Will I Ever Write Another Novel?

 In my last post, the one where I revealed that I am autistic, I more than hinted that this discovery has impacted my “writing career,” and promised to tell you how and why.

So, here I go.

AuDHD, anyone?

Before I get into all that, I need to explain that in addition to symptoms of autism, I also display/experience enough symptoms of ADHD that if I wanted to, I could carry the label of AuDHD. It’s what the neurodivergent community has dubbed (with some affection, I think) those of us who are dual-diagnosed with autism and ADHD.

I don’t really care for the label, because it’s misleading. I don’t think taking an interest in many things displays “hyperactivity,” and my brain isn’t attention deficit. On the contrary, it tries to pay attention to too many things at once!

But those traits of needing novelty with some frequency, and having a brain that wants to go everywhere all at once, make writing a novel a huge challenge.

I enjoy writing stories, but…

While I’ve always enjoyed writing stories, I also enjoy sitting down and playing my guitar, singing, and writing non-fiction to teach what I’ve learned.

I enjoy gardening, wish I could find the time to buff up my Spanish and sign language while learning other languages, and love to learn about nature.

Oh, and over the years, I've probably started AT LEAST ten - yes, ten! - YouTube channels. Right now, I'm keeping my gardening channel updated and am going to start a channel where I talk about neurodiversity, both sharing my journey and helping neurodivergent families live in greater harmony. I'd recently started an inspirational channel and comedy channel, but think I'm going to ditch both for a while, if not forever. 

Is your brain spinning yet?

In other words, for the past ten years, sitting down and making myself write 1500-3000 words per day has been a kind of slow torture, because I haven’t had time to pursue all of my other interests. And because my brain insists on novelty, it wants me to complete any given project as quickly as possible, which means I’ve been focusing most of my time, energy, and attention on whatever story line I’ve been writing. That means that by the time I finish even a short novel, I’m so burned out that I don’t want to pursue my other interests. So I end up wasting time listening to other people’s novels and/or watching entertaining YouTube videos.

And then after a week or two of vegging out, I push myself to write the next novel because if you want to make money with self-publishing, you have to write series and you have to keep your fans happy.

Last fall, I got sick of the merry-go-round. I was completely burned out with writing novels. Completely sick of the whole self-publishing scene.

At the time, I didn’t know the root cause. Now, I do.

I haven’t been true to myself.

I cringed, writing that sentence. “Be true to yourself” has become a cliché that the world seems to have interpreted as, “Be as self-centered and selfish as you want, because you deserve it.” However, when I use the phrase here, I’m talking about my natural bent.

Part of my natural bent is not to spend thirty days and more on a writing project.

Without exception, with every novel I’ve ever written I’ve wanted to quit at around twenty thousand words. A story is fun up until then, and at that point, I’m ready to move on to something else. Why? It’s the way my brain is wired. I crave novelty, changing things up with some frequency.

I’ve tried writing novellas and short stories, but somehow, the stories in my head are always a lot longer. I want to put in a lot more detail than those styles allow. And some would say that it’s a lot harder to write a good short story than to write a good novel.

Why not write more words a day and be able to finish a novel within a couple of weeks? Besides the thing about wanting to be able to a variety of things during the day, I have Irlen Syndrome, otherwise known as Visual Processing Disorder. Just writing 500 words at one time makes me tired; writing more at one time puts me at risk of straining my eyes, especially if I do it multiple times a day.

I can, to a large extent, write without looking, but even if I don’t end up with a ton of mistakes to fix (as task which DOES require looking, no way around it), the fact remains that for every half hour I spend working on a story, it’s a half hour I could spend working on one of my other hobbies or interests.

And when I ignore those other interests, novel-writing burnout happens more quickly. So I might as well have written less over a longer period of time.

Which I hate doing, because I get tired of the story when I do that.

Anyone seeing a catch-22 here?

Then there’s the autistic side of me.

I’ve tried really hard over the years to create what I used to call “normal” characters. Now I realize that they are characters I was trying to put into a neurotypical mold. In other words, I was trying to create people that I simply can’t understand. Women who care about makeup and fashion and babies; men who ooze confidence and boldness, and who can have a long-lasting conversation.

Want to know where I got the idea for Allison Whitlock of my “Pine Mountain Estates” series? She’s the woman I’ve always envied: calm and in control, even in the face of trauma and tragedy. Nurturing. Compassionate toward strangers. Hospitable.

Though I like her character, my favorite characters by far are those I’ve modeled, unknowingly, after people with neurodivergent brains.

Sheila Carson and Hank Johnson of The Envelope.

Michelle Dennis and Daniel West of Snuggling With The Christmas Chef.

Tiger O’Keefe in Talia’s Tiger.

Erin Halley in His First Choice.

Rachel Polowsky in Worth the Risk.

Tommy Ward in Pine Mountain Dreams.

But most women don’t relate to women who hate wearing makeup and shopping, and who’d rather spend a weekend researching some science topic than going out with “the girls,” so I’ve tried to write neurotypical characters as much as I could get myself to.

And it’s been really, really hard. And…they end up being the characters I find boring and mundane. In fact, my three least favorite books, the first in “Choices and Chances” and “Christmas Sisters,” and the second in “Rock Star Husbands,” are my least favorite, I recently realized, because both the main characters are neurotypical. By the reviews, readers disagree with me. But most of my readers are neurotypical, so they easily relate to those characters which I struggle to create.

Then there’s the marketing side of self-publishing. As an autistic person, I find maintaining and communicating to an e-mail list intimidating, some days downright frightening.

The reason is two-fold: first, I hate doing anything social, and e-mailing a bunch of people at a time feels social. Second, as is the case with many neurodivergent people, I am extremely sensitive to rejection. Every single time I’ve sent an e-mail to my subscribers, I’ve been afraid that someone would e-mail me back a scathing criticism.

Having received a comment on my blog like the one I share here has made me even more skittish.

The autistic side of me also cares more about learning and teaching than about writing fantasies (which any story with a happy ending is, really; life rarely ties up all loose ends with a neat bow, and in a way that satisfies everyone).

Will I ever write another novel?

That all brings us back to the original question. The answer is…

…I. Don’t. Know.

When I wrote this post about where I wanted to take my writing business, I was already questioning whether I truly wanted to continue writing novels. Not too long before that, I'd been genuinely enthusiastic about putting my Christian thriller and fantasy story ideas onto the proverbial paper. And I had committed to myself to write two more novels in the “Pine Mountain Estates” series to bring it to a close, and bring the total number of books in the series up to nine.

But now, I don’t know. In the past, I’ve written more than one blog post in which I declared I was done writing novels. Eventually, the story bug came back to bite me, and I returned to writing. So, it could be I’m simply in the biggest burn-out phase of my writing career.

It could simply be I can’t handle the stress of maintaining a large summer garden AND writing novels at the same time, and by fall I’ll feel like diving back into them again.

Or, it could be that my dream of making a living by writing novels has been misdirected.  Making videos is a lot less stressful, and I love using my gift of acting on my comedy channel, as well as my gift of teaching and desire to encourage on the other channels. I love having more time during the day to do whatever, instead of being chained to writing and editing.

Most of all, I love not having to worry that I’m a few minutes away from a severe eye strain. I love not being tired all day because I spent most of the morning writing.

Will I ever write another novel? At the moment, my mind says, “No.” But I’m not God. I don’t know what even the near future holds.

One thing I DO know: I love to write. Therefore, while I’m not writing novels, I’m going to be writing a whole lot more blog posts.

About whatever I want to write about. Autism. Homeschooling. Women’s health beyond fifty. Gardening. Maybe even self-publishing.

You have been updated. Sorry and you’re welcome.

The Most Shocking Self-Discovery Of My Life

 Six weeks ago, at the tender age of 53, I found out that I’m autistic.

It’s been, at once, the biggest shock of my life, and a huge relief. A shock, because like most people – especially those of my generation – I had believed that autism looked a certain way. 

It looked like a mute four-year-old, sitting on the floor and staring at spinning plates all day.

It looked, of course, like Dustin Hoffman’s character in the blockbuster movie, Rain Man.

It looked like my middle sister and my brother, who are also both autistic. Though neither knows it, they clearly fit what I’ve read about it. And my mom and youngest sister figured out, separately, about their issues, as well.

The relief piece I’ll talk about toward the end.

What got me started.

For some reason – maybe I’d watched a video about ADHD (I’d pegged my son as having that when he was nine; more about that later) – about two months ago YouTube recommended a video to me with the title, “16 Overlooked Autistic Traits In Females.” Here it is, if you’re curious.

The Holy Spirit must have led me to it, because I felt drawn to watch it. As I did, my mouth fell open wider and wider, as I related to one trait after another. Not all of them, but most.

It was enough for me to go to the links to the online autism tests that the YouTuber had placed in the description below the video. The links were to the website, Embrace Autism, which licensed psychotherapist Dr. Natalie Engelbrecht set up six years ago after being diagnosed with autism at age 47. On the site, she provides, for free, a range of tests. Taken as a whole, they can help you with a strong measure of certainty decide whether or not you have autism, as well some of the various issues related to it.

“I can’t be autistic!”

On one of the tests I scored two points under the threshold for “there’s a strong chance you’re autistic.” So, of course, I couldn’t be autistic. Especially when the other test showed that I have about equal autistic and neurotypical traits.

That actually didn’t surprise me, because eight years ago when I was trying to figure out what my son’s issues were, I read the official criteria for autism and saw myself in a lot of them. Maybe even most of them, but I didn’t think I fit because I’d lived an independent life without a lot of problems.

Even though I’ve always struggled to make and keep friends. Even though I’ve always preferred to be alone, working on my latest obsession. Even though I’ve always rocked to calm myself. Even though I can’t have a conversation with somebody without going on and on about my strong opinion or interest until I’m sure they think I’m the rudest, most self-centered person on earth.

After taking the initial passes through those two tests, I started paying attention to myself. To my thoughts. And my behaviors.

I started remembering events from my childhood.

A few days later, realizing that I had answered some of the questions incorrectly, I retook both the tests in question. On the first, where I’d initially scored two points below the threshold for autism, I then scored eleven points above it. On the second, I scored as leaning more heavily toward autism than neurotypical (I subsequently discovered that people who receive formal diagnoses of autism not infrequently score as “mixed autistic and neurotypical traits” on that particular test).

I started taking the other assessments on that website. Started reading the prefaces to the tests, as well as some of the comments, in order to better inform myself of how to interpret certain questions. The very first time I took the RAADS-R, only a couple of days after taking the first two tests, I scored 133.

In studies, no neurotypical person has ever scored above 64 on that test.

In subsequent attempts, even when I was trying NOT to look autistic, I scored even higher.

I took a few of the other tests more than once, as well, because I just couldn’t believe that I was autistic.

On every single test, I continued to score well above the threshold for autism. Sometimes, I scored higher than the average autistic female scores.

And then, there was the eye test.

I was more than two weeks into this shocking journey of self-discovery when I took the Reading the Mind In The Eyes Test. This is a test where you look at photos taken only of various people’s eyes, wearing various expressions, and you select from four options which emotion they’re feeling. Dr. Natalie notes on that test page that neurotypical people ALWAYS finish the test in under two minutes and get most of the answers correct because they intuitively, and therefore instantly, know what the eyes are expressing.

Let me park here for a minute.

I never, in my entire 53 years, ever had any idea that most people could look at someone’s eyes and instantly know what they were feeling. I thought everybody else did what I did, learned by experience what various facial expressions meant, and combined it with things like tone of voice and body language on order to Sherlock Holmes their way into interpreting someone else’s emotions of the moment.

Dr. Natalie goes on to say that, when asked how they derived at an answer, autistics say that they merely guessed or that they had learned to interpret various appearances of the eye and the skin around it. In any case, autistic people always, always, take longer than two minutes to finish the test.

I got only four out of the thirty-six items wrong, but I completely guessed on at least half of them and the rest I analyzed based on prior knowledge.

And, it took me around four minutes to complete.

I had a pretty long God-why-do-you-hate-me-why-did-you-make-me-like-this moment. As in, it lasted for a couple of days. Seeing my results for the RMET was the first time since I’d begun taking and retaking the tests on that website that I felt like something was wrong with me, that something was broken, and I was upset.

At the same time, it explained a couple of things. First, it explained my lifelong difficulty in relating to most other people. For instance, why kids found it so easy to bully me when I was in school (autistic children who are forced to attend school are often, if not always, bullied), and why it took me so long to learn to “read” people (I still often get it wrong).

The second thing it explained was how autism can be a huge disability, depending on the extent of disconnect in the social part of the brain. I’d been led to believe that the main problem with autism had to do with the hypersensitivities, but after taking RMET, I knew better.

The last hurdle.

During the past few years, I’ve watched two videos of women who are autistic. Both said that they think in pictures. So I got it into my head that all autistic people are right-brained dominant who therefore think in pictures (my son is like that).

So, like the good autistic person that I am (autistic people are famous for diving deep into research on whatever is fascinating them at the moment), I got online and did a search on how autistic people think.

Lo and behold, not all autistic people are right-brained and think exclusively in pictures. Many are like me and think in words, and have a gift for language – including learning foreign ones.

I am now embracing autism.

No, I’m not going for a professional diagnosis. It takes weeks and thousands of dollars; besides, the tests on Dr. Natalie’s website, taken as a whole, reveal a more accurate picture of the type of brain a person has than going to see a psychiatrist who’s still convinced that “Rain Man” is the epitome of a high-functioning autistic (he was actually pretty low-functioning, if you pay close attention to the movie and check out the folks on YouTube who have been formally diagnosed as adults).

Though there are some formally diagnosed autistics who take issue with self-diagnosis, it’s not an illegitimate way to ascertain whether or not you’re neurodivergent. Especially not for those of us with high I.Q.s who dig deep and take every assessment out there multiple times, watch videos to learn how to interpret the DSM-V criteria for autism, and basically try to convince ourselves that we can’t be autistic until the mountain of evidence has piled too high to deny it any further.

Which is what happened to me.

Then there’s the fact that, months before I thought I could possibly have a neurodivergent brain, I began to suspect my son is autistic. He easily fulfills the DSM-V criteria for the condition. What about the ADHD? I’ve come to believe that both diagnoses are related. Same street, different house numbers.

My point? My son had to have gotten the genes from somewhere. (And I’m not the only parent who passed on the genes of a neurodiverse brain to him, but my husband doesn’t care to pursue the issue as I have.)

I’m relieved to know that I’m not weird (as I’ve always believed), that there are many other people out there who have a brain similar to mine. I’m relieved that there’s a reason for the low-level anxiety I’ve suffered from since my teens, perhaps even earlier. I’m relieved to know that it’s okay to rock back and forth, or sway on my feet, or cuddle with a stuffed animal, or run my fingers through my hair, in order to keep my emotions regulated and assist my brain in processing information.

I’m embracing autism. And as I do, I want to inform my fans that yes, this revelation is going to have an impact on my novel-writing career. But this post is already long enough; I’ll address that topic soon.

Oh, and...here it is! 😉

What Is "True Love"? This Novel Answers the Question!

 

What is "true love"? How do you know when what you feel is a love that will last forever? My latest novel addresses exactly those questions!

A Christian women’s fiction novel, Unfailing is the seventh book in my “Pine Mountain Estates” series. It is sure to encourage the believer to seek after true love, the agape love that never fails.

Read on for the story summary...

She thinks she’s in love, but is afraid of mistaking attraction for the real thing.

He can’t let himself fall in love, because he has no idea what he wants to do with his life, beyond his impossible dream.

His mother would do anything to get her husband to notice her again…at least she thinks so, until the unthinkable happens…

**********

Bethany Mitchell has a thing for Shane Patterson. The problem is, he lives over a thousand miles away. A bigger problem is, her feelings for him don’t seem to be mutual. The biggest problem of all?

She has no idea how to know if a particular person is the one she’s supposed to commit her life to.

Shane likes Bethany. A lot. More than he’s liked any other woman. But he can go no further than that, because he has no clue what to do with his life. His father expects him to take over his Hearty T ranch in Montana somebody, but ranching is the last way that Shane wants to spend the rest of his life. And the one thing he feels called to do seems like a pipe dream.

Then his mother, Marge, is injured in a fall from the ladder. Shane’s best friend, Jared, who is also Bethany’s friend and neighbor where he lives in southeast Oklahoma, suggests that Bethany fly up to help run the household while his mother is recuperating.

Bethany ends up doing just that, to Shane’s mother delight, who is starving for companionship. Shane, however, quickly decides that this might not have been the best idea. So does Bethany…

…when she realizes that she’s landed in the middle of a family drama. Because not only does Don, Shane’s father, seem to be prejudiced against her disabilities, but he also seems to be distant and unloving toward his family.

So distant and unloving, Marge is about to make one of the most difficult decisions of her life.

Finally, there’s T.J., the movie-star handsome cowboy who works at the ranch…and whom Bethany instinctively dislikes. He looks nothing like trouble, but looks can be deceiving…

**********

This novel is available for pre-order right now, going live on August 14, 2023. It is only 99 cents through August 21, 2023, and will never be that cheap again. Click here to get it at the discounted price in the Amazon store. All other stores, search "Unfailing by Emily Josephine."

Click here to get the first novel in the series, Pine Mountain Secrets. This one is free forever, and also available "everywhere."