{"id":1159,"date":"2006-11-28T07:10:00","date_gmt":"2006-11-28T07:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2006\/11\/good-for-the-cause-bad-for-me\/"},"modified":"2006-11-28T07:10:00","modified_gmt":"2006-11-28T07:10:00","slug":"good-for-the-cause-bad-for-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2006\/11\/good-for-the-cause-bad-for-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Good for the Cause, Bad for Me"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/tg\/detail\/-\/1590303822?tag2=nedbatchelder-20\">My paperback<\/a> is now available for order and will be shipped in two weeks.  This should be cause for celebration, the fact that I made it to paperback.  But I am very unhappy.  I am stuck.  I am not getting anywhere with new autism projects\/articles.  I feel I need to move on but I do not yet know how.<\/p>\n<p>The <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Worcester Telegram<\/span> did a piece on me to promote the new paperback.  But &#8212; this is the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegram.com\/apps\/pbcs.dll\/article?AID=\/20061127\/NEWS\/611270608\/1101\">least accurate article on me <\/a>I&#8217;ve ever read. It is not factually incorrect, but the spirit is completely wrong. I even know the reporter, but obviously not well enough. The hook is wrong: I have and always will fight for Nat. Where did he get the idea that &#8220;Making Peace&#8221; means &#8220;giving up the fight?&#8221; The kicker is wrong, too, that half the time Nat does not know what we are talking about and that as he ages he is creating more problems for us. I do not feel that way. I believe that more and more he does know what we are talking about but only half the time does he show it. And as for creating more problems&#8230; all of my children &#8220;create&#8221; problems for me; it is their job. Nat is not special in that regard. His problems are a bit more evident at the time, however&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I am so depressed and this is the tip of the iceberg. There has been a slew of writing going on about autism and none of it is by me. I have submitted piece after piece to the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">NY Times<\/span>, especially on the need for Late Intervention, and they went and assigned it to two other writers, and this is making the rounds in the blogosphere. It is a great article, better than mine, but that is beside the point. And today they are talking about buying toys for kids with autism; I wrote about that <a href=\"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/choosingtoys.html\">years ago in <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Exceptional Parent Magazine<\/span><\/a>. And yesterday WBUR (Boston&#8217;s NPR affiliate) did a one hour program on autism in the later years. Two different friends called me to tell me, how wonderful!!! No one at that station remembered all the things I pitched to them, nor <a href=\"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2005\/11\/supreme-injustice-part-ii.html\">the commentary I did almost exactly a year ago<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>I feel so irrelevant.  Am I over?  I know, I know, huge ego, but yeah, didn&#8217;t you already know that?  Anyway&#8230; this is who I am, and right now, I am so bummed.  Yes, sure, I am thrilled that autism is so central to the media these days!  But as a writer, I&#8217;d like to be a part of that.  And I&#8217;m not anymore.  And it is not for lack of trying. <\/p>\n<p>So if I&#8217;m to move on, I need to know what&#8217;s next.  I don&#8217;t feel like I can do another autism book yet, because not enough has happened.  And there has been a glitch with the Special Olympics book, as of yesterday.  So I don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s next for me and I am in some kind of hellish stasis at the moment, churning my wheels, gnashing my teeth, wringing my hands.<\/p>\n<p>Going to try to take care of myself.  A trip to the gym, lunch with my best girlfriend (I hope) and then &#8212; work on my newest project, which I may be calling, &#8220;Making Peace with Midlife.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My paperback is now available for order and will be shipped in two weeks. This should be cause for celebration, the fact that I made it to paperback. But I am very unhappy. I am stuck. I am not getting anywhere with new autism projects\/articles. I feel I need to move on but I do [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-iH","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}