Book blogger, Autistic, Probably a Dragon
Starting tomorrow, Rachel’s Random Resources has arranged a blog tour for the first two London Murder Mysteries novels, and I will be one of the earliest bloggers providing a review. Have a look at some of the others, there’s a chance to win copies of the books.
I am stressed. I think I’ve got the creative part of the dissertation done, but it’s the essay i’m struggling with. I’ve written one, that my supervisor says is ‘good’, but I want excellent. I emailed to ask how I get to excellent from good and he sent me a paragraph of advice, full of words that I can’t make any sense of. I haven’t really done any ‘academic’ English studies for ten years, and I only got as far as ‘AS’ English Literature (I couldn’t afford to do the full ‘A’ Level), so I’m not sure about things like ‘intertextuality’ and ‘a feminist reading’. I can talk about structure and timing, and the traditions of the genre in general terms, but I don’t know how to make it sound intelligent, if that makes any sense?
It all seems a bit too much right now. My sister has a copy of everything and is going to read it to see if she can help me make sense of everything, and I’m having a couple of weeks away from the dissertation, I need some space to think.
I finally have the dissertation guidance sheet that everyone apparently got during last term. But I didn’t. I remember my course colleague mentioning it when I was off one week, and asking the tutor for a copy the next week, but I was fobbed off and never got a copy. The course leader, my supervisor, seemed very short about having to send me it attached to the email I received. I let him know that while everyone else may have had it ‘ages ago’, I hadn’t received any guidance whatsoever. So I finally know what the order of presentation should be and when the hand in is. 19th September is D-Day. I suppose I’d better start saving up for train fare.
As I’m taking a break from dissertation writing to let my brain cogitate on the essay for a bit, there probably won’t be any dissertation updates until August now.
In other news, I’m meeting my support worker this afternoon, my lawn has finally started regrowing, and I got some lovely late birthday gifts from my friends Aimee and Fiona this last week. They know how to keep me happy, and quiet. 😀
I got a bit of feedback from my supervisor earlier in the week on the most recent draft. Still need more of the city in the description. So on Wednesday morning I added 1400 words describing the first trip Lucie and Robbie take from Nettleham to Washingborough adding lots of details about the route and scenery.
Google Maps is a life saver! I’d mostly remembered the route correctly but it helped to have it mapped out with images.
Apparently the essay is good now. I just need to get everything arranged properly for the final presentation, provided my supervisor is happy with the creative piece.
I’m other writing news, I managed a thousand words this morning and a read through of everything I’d written so far of Her Last Death. I’m up to 21949 words now. I’m hoping to reinstate my 1000 words a day policy but it depends on what else is going on. I’m currently achy as hell but I can’t decide why. I think I’m going to do nothing this weekend.
In reading news, I’ve read one of the London Mysteries I’m reviewing a week today, and my copies of Wrecker and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot which I’ll be reviewing later in the month have arrived.
I’m what else I’m doing news, my rainbow draft excluder is coming along nicely, the garden is beginning to pick up and my cross-stitch is looking okay. I’ve been swimming and to the AAF café this week. That’s probably why I ache, I’ve pushed myself a bit. Oh, and next week I meet my support worker!
Thanks to the publisher for sending me an ebook copy of this book as part of their blog tour.
Published By: HQ Digital
Publication Date: 1st September 2018
Format: E-book
I.SB.N.:Â 9780008304065
Price: 99p
Blurb
Today isn’t the first time I’ve thought about killing my best friend, but it is the first time I’ve done something about it.
Since they were teenagers, Jane and Elle had been inseparable.
Until the day that Elle stole the love of Jane’s life.
Now everything has changed. Jane wants him back, and with a little help from her horticultural obsession, she may just have found the perfect solution…
A psychological suspense novel that you will not be able to put down. Perfect for fans of Louise Jensen and Clare Boyd.
Continue reading “Review: ‘Love Me, Love Me Not’, by Katherine Debona”
Starting tomorrow, this blog tour lasts until Wednesday. My review will be out Monday morning, and I can’t wait to share it with you.
I was laid in bed thinking last night about the connections we make with other people, especially our families. My brain came up with a metaphor. I get metaphorical at times, it helps me understand the world.
Our links to family are the anchor we’re born with, keeping us firmly in place. We learn to know who we are and where we are, just the basics, a starting point. That’s our port of anchor, our home. Eventually we grow up, and want to sail away, so we haul in the anchor and head out to sea. We take our anchor with us, a security against losing ourselves. Got lost? Drop your anchor, check your compass and charts, rest and then head back out on your journey, safe in the knowledge that you can stop and rest if you need to. You can go home if you need to, to repair the anchor, replace the mooring ropes, get a decent cup of tea.
Sometimes the rope is rotten and the chain rusted. It snaps in time, and you flail around unconnected until someone throws you a new rope, and you can get yourself a new anchor. You might have tried to keep going, with that rusty anchor chain and the fraying rope, hoping to repair it soon, but never being able to. The break, though inevitable, still comes as a shock.
If you’re lucky, you have a few spares, ready and willing to help hold you steady (friends). If not, you’re thrown about on the waves, struggling to get to shore. This is how I think of those with abusive families. From observation, the rope, to an outsider, is fatally flawed, but the sailor keeps sailing, hoping one day things will change but they never do. The rope gets more frayed, the anchor chain rustier. Eventually it breaks, it was going to, but the break is painful for the sailor because they’ve relied for so long on the faulty equipment. This is the part of your brain and society that reinforces the message that says “No, you mustn’t cut of your narcissistic/abusive/controlling mother/father/sister/brother, they’re family.”, or the abusive person that tells them they have no one else, that none will ever love them, look after them, the way the abusive person does, even though common sense and your friends say “Run away as far and as fast as you can. Cut off all contact, they’re bad for you.”.
The fact is, the anchor – the abusive family member – doesn’t care, it’s doing its own thing and now at least it isn’t being hauled around by/constantly connected to the ‘demanding’ sailor. Oh, it might wish you were still there, but only so they can continue abusing you. They’ll say you cut the rope, it’s your fault they left, but that’s just deflection. They were rotten to start with.
Leave the anchor, deep and lost on the seas.
Sail away and find a new way to get to shore.
Call for help.
If you have spare ropes (friends) that’ll hold you for a while, you can tie up elsewhere, find another anchor, one you choose, rather than one foisted on you. Maybe the old ropes and anchor stopped you from getting spares, (social isolation) and you struggle to get to shore.
Call for help.
Someone will answer, maybe they’ll lend you a temporary anchor, just until you find yourself a new one. This is a support group, or a therapist, that sort of thing.
Some people have perfectly fine anchors and ropes, strong, unfreyed, uncorroded, and still choose to cut themselves loose, leaving a dangling rope and a lost anchor. They have their own reasons, even if they don’t make any sense from the outside. They might have other anchors, ‘better’ ones, waiting to be used; or they might believe their perfectly fine anchors and rope are damaged and they need to be thrown away.
Or, maybe they just want to go on an adventure, are tired of being in one place, feel stuck or scared. So they cut their mooring ropes and sail away. Maybe everything will go well, they find temporary moorings, borrow new anchors and rope, and eventually come back. Full of stories, ready to fish up their old anchor, clean it off and start again. And maybe they’ll need help. Maybe, they’ll discover they left the anchor on the seabed for too long and it’s rusted and too far gone to be cleaned up and reused; maybe someone else fished it out, appreciated that it was a fine anchor and decided to make it their own. So, disappointed, they have to get a new anchor. Maybe they’ll keep the one they abandoned but tried to recover as a memory or souvenir, or they’ll see it hanging from another ship’s anchor chain, having been rescued soon after being abandoned, and feel sad they’ve lost something they hadn’t really had the chance to appreciate. And they’ll sail on.
Make of that what you will. My brain in a strange place.
No news this week, I sent a slightly altered version to my supervisor last Friday and haven’t heard back yet.
On the creative side, I spent an hour with google maps and satellite images, and now I have a more precise idea of where in the city Lucie is living and have tried to add details to the manuscript.
On the essay side, I tried again without the ‘I’, and I’m a bit more hopeful about this effort. I’ll get there eventually.
I have a headache and I’m coughing and stuffy. It’s either a cold or heyfever. Choices, choices.
Anyway, I’m whiling away my time reading, as usual now I’ve sent in another email with my dissertation, and today’s choice is one of my book shopping spree purchases: Odd Girl Out, by Laura James.
Reading it, I’ve found so many things, thoughts, feelings, that I recognise. That I’ve felt or experienced, despite our different backgrounds and upbringing. The oddness of other people, not understanding the social rules, being immersed in books, not understanding the whole football thing, practical empathy, being overwhelmed by other people’s feelings, especially negative feelings, not quite getting why people lie, there’s so much!
She talks about the irony of an autistic woman in a communications profession – she’s a journalist. Communication deficits are a hallmark of autism. The fact is, we communicate well in writing. I prefer to write than talk, because I can be very precise in writing. I mean what I write. There’s no need to assume otherwise. If I’m being satirical, humorous or sarcastic I can indicate that either directly with a symbol, or with the sentence structure. It’s also solid, I have information in writing, so I can refer back to it if I get confused or need reassurance. Or to win an argument.
Speech is different. If I say something, other people have a habit of deciding the meaning based on my face or body language, rather than the actual words used. My face does not always show my feelings. My words get jumbled up if I’m stressed or answering an unexpected question. I can’t always hear and process speech. I forget what’s been said or what I’ve said. Sometimes. Beware, I also have the ability to recall conversations from months or years ago with accuracy. Sometimes I lose the ability to speak, especially under stress, or if I’m heading into a shutdown. It’s very frustrating.
So, because autists have problems with verbal communication, our ability to communicate at all is written off as deficient. This attitude keeps the non-speaking from being given any respect at all, and those of us who do speak are told we’re too good at communicating to actually be autistic when we go for a diagnosis. It’s not just doctors either, when autistic people advocate for themselves they get push back from certain people – they can’t possibly be autistic if they can write a tweet. *massive eye-roll* Or they must be ‘high functioning’ and don’t understand the experience of ‘low functioning’ people. Almost invariably, when asked what they mean by ‘low functioning’, not speaking is included in the criteria. *again, eye roll*
Just because there’s a block between mind and mouth doesn’t mean there’s a block between mind and hand, or low intellectual ability, or low competancy. People need to stop assuming speech is the only valid means of communication. Give people the means to communicate and actually read what they’re saying.
Right, now I’ve got that off my chest I’m going back to reading my book.
I’ve had a week off from the dissertation. It was my birthday last Sunday, but I’d had so much on in the preceding days that I mostly ate, napped and read, especially after the anxiety-provoking disaster that was trying to go to Lidl. I’ve had a book shopping spree, and I’m expecting four more books, birthday presents mostly. Also, my book from Tess the Neurodivergent Goddess arrived, so that’s been added to the pile. If you follow me on GoodReads, you’ll have some idea of the number of books I’ve devoured in this last week. It’s very calming. I’m at 49 of 100 books read on my reading challenge.
I have actually done some work on my dissertation today, I made some changes to the essay to remove the ‘I’, and I added some books to the bibliography. I like a good bibliography. All nice and alphabetically ordered. I’m currently reading Odd Girl Out by Laura James, an autistic woman who got her diagnosis as an adult. It is interesting to see the similarities and differences in out experiences. This is one of the books I’ve added to the bibliography. I want Lucie to have the same experiences and responses to situations that a real autistic woman would have, and reading various accounts, both in books and online, has added to my own lived experience in the writing process.
Published By: Red Door Books
Publication Date: 31st May 2018
I.S.B.N.: 9781910453568
Format: Paperback
Price: £8.99
Blurb
Polly, 28, lives in London with her ‘perfect-on-paper’ boyfriend. She works a dead-end job on a free London paper. . . life as she knows it is dull. But her banal existence is turned upside down late one drunken night on her way home, after a chance encounter with a man on a packed tube train. The chemistry between them is electric and on impulse, they kiss, giving in to their carnal desires. But it’s over in an instant, and Polly is left shell-shocked as he walks away without even telling her his name.
Now obsessed with this beautiful stranger, Polly begins a frantic online search, and finally discovers more about tubing, an underground phenomenon in which total strangers set up illicit, silent, sexual meetings on busy commuter tube trains. In the process, she manages to track him down and he slowly lures her into his murky world, setting up encounters with different men via Twitter.
At first she thinks she can keep it separate from the rest of her life, but things soon spiral out of control.
By chance she spots him on a packed tube train with a young, pretty blonde. Seething with jealousy, she watches them together. But something isn’t right and a horrific turn of events makes Polly realise not only how foolish she has been, but how much danger she is in…
Can she get out before it’s too late?
Everything Is Better With Dragons 