The Dino-Aspie Cafe (for Those 40+... or feeling creaky)

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I'd be happy to edit for free. I would need a copy of whatever magazine you were planning to send your article to so I know what they are looking for. That's not the same as a novel, but, shrug. It's a way to get your feet wet. Please tell me that you would be paid if they published an article by you. Hmmm, actually, there are several magazines that might be interested in articles by you....

double post

Last edited by sinsboldly on 28 May 2007, 4:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I would like to barter something for your services, if you like. We can always think of something!
I looked it up and here is their website.
Jessica Kingsley Publishers Website
maybe others can use it too?
ZanneMarie? BlessedMom? Hartzo'Space? anyone else, check it out!

Maybe. . we could collaberate on a book in the form of a FORUM like "Women from Another Planet" by Jean Kerns Miller.

Merle

edit: Wow, they are Tony Attwood's Publisher!

I have thought about writing a book about my autistic spectrum family and some of the things that we have all gone through. I think a book about the experiences of women with AS or on the spectrum would be a FABULOUS idea. I am reading one right now for women with ADHD and we are so unique from men. It would be empowering for other women to read about such strong individuals!

Just to cover my arse, I am not saying men are not strong or that your experiences are not relevant. Of course they are. Most books up to now have dealt mainly with the masculine model of AS and other spectrum disorders because it was mainly boys that were first thought to have Asperger's. Women tend to get missed because we don't always fit the model for AS or other ASD.

You have a good point, there, Blessedmom.

Jessica Kingsly publishes a lot of books, many of them first person experiental books, several children's, and some novels. I have purchased many of their books.

I would suggest we move this discussion to another thread, but it looks like we might be keeping the Cafe open.


Merle

Sorry fellow writers, no non-fiction or publishers for me. The only thing I publish is what I do at work. I don't really care about that. My fiction is me and I can't accept the idea of selling me. I think Blessed might have hit it on the head. To do that, you have to want to externalize it, let others randomly read it or help others randomly with it. The works I'm doing now were started because two of my old staff asked me to write them. I posted them online because I'm not so fussy about giving my writing away. Well! I ended up completely irritated with the readers who couldn't keep up with how fast I wrote and were inconsistent and some of them I was insulted by the fact that they liked what I was writing. It's ruined the whole experience for me and I absolutely hate these works now. As soon as they are done, I'm deleting them. All because I can't stand letting random readers see my writing. First and foremost, it has to be what I want and I must enjoy it. See, it's not external for me at all. It's all an internal thing going on in my head. That's the best I can describe it.

My best friend has published an essay about her in which I've appeared and she has also published a poem of mine without my knowledge because she believes you can't be a writer unless you publish. She made the mistake of sending me a critique praising it. I immediately destroyed the poem and told her not to tell me any more. It was her poem now and I never wanted to hear about it again.

I'm just weird.

That's one of the things I worry about, when I contemplate being published. Why does that word resemble punished? Anyway, I find it hard to accept criticism, not because it's difficult to take, but I feel exposed when I let someone read my writing. I recently published a short real life account of a supernatural event in my life, but I used my real name, and find that I am too uncomfortable telling people so they can read it. I guess it's not about fame and fortune for me, just the joy of creative writing.

For me it isn't even the criticism. I can deal with that. I can't deal with modifying what I want to write about to sell it. Publishing is a business and they cater to numbers. They want what sells. I don't care about that. I want to write about what is in my head. That gives me enjoyment. If it becomes like my work that I am paid for I will lose that. I have absolutely no desire to see my fiction in print. I don't want the masses to like my work. I'm not even sure I want 10% of people to like my work. I also don't want my work to be about them and what they want to read. I want it to be me writing what is in my head. The act of writing is a rush for me. It's like an opiate. That's what I like. When I'm done with one, I go right on to the next. I always have about five stories vying for time in my head. It's like I can't write fast enough to get them all out before I'm dead. I've been obsessed with it since I was eight years old. But, it is all about my own feeling of joy about my obsession and nothing else. I took the classes to make me better at my obsession, not to publish. I know that's hard to understand, but there it is. That's the best I can do at explaining.

It means nothing to how I feel about others publishing. If that's what you want to do, go for it. I think it's great. We all have different needs we want fulfilled by it. I know most writers do want to get published and I applaud that. I would help that. I just have my own thing about my creations.

I can understand where you are coming from. I have been writing music in my head since I was very small. I also sing and play many instruments by ear. When I was in band in grade 10 my music teacher tried to convince me to do a demo of a few of my pieces and I wasn't interested at all. It surprised me that I didn't want to share my gift but to this day, very few have heard me sing or play. It is mine, mine mine!! !

humm. . .well, more for me, then. I have no desire to 'write a book'. I have little desire to write at all and mostly made myself post to this forum last November just so I would actually put something down - I just have the story within me that I want to get out. If I could make a movie, I would make a movie, if I could sing it and put it in an album, I would, If I could draw it on fine paper with pastels I would do THAT too.

It is my retirement, guys. . .other wise I am royally screwed!financially.

I don't care what people do with my writing, either. I guess I don't see it as me. I saw Jean Auel when she did a seminar at my college called " So you have written a best seller! now what?" where she told what it was like, what happened and what is expected of the author. She said you don't get any feedback from your general public for a year to two after it is set up for marketing, and there are a lot of 'rubber chicken luncheons' to hawk it. (Paradoxically, Dr. Jane was in the same seminar, over 15 years ago. We chat about it sometimes but we didn't know each other then, of course.)
Now, getting on a plane and being in a hotel in some far city is something I could get into, honestly! I would take every local historical walk and just soak up the being there.
Merle
______________________________
The end of the tragedy is a katharsis (purgation, cleansing) of the tragic emotions of pity and fear.

That's where the writing I do for a living comes in. I don't care about that at all and I have no sense of my career being "me." So I am fine with doing whatever to make money with it. I see it as a pure commodity. I think in order to publish you have to see it as a commodity. Publishing is a business. The minute you sign on the dotted line you give it away to an editor and publisher to do what they want and that can include adding and deleting characters, rearranging chapters (which they've done to most famous writers you've read) and taking out whole chapters (which they also done to many famous writers you've read). The more I studied, the less I desired to publish and I never had that urge anyway. Once I found out I could never read the original Shakespeare, Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, etc. because you can only get "edited by" versions, that was done. Before that I thought editing meant changing grammar and spelling. Not so. Edited by can mean they dig up your old letters with ideas you sent by a friend, clean it up, rewrite it and stick in a published version and call it yours. That could never be mine. But, it is the price of publishing.

Merle is funny. Yes, Merle, you do have to go out and "promote" it. It's good that you know and that doesn't bother you because that would really send me off the edge in my Aspieness. I went to book signings. Crowded and claustrophobic. I wondered how they sat at that table with this line of humans converging on them. <shivers> I just know some idiot would say "oh I loved that character" and be the exact opposite of someone I thought should understand that character and love it. I would freak out and never look at the book again. I probably wouldn't come out of the house again for years.

I've had two experiences like this in the past. When I was a junior during my BA, my professor (and my advisor actually) got up in front of the class and said my work was most saleable in the group. He was beaming and all happy about it. I was furious and didn't write a word for two years. I quit school and insisted on moving to another country. I actually never thought I would write again. To me, calling my fiction saleable was the same as calling it pulp.


When I started to write again, one of my husband's more than NT friends (an English teacher) picked up my fiction from the coffee table and read it. He said, "Wow, you could publish this. I would help you. It's good." I was mortified he would read it and even more mortified he liked it. I took it from him and threw it in the trash. I didn't write for a long time after that either. Dh ditched him as a friend after that.

So, I think I will stick to selling my writing to people who want technical manuals. I have no emotional attachment to them and don't care how many changes they want. LOL They can ask me to add all the components and scripts on earth and I won't care. I'm blissfully unattached to it.

On another note, Blessed, my great grandmother, grandmother, great aunts and aunt could all play by ear. They could play anything they heard once on whatever instrument you put them on and it would sound like the professional version. Very remarkable. They did all play in bands. I always thought that was the need to share it. Must be that NT need to share things. Dh says I don't know the S words - share. (Of course he also gets mad if I hand a homeless person $100 or a ring if I have no money.) But, I do think that is the difference. You certainly have more of the same feeling I do. Even posting on here last night caused me to stop writing in the middle of my huge bloodbath ending and go to bed.

Maybe it was too much like socializing!

Audience. Important if you give a s**t about, if someone will want to read it. Who do you want to reach. What do you want them to know. This goes into style. For me, I make my own. To be sure, I've been influenced, but I don't have a clue whom or what anymore. I make my own style. I like it because it works for me, it let's in the flow. Would that fit into the real world of "writers"? Don't have a clue and decided, I write for me, no one else. Having said that, I would rather recieve criticsizm, but not on my spelling or topic, screw em. There is some that would be of value to me. The statements , hey that's really good writing, embarress the s**t out of me. If you want to make money at it, then write pulp love storys for the masses. If you want to do writing for art sakes, then you have to make your own. If you want to do a self help book, well they're pretty big right now, might help yourself just by doing it and make a little money at it, who knows. If I wanted to be known while walking the streets of New York City, there are easier ways to get noticed. I'd prefer not to, both walk streets and get noticed. I mean after they let me out of jail for painting a moustache on the Statue of Liberty, would get you noticed in a hot New York moment. I would look at it as art for arts sake, but don't think most would see it that way. I asked Art and he said go for it, but Art is wierd.

I've been lurking, still. Not really here, but sort of. Look here, my Ms Merle, don't get all bent out of shape cause the ol Cafe is going through a writing moment. This too shall pass, sex did, didn't it? Everybody was getting a little concerned, but we went zipping on by it. The Cafe is going with the flow, don't like it, change it, if you do, well, it's all good.

Yup it's all good, cept that which isn't. That just pisses me off and I think of evul ways to get back at it and have it never know wtf hit it. Well till it's in the fetal postion with it's thumb in it's mouth. Last good one was a dirty cop, god I enjoyed that one. Still makes me giggle.

Art has always been weird, but so am I. LOL Mihaly Csikszentmihaly says in Flow that when you find your optimal experience you will do that to the exclusion of all else and lose all sense of time and place. He says it is doing that activity for its own sake to reach the optimal feeling. That's what it is like to me. It's like an opiate and I am truly addicted. PP, I know you won't like that comparison, but I never said I was balanced, just functional (and barely that).


Today I got employee of the month. I have no idea why and said, Oh. I'm not sure that's the response they were after. I'm still not sure why I got it, but I guess they know. Very strange. Then, coffee dude told me he put his heart and soul into my coffee and "why you gotta do me like that?" He's very New York (so are my boss and the admin). I have no idea what's going on here today. They have all been drinking the Kool Aid. Okay. Who knows where that saying originates?


By the way, I recommend that book Flow to all of you. It really accounts for the feeling we achieve when we obsess about something (or perseverate). I read it years ago and I wrote all over it. To me, I finally felt someone understood. Of course he admits it can become an addiction, but that's another post...