They were just mean-spirited bastards.

That’s not what I signed up for.

So I went underground.

And resurfaced 8 years later…  early 2016, just in time for “Autism Awareness Month”. Ugh.

And I blogged some more. A lot, actually. Hundreds and hundreds of posts. It was cathartic. I thought I was “having an impact”, as they say. And it was fine.

Once again, people showed up with the intention of being mean to me. Only this time, it was people I considered friends, in that online “community” way. People I’d interacted with. Who suddenly decided I didn’t pass their purity test. And they attacked me. One of them came after me, first thing on a Monday morning. That person is a respected “thought leader” in the Autism community who’s been writing a lot and getting positive press. Some of what they say is spot-on. But still, I can’t even tell you how nasty they were to me, over something that wasn’t intentional.

And over the following months after that, even the following years, the tone and flavor of discussion about Autism has continued to be as upsetting to me now, as it was before. I really don’t see much changing outside of myself, although I’m sure there’s been progress. People with more stamina and a more pronounced sense of mission have been Very Very Busy doing Big Things. And I’m sure it’s making an impact.

But I just don’t have the energy for it, anymore. And frankly, I’d rather just be Autistic in my little corner of the world, which means I center my attention and focus on the things that matter to me most, never mind what the rest of the world wants.

I have other projects happening. I have Fascinations that light up my life. I’ve spent far too little time on my Fascinations, over the past years, as I was outwardly focused on Making The World A Better Place, by trying to foster understanding. It’s worn me out, and I’m tired of it.

I’ll leave the fighting (and in-fighting) to the people who are totally into that.

And I’ll leave this blog where it is. I won’t take it down, because I think there’s a lot of good stuff here. But the return on investment is just not great. And I need things to feed me, in return for all the passion I put into them.

Nobody can run forever on proverbial fumes. Not even someone as ideal-driven as me.

I may come back to it, in another 8 years. But don’t hold your breath. Who knows what the world will be like then, anyway?

When it all comes together… eventually

Well, that only took 15 years…

I’ve been working on a set of ideas — all related, each with great potential — for over 15 years.

And finally it’s all coming together.

That’s one of the reasons I haven’t been blogging on here a whole lot. Finally… finally… things have gelled with me enough to actually take shape in a form that actually works.

I know I’m being cryptic (and I have to be, because I’m in “stealth mode” with this project), but basically, I’ve written and conceptualized a whole lot of stuff over the past 15 years that I can now actually put into action.

The ideas all work together. And they’re useful to a whole lot of people. And I have access to the technology and skill (and customers) to make this fly.

And that’s how it goes with us Autistic folks, sometimes. We’ll have all these great ideas… very detailed, thorough, grounded, practical, transcendental… and it can take us years and years to finally fit them all together into a way of being, working, thinking, living, that’s superlative. Super fantastic. Transcendental.

But it takes time with us. And we have to have the right conditions to work under. If we don’t have the time and proper conditions, it can kill off our ideas, our drive, our ability to think. Sometimes it kills us, period. However, if we’re given the right support and the right environment… well, the sky’s the limit.

Yeah… I’m not sure “support” is the word I’m looking for. It makes us sound dependent. Needy. Like we can’t do it on our own.

Look, we Autistic folks can do a vast amount of things on our own. If the world isn’t constantly trying to kill us. If it’s not dead-set on destroying us, because we’re different.

I was fortunate to grow up in an Autistic household, surrounded by Autistic friends and neighbors. It wasn’t “weird”. It was how we were. And neurotypical people were the “weird” ones. I’m lucky that way. I grew up knowing how to love my differences and let my freak flag wave wild and high. I also didn’t give a good goddamn what anybody else thought about me, my ideas, or what I did with my life. So I had that going for me, as well.

But I know an awful lot of Autistic folks get stuck growing up in the mainstream, surrounded by people who are bound and determined to make them pay dearly for being different. That’s pretty sucktastic. And as soon as I got away from my family and the area where I grew up, I ended up in that world, too. It can be awful. So, when I talk about things being sucktastic, I know whereof I speak.

Anyway, I have to get back to working on my Grand Plan (I love planning!), so I’ll cut this short.

Bottom line is, with Autistic folks, it can take us a long time to develop… ourselves, our skills, our knowledge, our expertise, our understanding of the world. But when we do… Look out. We are a force to be reckoned with.

Okay, that’s enough for today. Now, go out there and do some good in the world for yourself and others.

The beginning of suffering is the giving of f*cks

What a horrible summer it’s been. I don’t know what’s worse: the heat, the long daylight hours, the humidity, the constant rain, my lack of exercise, my lack of interest in doing much of anything other than my own thing, the hyper-political pointlessness at work, or my general despair about anything ever getting better.

Good gawd. I’ve been in a terrible place, on and off, for months, now. I’m surprised I’ve gotten anything done.

And yet… I have. And for good reason. I can turn my laser focus to the positives and block out all the negatives, and I can continue apace, “killing it” in a manner of speaking, although everything around me is going to shit, and nobody seems capable of stopping the downward slide.

I was just thinking about this yesterday… how just about every job I’ve ever had has sucked in a very big way. I mean, just sucked. People undermining me. Bosses working against me. Power struggles. Office politics biting me in the ass (there’s an image for you – you’re welcome).  Terrible working conditions (too much ambient noise / light / distraction). Being passed over for promotions. Being shut out of important conversations. Being shut out, period, by politically connected people who have used me as a bridge to overcome their own differences (I work it out between them, and then they buddy-up and push me out of the way).

It’s all happening again. So, fine. Screw it.

The chief problem in all of this, is that I give a damn. I give a f*ck. I really do. I care about other people and how I relate to them. I try my best. But they can’t be bothered to reciprocate. Or they take advantage, because they’re weak and manipulative. And so I end up getting the proverbial short end of the stick.

I care. I get involved. I give a f*ck.

Note to self – stop doing that.

Truth to tell, most of what goes on in the day-to-day has absolutely nothing to do with me or the things that matter most to me. And I’m tired of playing along.  I’m tired of the games. The bullying. The posturing. The going behind my back to maneuver around me. Yah, I’m done with that.

Everybody else who wants to squander their life force on that… be my guest. But I won’t be joining you.

Of course, that’s easy for me to say from the comfort and safety of my own home. When I’m in the thick of it, with my hyper-empathic self, it’s a whole lot more difficult to block it all out. And honestly, I worry about it all hurting my ability to do my job and keep the money coming in. I need a paycheck. I have a household to support. Yeah, The Man has me over a barrel, that’s for sure.

But I probably make it worse for myself than need be. I’m way too hard on myself. Much, much harder on myself than anybody else is. Heck, everybody else seems to think I’m close to perfect (ha ha ha, how hilarious). At least, that’s what they tell me. How little they know… Oh, how little they know…

Well, anyway, it’s Sunday. I have stuff I want to do, including driving out to the country to look at the fall colors. My partner and I are headed west with her new scooter, so she can join me on walks and sightseeing. We actually went shopping together for the first time in a long time on Friday night. She on her scooter, I walking at an actually comfortable pace. Pretty magical.

Eh, there’s to much to say to fit in one blog post. I need a walk. Need to air myself out. Time to don some outside clothes and head for the back roads.

Later, all…

Where all my dreams are stashed… for later

This is an old picture. From the time before I put in my new massive bookshelf.

My study looks very different now, than it did just a month ago. I got the monster bookshelf in place, then work got busy. I got busy. And I didn’t get a chance to put everything back where it belongs.

I’ll get to that.

Eventually.

I’ve been working weekends a lot. Either for my day job, or helping my partner with her events, or traveling for work, or working my new gardens. Summer is here. Lots of activity.

Not my favorite time. Especially since I need more downtime than most people… and I’m just not getting it. When I don’t have downtime, unfortunate things happen. Like me getting overtired. And when I get overtired, other unfortunate things happen. Like my temporary crown popping off my back molar. Like me being too tired to move out of the way of something falling, and ending up with a hairline fracture on one of my toes.

No downtime means exhaustion. Why must people be so active in the summertime? Seriously, people, you all are exhausting.

Anyway, back to my study. I was going to rearrange it this evening, while my partner is away — and I may do a little of that. But I’m so tired (and I have to drive out to pick her up after her event around midnight), I may just eat my supper and go to bed for a while.

Yeah. That.

In the meantime, there’s my study waiting for me. The place where I stash my dreams. And my writing. And my reading.

Later. I’ll tend to them later.

Something to show for it all

I’ve been thinking a lot about my situation, lately, and the thoughts haven’t all been very encouraging. Basically, I feel as though I’ve spent 25 years building up my skills, gathering experience, learning some really tough lessons along the way… only to be pushed out of the way for political reasons, or by people who want what I have, but haven’t actually earned it.

I know, I’m being incredibly unrealistic in this respect, wanting to see some sort of payoff for all the years of investment and dedication. That’s not how the world works, I hear you say? Yeah, well, in some parts of the world it is.

And I’m not currently situated in that part of the world.

I suppose this is just what happens, when you’ve been around for a while. Eventually, people who understand what you do and get it, “age out” and move on. I’m really noticing that, these days, because the people who really understand me and realize what it is that I do are 10-15 years older than me. And they’re ramping up their exits from the world I inhabit. Retiring. Or dying. Disappearing, in one way or another. So, my allies and advocates are getting fewer and farther between. Which leaves me standing alone in the midst of the crowd, wondering if everybody realizes just how mediocre everything has become…

I can’t shake this horrible feeling of having wasted so many of my years. After all the work, after all the dedication, after all the determination, what do I have to show for it? I can’t go back to school, because while I have the money, I don’t have the time or the bandwidth. I’ve tried it. I can’t manage an academic course load of any size while I’m working full-time. My partner’s health is declining, and it just feels like I’m biding my time till she worsens and passes away — which is a terrible way to feel, when it’s the love of your life. I don’t know what’s happening with work, or what I even want to happen. I would sorely love to get out of technology, but they money’s too good, and I’ve sunk too many years into that activity to move into another space. I have some ideas about how to move forward, but nothing is very clear, right now.

Well, anyway, the world is full of opportunities, and if I don’t see them, that’s on me. I just get a little tired of doing so much work and not having much to show for it. Or maybe I’m just looking for the wrong payoffs. Maybe I’m casting too wide a net and expecting too much from my efforts. I tend to do that. I have plenty of ideas in my mind about how things should be and what should come of them, but I’m not always tapped in to the reality of how things truly work.

And maybe I’ve been seeing payoffs all along, I just haven’t realized it, because I’m so focused on doing and doing and doing… always moving, always making, always creating… the point is the journey, not the destination, with me. But every now and then, I stop and look around and wonder what in heaven’s name I’m actually working towards.

I’m in a transition phase, that’s for sure. I work with people who actively try to thwart what I’m doing, who hide their agendas from me, and who take credit for my work. They don’t know what they’re doing, actually, and they don’t listen to my guidance. They’re too busy finding out for themselves. I’m superfluous. Especially since they believe that nothing now is the same as it was 25 years ago. I’m not going to change them, so I need to amend my own point of view and/or my own situation.

That being said, I need to go out for a walk. I made a point of bringing walking clothes with me, so I can stretch my legs. It’s 3 hours ahead of my usual time, and I have a few hours before I have to start my official day. I’ve got lots of room to roam, which is good. And I can think about how I’ll spend my afternoon on Friday, since I’ll have a lot of time to spend after the conference is over. It’ll be Friday afternoon, back East. Nobody will be working or emailing me. I’ll be able to explore and take in some museums, I think. There are lots of museums nearby.

Anyway, enough typing. Enough stewing. I’m in limbo, not sure where I belong, not sure where I’m going. Just floating, trying to keep myself upright in the roiling sea. Unmoored. I’m unmoored. But I can’t think about that now. I need a walk.

Short-Form, Long-Shot – When the usual path to literary greatness is… cut off

I’m dictating this as I drive in my car, on my way to buy supper that I have to cook at 7:03 PM.

I stayed in bed too long after my afternoon nap between 4:15 and 6 o’clock, because frankly lying in bed under heavy warm covers, reading through Twitter, finding what’s there, discovering which voices are saying what about their lives, is about the most pleasurable thing in my life, these days.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty – and I say plenty – of enjoyable experiences in my day. My life is never without them. But lying in bed, idling away, my mind afire with ideas from people who think on purpose, in a warm, weighted space is about the closest thing to bliss I can imagine, these days.

And reading the words of others, I think about my own voice. I think about my people. I think about all the Autistics I know and have known, and I think about what we bring to the world. Everybody knows what we bring, but very few people know that we’re the ones who bring it. And they certainly don’t know how we do it or why we do it. There’s no point in trying to explain. They think they have this Autism business all figured out. Some assholes with influence and power have decided it for society at large, and who are any of us to question that?

And I think about this writing. “Blogging” they call it. Makes it sound so simple. Makes it sounds so trite. An exercising in ego. Just a few words barfed out on the screen, in the hope that anybody’s listening… regardless of whether anybody cares.   Ego-casting. Vanity. That’s how it’s often been seen, and sometimes we earn that reputation.

But still… it seems unfair.

The blogging medium has been mine for almost as long as it’s existed. I knew, right away, how powerful it could be. I’ve turned friends on to the practice, and some of them have become extremely successful at it, gaining followers and fans, professional connections and book contracts and staff positions as writers with publishers like Conde Nast. Pretty sweet. It’s way more than I’ve ever been able to accomplish, but I like to think my input made a difference.

Most of the time, that’s about the best I can ask for, anyway.

As for me, I just don’t have the energy to do much more than I already do. I don’t have a working partner to support me as I pursue my dreams. I don’t have a life that lets me spend hours and hours on refining my craft. And I certainly don’t have hours and hours to spend reading the words of others, as much as I’d like to. People put down the short-form reading and writing that abounds these days, but it seems to me that some of us can’t afford anything other than short-form.

We don’t have the time, we don’t have the money that makes that sort of leisure possible. You know — the stuff the people used to just take for granted – cozying up with a long book on grey, rainy day, sinking into it for hours at a time, becoming one with the material, being one with the story, feeling as though the author has crept into your cells and reconfigured them from the inside out. Who has the luxury of that, these days?

If you’re not chronically ill and trying to hold down a full-time job while you support your disabled, dependent spouse and keep your house in order, yeah, I suppose you would. If you don’t end up exhausting yourself jumping the horns of the 9-to-5 bulls in the Minoan circus ring of modern day society, yeah I suppose you might. If you don’t completely destroy any semblance of functionality in the course of just getting by on neurotypical terms, day in and day out, yeah I can see how that would be possible.

But me? Nope. That’s not the world I live in. And that’s not what’s possible.

So, I blog. I read blogs. I follow links on Twitter and I see what’s there, preferably something that’s a little bit longer than a 20 minute read, but not too much longer, because I have stuff to do. And I have to get it done, because nobody else is going to do it for me. I really don’t feel like dying.

It’s really easy to die when you’re Autistic. It’s really easy to just lose it. I lose it regularly. I usually can get it back, but it comes at a cost. It takes hours, days, weeks, sometimes months to get it back.  Yeah, I can totally right myself again. But not like other people think I can. And that like I wish I could.

It’s taken me, what — 35 years? — to figure it out. I’ll say 35 because it sounds nice and it digits out to eight, which is the signifier of eternity for me, which is what pretty much everything feels like to be, half the time. Eternity. Infinity. Endless possibilities, with no end in sight… fortunately… unfortunately.

And as I pull into the supermarket parking lot, I’m happy. Because it only took me 13 minutes to get here, there was no traffic, the light rain is keeping people off the roads but not making my life that much more difficult to navigate, and I know exactly when I’m getting when I walk in the grocery store. I wish to God I had the time and the energy to write more.

But I don’t.

So I won’t.

Here we go again – well-meaning misrepresentation in portrayal of #Autistic #women — i.e., #thebigthings

Well Autistic Bewareness Month isn’t yet over, clearly.

And I feel a big bad about writing this post, but I have other things I need to do with my life, today, and I need to get this out of the way.

So, there’s this play called “The Big Things” that’s running in London. About a man and his Autistic wife who has all sorts of reservations about becoming a mother. I haven’t seen the play, which somewhat limits my ability to comment exhaustively. I have read a review of it, as well as seen a fair amount of blog posts and Twitter conversations about what a disservice it does to Autistic mothers — and, from what I’ve ready, Autistic women, as well.

The one thing I have experienced directly is a SoundCloud recording of a Q&A session this past Friday evening. Paul Wady of the Guerilla Aspies performance group was on the panel to discuss Autism and the effects the play has on the Autistic community as well as women. You can listen for yourself below. Or not. Your choice. (Piece continues below the SoundCloud player)

A lot of things in the panel discussion raise “red flags” with me. An Autistic man speaking for Autistic mothers… the way he typified the Autistic community… the way that old pain from a really… unfavorable experience dating an Autistic woman, years ago, obviously colored his discussion about Autism and women in a larger sense.

The Q&A was held on a Friday night, and we know how many Autistic people are up and at ’em on a Friday night, after a loooonnnnnngggg week of dealing with the non-autistic world… not to mention Autistic mothers who, um, are likely mothering, fer Chrissakes. Sheesh, it just gets worse.

One of the things that bothered me the most about the recording — and I had to sit through something like 40 minutes of increasingly irritating / distressing discussion to get there (I know… poor me, right? 😉 ) — was a woman at the end saying that, surely some discussion about Autistic mothers is better than none! And we should just be grateful that we’ve been included.

Ugh. I don’t even know where to start with that. But let me boil it down:

1. The idea that we should just be grateful to be included smacks of 1954. Back when well-coiffed women typically had their arms grabbed by men who steered them in the direction they wanted. (I’m thinking of all the scenes in Sabrina, which I watched the other night, when men were grabbing women’s arms and hustling them through some door, or in this direction or that — yeahhhh… cringeworthy, by today’s standards.) The idea that women should just be grateful to be included — and Autistic women, no less — to have a chance to participate. What year are we in, anyway? I don’t get that.
2. Yes, raising awareness about the existence of some people can be beneficial. But what kind of awareness? Back in the early 1900s, there was a lot of awareness being raised in America about immigrants entering the country. This is what that awareness looked like: See what I mean? Now, to be clear, the kinds of cartoons cranked out around the turn of the last century were specifically for the purpose of inciting anti-immigrant sentiment. And Kibo Productions’ intentions were nothing like that. At all. But when we talk about “awareness” we need to be clear about what’s being communicated — and that there’s actually some truth to it.
3. As for discussion, my main question is, how much actual discussion can or will truly take place? Are all audience members going to attend discussion groups or engage with others about the validity of this play? What’s more, let’s think about where we’re starting the discussion — in this case, from a deeply flawed and limited standpoint, which doesn’t give us much ground to stand on, or build a decent discussion on. It’s like trying to have a discussion about a butterfly, when all you see is a caterpillar, and nobody talking about the butterfly has actually seen one in real life, just memes on Twitter.
4. The woman speaking up appeared to be speaking from the perspective of a non-autistic individual. She got a round of applause. Mmmm-okay. So people want to talk about this stuff. Great! Let’s start by understanding what the actual objections are, validating them, and working from there. Not saying the equivalent of, “Oh, you’re getting all worked up over nothing.”

Autistic women have been dealing with this kind of stuff — invisibility, being discounted and dismissed, people telling us “why are you so upset?”, not to mention being gaslighted about “making stuff up” — seemingly since the beginning of time, and it gets old. How unfortunate, that no Autistic mothers were actually able to attend the Q&A discussion. Woulda been great, not to mention valid, to include them in the discussion.

I’m not an Autistic mother (I deliberately chose not to have children for personal reasons), so I’m not going to put words in anyone’s mouth. Sonia Boué and Katherine May and others have done a fantastic job of responding. I’ll post their work on this blog when I can — it’s really, really good.

This of course is an ongoing situation and new developments are happening, every time I go back to Twitter. Which is both bad and good. It’s bad because it shouldn’t have happened in the first place, and it’s good because now we get the chance to turn things around.

If only we hadn’t been put in this situation, to begin with…

Live and learn, I guess.

Or, I could just do what I’ve always wanted to do

As it turns out, it really doesn’t make sense for me to go back to school, at this point. I looked at the numbers for how much it’s going to cost me, and I checked around to see what other people’s experience has been like with the program I chose. Reports are mixed. Some people love it, some hate it. Being totally realistic, when I think about my time commitments, my money situation, and the general trajectory of my life, if this is gonna be expensive and time-consuming, going back to school is definitely not at the top of the list.

I tend to think about restructuring my life on a semi-regular basis, especially when I am tired and overworked. I end up charting a whole new big course for my life, forgetting about the things I already have happening. And I lose the plot of my life. I’ve been feeling like that’s been happening a lot, lately. Losing the plot, forgetting what my priorities really are, overlooking the things that I love and that mean so much to me, and just getting caught up in distractions.

So, while I like the idea of having a degree, finally, unless it is absolutely, positively critical for me, and it’s fast-tracked and not expensive, it doesn’t make sense for me to sink the time, energy, and money into that whole endeavor.

So, back to my original programming. Focus on my writing, focus on my day-to-day life, my responsibilities, my obligations, and do my best by them, instead of getting wrapped up in a change that I’m somehow convinced is going to dramatically alter the course of my life.

I really have to stay fluid with this. Everything feels like it’s shifting and changing around me, and I need to not lose the plot on my writing. I’ve become increasingly concerned with the end-game I’m caught up in right now. Getting a degree for the sake of professional advancement doesn’t necessarily make sense, if I’m going to age out of the 9-to-5 workforce in 10-20 years. My age is a factor where I work, and people my age are usually shown the door before too long. Early retirement… I’ll be eligible in less than 5 years, which seems just so bizarre to me. If that happens – and I sincerely hope it will – that means I’ll get severance pay, and that’ll be a bit of a buffer to float me. It probably won’t cover me for long, but it will be something. And that is what I am holding out for.

So, yeah… end-game. Not in terms of the end of my life, but in terms of the end of my standard-issue mainstreamed life. I own a house with a mortgage that will be paid off in less than 12 years. After that, my need to make boucoup bucks will decrease dramatically. I’m also setting myself up for greater self-sufficiency — getting a plot in a community garden, setting up my own home for greater energy efficiency, streamlining just about everything I can manage, buying big-ticket items now, while I can still afford them, and generally cutting down on my dependency on whatever I can — especially the expensive shit.

As for income, ideally, I’ll be self-supporting via my writing, in another 12 years. It may sound like a stretch, but I need to get my act together with this, do the work I need to do in order to write the best work I can and really contribute. For all my complaining about the need to promote myself, that’s just a part of the whole for anyone who wants to be self-sustaining. I just need to find the proper tools to get myself some exposure and connect with people who actually want to read my work.

Get my Patreon refined. Actually make that a thing.

And put my energy into that, rather than getting a degree which I may or may not need, in the grand scheme of things.

If I need it, and it’s easy and doesn’t wreck my life, I’ll go for that degree. But quite frankly, I’ve been dancing around getting my writing out there for quite some time. Fits and starts. Fits and starts. And it’s getting a little old.

So, time to turn my prodigious focus to the task of figuring out this writing business, figuring out how I can get some income coming in about it. There are a lot of micropayment options out there, and if I build up enough of a following, that could sustain me, most likely. It’s just a matter of connecting with people who can and will contribute — complete the circle of creation, to keep it going.

Well, we’ll see how it turns out. Always an adventure.

Working towards #Invisible #excellence

This weekend has been very much about art. And excellence. And solitude. And suiting myself. And working.

I wrote what I think is a pretty decent essay on Saturday morning. I was invited to submit an essay about the intersection of my queerness with the faith of my religious upbringing, and it was an intriguing proposition. It’s taking me places I haven’t “visited” in a long time. To be honest, I generally avoid … going there… because it can be so painful and so convoluted and so frustrating for me to think about it, let alone write about it in ways that others will understand.

I am seldom asked to contribute writing. It just doesn’t happen. I write a lot, I’ve written a bunch of books, and I blog pretty regularly, but I’m not in the publication ecosystem, if you will. When I was a kid, all I really wanted to do, was be a writer. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, and I’ve made all my job choices because of needing to protect my writing process. Shelter it from outside intrusions. Guard the time I have available to work. Center my life around it, in countless ways. That desire, that drive, has informed every single choice I’ve ever made, and one of the reasons I got involved with my partner, and stayed with her for 26+ years, is that she gets me as writer. She values that. She respects it. And she leaves me alone to pursue it.

I am such a writer. It’s not even funny. I’m rarely blocked. If anything, I have more material to write, than I have time to write. That’s been the prevailing theme of my life: So many words, so little time. And some of the words are actually pretty decent. I devote my waking hours to noticing things and thinking about them in ways that few other people do. When other people have read what I had to say, at times they’ve been amazed. If I felt more comfortable about it, I’d brag a bit on that point. But other people’s respectful notice of my ideas puts me off. I can’t help wondering, “Why is this so amazing to them? It’s just common sense?” And I can’t even begin to discuss it all, because I often come off as arrogant or stuck-up or condescending.

Sigh.

Well, I’m not sure I actually want to talk about my writing with other people, anyway. For me, writing and reading happen in a nonverbal space — where words and ideas and images all swirl together without needing to be spoken. When you add in spoken words, you overlay it with a whole other dimension of experience — adding a timbre, a frequency, if you will. A sense that was never there to begin with in the space where there is only the written / silently read word. It changes the experience of the piece. And I deeply regret listening to one of my once-favorite authors reading her work aloud. It ruined it for me. It ruined her work for me. Because for now and ever more, I’ll hear her intoning in a dramatic, almost hyperbolic manner the ideas that once struck me as solid and rooted in calm.

I hate talking about my writing with people. It’s like, if you get it, you get it. And there’s no need to talk about it. The work stands on its own as a separate entity in itself, with a sense that belongs only to the reader, just as the sense of writing it belongs only to me. Trying to embody each others’ experience… I don’t consider it a good use of time.

If you don’t get the work, there’s nothing I can tell you that’s going to make it any different. Nothing I say is going to create for you the experience I was hoping you’d have. You’ve got your own perspective, your own phenomena, your own version of the world. And that’s fine. It’s just not something I share. And in a way, I almost like it more when people really don’t get my work (and don’t pretend they do). It’s honest. It’s clean. It relieves me of the obligation to discuss it, to see what it meant to the other person, to pretend I want to connect with them over my creation… or rather, the creation that made itself available to me, that I could bring it into the world.

I know, as a writer, I’m supposed to strive to get my work the largest audience possible. Market the Muse. Get The Word out. I’m supposed to promote it. Support it. Get it in front of people. Social media! Facebook! Twitter! Pinterest! Instagram! Tumblr! And whatever else… Google+? Definitely SEO, so people can find it if they search for that sort of thing.

But that’s not writing. That’s promoting. And frankly, I’m not a fan of how the publishing industry has pushed the onus of publicity onto the shoulders of the writers. It makes no sense. We’re writers, for chrissake. If we were going to be marketers, we’d be marketers. Or am I missing something?

I dunno. I’m tired. I’ve had enough for one day.

Bottom line is (and I’ve written about this before), obscurity and I are on very good terms. And my obscurity allows me to focus on what matters most to me — the word, the sense, the feel of it all. The minute I lose that shelter, my inspiration starts to dry up.

So, I make my choices. I work in secret, in silence, in obscurity. If I handle this well, I’ll manage to create something genuinely excellent, before I reach the end of my road. Whether the rest of world knows about it… not my problem. What I know about, is.

Back to my Favorite Flow State

Well, this is good. The snow has finally melted, the weather’s warm, and I’ve got a renewed spark in my life. March was a beast, I have to say. It really drained me, what with all the snow and all the logistics.

But now it’s April. It’s really, truly Spring, and I’ve got a boost of energy coming into this month.

Yeah, I know it’s Autism Bewareness Month. That’s not my favorite thing. But it’s also not the only part of my life. Autism is big, of course. It’s a defining feature of my overall makeup. But other people’s confusion about what Autism is (or isn’t), is not high on my list of Fix It priorities, this month.

I’m much less interested, right now, in adjusting other people’s messed-up conceptions, than I am in creating the kind of world I actually want to live in. For all the talk about Autism and suicide (and I’ve walked that fine line with my own ideations, over the years), I’m not hearing as much talk about Autistic people creating the kind of world we want to live in.

Yep, it’s easier to critique others’ work. Others’ world machinations. Others’ philosophies and approaches.

And I’m happy to do it, myself, now and then.

But the way I’m feeling these days, I’d much rather funnel my energies into doing things Right, instead of constantly bemoaning (which is what can I do so well) when things are done Wrong.

That being said, yeah… my writing and publishing is coming back online. I’ve had a really rough several years at my current job. And I’ve tried to get out a bunch of times. I’ve interviewed, talked to recruiters, and I even had a job offer, at the end of last year. But I stayed put, for some reason. I just couldn’t bring myself to leave — mainly because the shiny new job had little to no opportunity to work from home, which is something that I absolutely, positively cannot countenance.

I need to be able to work from home whenever I need to. I need to be able to relax, not be constantly interrupted by environmental intrusions, and I need to lie down and sleep, now and then, when it gets to be too much. I’m still able to keep on track with my tasks list. In fact, I’m even better able to, when I’m home, because it’s so much less stressful than being in the office. I can actually think when I’m at home. Imagine that… Get into the flow… Settle into the work… Get stuff done. Magic.

The other reason I won’t work for a company that doesn’t let people work from home (because they say people abuse it), is because if your people aren’t fully engaged and loving what they do, then something is wrong with your culture. And dragging them into the office to do your bidding isn’t going to make them any happier. It’s a hostage situation, and I’m not doing that anymore.

Nope.

Hm… I think I’ve digressed. Where was I…?

Oh yes! Getting back into the flow.

My writing. My publishing. Digging out all my old writings and putting them out there. I’ve got a bunch of writing that’s languished, over the past years. Books I’ve started. Books I’ve even published (under the name Loren Stone). I’ve published a handful of lesbian novels – erotic and otherwise – and I’m working on more. I just had an idea for another book that also brings in the Autism theme, and I like it. I like it a lot.

Of course, I’ve got to get organized. I’ve got manuscripts in various  states of completion in a bunch of places. Pieces built on other pieces. And then I get inspired and another piece comes up. I’ve got poetry, too. Lots of it. Stashed. In several manilla folders in the file drawer to my left. Holy smokes, I’ve got so much work in progress, it’s wild.

Of course, I get down on myself, because I haven’t “done anything with it”. I haven’t kept my Patreon up to date. I haven’t even kept my Lore Stone blog up to date. I’ve been intermittent and noncommittal at times. And I’ve toyed with the idea of just dropping it all and walking away, when it felt like Too Much.

But that’s just my Autistic self looking out for itself. I have to watch my energy expenditure, and I’ve got so much going on in my life, I have to make choices. Drop some things when they’re not working anymore. Back off on certain objects of intense focus when my inner resources are spread too thin. Follow the change of the seasons. And just be realistic about what I can — and cannot — do, when everything (and I mean Everything) gets to be too much.

So, I’m cutting myself a break. I’m getting out of the business of planning everything out so, so carefully. I’m a program planner by day for my professional job, and it pays the bills. But when I’m left to my own devices, I really just want to flow. Let it all go where it will. Let myself go where I will.

And that’s what I’m doing, right now. I may change my mind in a couple of days, but right here, right now, I’m cutting myself a break and letting myself off the proverbial leash. I’ve got too much writing waiting in the wings to get all “planny” about it.  This stuff has to flow.

Just like me.

It’s all gotta just flow.