Booking It

I'm a little annoyed with autism right now, and I'm planning a little retalliation, a little subversion of my own.

See, I got rejected for something today, something I really wanted to do, something for wish I had to rush through the application (which is totally unlike me), and while I'm not crying in my beer or anything, and it's a tiny thing in the grand scheme, getting turned down bugged me. It bugged me because just before that, I got accepted into something actually much bigger and more significant that I really wanted to do, something for which I worked feverishly on the application process, but after deferring for a year I finally had to myself that I don't and won't have time to devote to it. Autism? You kind of a greedy pig, in my opinion. You take and take, and I get mad.

So here is my vengeful plan. I really am going to make that book happen. The one I posted about a while back. The one some of you probably think I forgot. Autism might suck up the space where I would have housed certain ambitions, but I can make new ambitions that fight back. In your face, autism.

My son is and has always been a gift, a treasure... I don't, can't think in terms of "sacrifice," because from the time I longed for my babies, I have always felt that they deserve everything I can give them -- that is my job, end of story. There is no more important job to me. My son ISN'T autism, and it isn't my son bugging me. And while I can appreciate that autism has brought me gifts -- including this blog -- I do still personify it in my mind as a really horrid houseguest a la The Cat in the Hat. It keeps leaving nasty rings in our family tub and drinking the last of the milk, and I'm annoyed, and I'm going to fight back by getting some pleasure out of a project that involves my passions: reading, writing, editing, helping, planning, producing, creating.

So all of those who said you are in? Let's DO this thing. I hope you all agree: the book in my head has this theme/audience:
You need to know about autism? Then you need the blogosphere.

As a former journalist and a teacher, clearly I'm allergic to commerce; this project has nothing to do with "career" or business for me. If that is your interest, if you have a business plan in your head about writing about autism, I think you should pursue it, and I'll buy copies, or help any way I can. I want to make an autism book as a service, as an outlet, as a collaboration, as a learning experience ... everything I am missing from those other two projects that autism snatched.

Autism? In. Your. Face.