The first phase of revising the book with my editor is finished. One more read-through and I turn in this draft, on Monday. After that, more minor edits follow, and then galleys. We are really on our way; I can’t believe it. When I first started writing this book, I was so overwhelmed by the task of talking to other parents about their experiences with creating happy and somewhat balanced lives in the face of autism. I knew there would be a huge learning curve for me, not only of listening to and digesting so many stories and viewpoints, but also learning how to listen and what to ask. <\/p>\n
I actually scrapped the project for a while and slipped into a bit of a depression. I felt like worthless shit, to be quite honest. I wasn’t a writer anymore, or so I told Ned. Still, because I actually was still a writer, albeit a frustrated one, I worked on my novel, “Dirt,” for a while and figured I’d just be a novelist from now on. <\/p>\n
That is so me. I always think that something HUGE has ended and that all is lost. Mrs. Melodrama. Well, I guess I like it that way, because then the pleasure of the turnaround is so intense!<\/p>\n
Once I figured out how to write the thing, it wrote itself, of course. The interviews were a pleasure, though exhausting. Figuring out how to weave in the story of Sue, Ned, Nat, Max, and Ben past and present was a challenge — especially when I had to go back, once again, to Nat’s baby journals and see how sad and lost I was.<\/p>\n
It has been really delicious to realize that I and so many others have figured out secrets to happiness, given our particular hardships. I just feel alive with the pleasure of my complete book, full of new and old friends, and also reconnecting to old and new Sue.<\/p>\n
One last thing I need for my book (my editor requested this): a short list of books and websites that have given you a feeling of can-do, hopefulness, and optimism, but that showcase these feelings in the context of struggle, despair, sadness, and challenge. These do not have to be autism books.<\/span> I am asking this of all<\/span> my readers, (for example, Donna, Don, Andrew, Colleen, Pete, et al.) even those not dealing directly with autism. Give me the name of one book, website, or movie that has made you feel like life is worthwhile, no matter what your struggles are.<\/p>\n I probably won’t list your book, to be honest. But I want to see what produces these feelings of happiness about your<\/span> life. I will probably take a look at the books you mention, just to get a feel for what inspires other people. Now that I am in the habit of finding this out, I don’t plan on stopping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The first phase of revising the book with my editor is finished. One more read-through and I turn in this draft, on Monday. After that, more minor edits follow, and then galleys. We are really on our way; I can’t believe it. When I first started writing this book, I was so overwhelmed by the […]<\/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-180","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-2U","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180","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=180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}