Life without a plot...

Disability Blog Carnival #7: Disability in the Arts

As it says in my bio, I am an aspiring writer. Or at least I used to be. I was a very good story writer and poet from very early on. I published my first poems in sixth grade. I was the first freshman in my highschool to get into the Quill and Scroll, the school's writing honor society. Mind you, they didn't like the topics I wrote about, but they didn't deny I did it well.

But despite having written several stories and having complete layouts for dozens of others, I have yest to publish a novel or short story. That's not to say I haven't finished any. My first story, my "baby" as it were, was written when I was twelve. It was originally twenty-six pages long. But in my mind it wasn't good enough, it could be better. The second version was seventy-two pages long. The third version was one hundread and change long. There was always something to do better.

The story never read on paper like I saw it in my head. As a child I didn't really have many friends because I didn't understand them and they certainly didn't understand me. I lived in novels, mostly fantasy or science fantasy. My father and sister loved science fiction, the old kind with real science, but I was bad at math and science. I didn't understand those books and that was one of many sticking points between me father, who also has AS, and I.

My story worlds were one place where the world made sense. I controlled it, created it, and even destroyed it if I wanted to. I could take whatever was bothering me there and work it through in so many different ways.

I find I tend to create depressing stories, I suppose because I've been depressed for so long. Those stories I have a hard tiem completing because they make me feel more depressed. Another problem I have is that after I create a story in my head, I want to make a new one. I don't want to take the time and effort to write out something that won't be good enough anyway. I am a bit compulsive, or maybe more than a bit.

I learned very recently that I'm an Aspie. You know the collquialism "it turn my world on it's ear"? Well, having learned this, I feel my world was tipped towards the right way. And I already have an idea for a short story about what I am experiencing. Life is what gives an artist their juice. I hope that with this discovery I can work towards finishing something.