Without a doubt, it’s me. I want to be a better writer and I respect my teacher who doggedly pursued his profession from non-fiction magazine writer to fiction author–it was a tough climb from the way he tells it. He learned a lot along the way and he takes his teaching seriously. His dedication is unquestionable. He reads everything we write closely and gives specific, personalized feedback. And the feedback is uncomfortably spot-on, to the point where you’re saying “Goddammit, I really did accidentally switch POV here!” Even so, it’s not him I’m afraid of.

I’ve always been protective and secretive about my fiction. I find my stories embarrassing and I find my rendering of them even more embarrassing. Why? My stories aren’t any more outlandish than others. My style could still use polish to elevate it, but right now it’s serviceable for mainstream or genre fiction.

I think this is partially linked to my fear of picking out the books I wanted from the library when I was a tween. I fell in love with The Hobbit and there was no looking back. But there was my mother not directly saying anything, but obviously disapproving of my taste, the way she grudgingly humored my father’s collection of vintage ’50’s and ’60’s sci-fi. In a crushing dose of irony, she read romance novels. As an adult, it boggles my mind.

I also wonder how much of my secretiveness is inborn. My daughter is secretive, even though we’ve never invaded her privacy. She’s high-functioning autistic and needs her time alone with her music and she needs to maintain control of her bedroom fiefdom. That means parents are strictly forbidden. She locks the privacy lock every time she goes in her room and squeezes out like a snake exiting an impossibly small crack, pressing her back to the doorjamb and pulling the door tight against her front. I wish she wouldn’t do it; it’s hurtful that she doesn’t trust us but there’s a very real possibility that it’s not about us at all. Just like my embarrassment may not be due to my mother’s aversion to elves and dragons.

Where does this leave me? People ask what my genre is and I can’t really peg it. I’ve got 600,000 words in genre limbo. When people ask me to summarize my book, I can’t because I’m afraid it will sound stupid with all of the subtlety taken out. I wrote for a long time as a way to control my bipolar mood swings–a vacation from my own moods into my characters, an externalizing of what I was feeling. Am I embarrassed about what I needed to write during my bipolar? I don’t know.

Regardless, I’m going to have to dig up two scenes for workshopping. Some commitments you just can’t wiggle out of. I owe my classmates the chance to become better readers and writers by workshopping my writing, because we all have different strengths and weaknesses. That’s part of the requirements of the class and even though there’s no grading and no real consequences, I still feel that the stakes are incredibly high.

How do I get out from under this anvil of embarrassment? Frankly, I don’t know. I can’t even self-publish unless I have some degree of confidence. It all comes down to who and what I’m afraid of. I haven’t figured that out yet. All I know for sure is that I need to figure it out before I spend all of our savings on writing classes.

Every year, my son’s high school band travels to some kind of festival or competition. The hard work is mixed with fun and independence for the kids and is a good growing experience for them. I have another blog post to write wherein I geek out about being a band mom.

This post is about my daughter who, between first and second grade, was diagnosed with high-functioning autism. Aspergers got wiped out in the last upgrade to the diagnostic manual, but I don’t think she would have qualified as that high functioning due to the language regression she experienced between one and three years old.

She’s high-functioning enough that I don’t say “she has autism,” I say “she is autistic,” the same way I say “she is artistic,” or “she’s a good reader,” or “she’s hilariously passive-aggressive.” She is quiet. She has a hard time making eye contact and speaking to waiters or other people she doesn’t know. We worked for months on desensitizing her to eye contact. She likes her alone wind-down time after school. She guards her privacy with the zealotry of a tiger protecting its territory.

I love her all the more because she’s hard to know, hard to share time with, hard to talk to. I put conscious effort into it. But it’s not easy and I’ve had periods of despair.

Here I should make a note: I can only speak to my daughter’s experience on the spectrum. I feel that autism is something that varies so much from child to child that you can infer some things (sensory issues are very common, but what they’re sensitive to and whether they seek or avoid it is individual) but I don’t dare claim that I speak for any other family with an autistic child other than ours. I know no other autistic children and what I say is only about our experience. Please never presume to generalize what you know about one autistic child to another.

When we found out her brother’s band was traveling to Disneyland to play in the park, I knew my daughter and I had to tag along as band-groupies. You don’t take one child to Disneyland and leave the other behind. And with her father traveling along as a chaperone, I was not about to be left behind either.

I was excited. Traditionally, Disneyland brings my daughter to life. She speaks more, interacts more, and is generally bouncier and happier. She’s able to withstand crowds and boring lines and it stretches her capabilities.

Not so much this time; I found myself disappointed. I had hoped to get her to talk with me and bond a little more before she starts middle school, where I know she will need me as she navigates the passage from tween to teen. She seemed tired and gloomy. I blamed it at first on the omnipresent hoodie: the North Face fuzzy teal hoodie that she wears all the time (even to bed). I felt she was tiring out because she was overheating and dehydrating at a rate she couldn’t replace.

We had flown in on Wednesday to get some “girls’ time” in the park. And it worked to a certain extent. I put my daughter in charge of our expedition in the parks, letting her choose rides and when to return to the hotel to encourage independence and decision making. But that girl really came alive when her father and brother arrived on Friday evening and we met them at the bowling alley in Downtown Disney (kudos to Splitsville Luxury Lanes for handling a huge group of teenagers pretty darn well).

Particularly, she has a good dynamic with her brother, who is six years older. He has always treated his sister with kindness and indulgence. For his sake, Nora removed her omnipresent headphones (yes, she wears over-the-ear headphones under her hoodie to keep the world at bay) to listen to the two Ballard bands play in the park. We met for dinner that night and then her brother went on Big Thunder Mountain with us and she sat with him and had the best time. There’s a special connection there and I’m frightened of my son going off to college in Fall of 2020 while my daughter enters seventh grade.

When my husband and I parted Saturday night, I bawled like a baby. My husband and I are very attached and spend little time apart save for the workday. Once we parted and were on the way back to our hotel, my daughter wrapped her arms around me and did her best to comfort me with a running litany of reassuring words. Listening to her empathy (which is difficult for kids on the spectrum), I started crying even harder, because I know there is so much potential that’s still suppressed inside her. All we can do is to continue to shape her behavior, extinguishing alienating quirks and encouraging her strengths. And isn’t that the same that any parent does with their child?