Alyssa Reads The US Book

On September 26, my copy of The US Book, by Michael Scott Monje Jr, arrived. I started reading. I know that's the day it arrived because her poetry immediately got me writing, which she says is one of the best compliments her book could get. I was happy, because the writing induced by (starting to) read this book broke through a bit of writers block. After writing a good bit in June (honestly mostly yelling at Uniquely Human, but I was making words) I dropped off a good bit in July, then only managed to write here once each in August and September. (To be fair, there was some other writing happening in August. There was not in September.)

So you can thank The US Book for my presence here again.

Image of a very happy looking Alyssa holding a copy of The US Book

Also, those of you who know my art style might recognize that cover, partially. I did that line art. 

Now to the actual reading bit:

The line that got me writing again was "Speaking is a prison when it's the only thing you're given." As a part time typist who can always, always tell you more typing than speaking, I represent that statement. It was always assumed that speech would work, because it appeared to, but written English is my natural language in a way spoken English isn't. 

I don't know what word to best describe my reaction to the call for psychology, as rhetoric, to make use of neuroscience. Something positive, and with perhaps some pride because neuroscience is the thing I am studying for my doctorate while writing about rhetoric, representation, and neurodivergence on another side. (I can't call one action the center and all others the sides, but I can say that there are many sides to what I do.) I have to agree that neuroscience has a ways to grow, and I'd like to be part of that growing because seriously folks, there are always assumptions and narratives built in to our science and at least I will admit to my neurodivergent ones. 

Face My Morning Face remains as important as it was the day it went up on her blog, if not more so. I'm thinking more so, because of what it's led to since then.

I'm as proud of Look for our communications if you want us to bother with your language. being dedicated to me now as I was the day it went up on her blog, if not more so. (The dedication is on the blog, not in the book. That's OK. I remember, plus it's on the Internet.)

And maybe, just maybe, the taste of those two pieces, which appear in The US Book but which are also still free online for you to read, will whet your appetite for the rest. I know I'm pretty blatantly saying you should read this, if you can, but that's because I think you should. The US Book made me think, laugh, and write. 

And of course, I'm studying neuroscience without leaving behind my knowledge as an Autistic activist and scholar of how we speak and write about things. Or my knowledge as a mathematician, for that matter. That's where I learned to poke holes in arguments, after all. While I work, I need to remember:

• Reading My Own Screams
  
  "Speaking is a prison when it's the only thing you're given." 'Nough said.
  
• Uses of the Knife
  
  I need this to remember about psychology as rhetoric + needing neuroscience. What I am studying is real, and it's important, and it's narrative too. Remember where the narrative comes from, because ... some of it's coming from the same people who hate us (It's time to accept that they hate you.) I don't get to be "apolitical" (as in protecting the status quo or as in not paying attention) without being self-loathing or self-sabotaging.
  
• Look for our communications if you want us to bother with your language.
  
  Communication barriers have more than one side and all too often, the side that's working hardest to translate their communications are also the ones who are called inherently incomprehensible.
  
  When I am tired and anxiety is telling me that nothing matters, I can remember that I have already had an impact. Not one measured in the metrics of academia, but one measured in people and poetry. I know which one matters more to me (and it's the one I've already got. Not gonna lie, though, I'm aiming for both.)
  
• It's time to accept that they hate you.
  
  Put so well, what I fight, why I fight, and remember that I am not alone. I'm not. 

Writing Accidentally Autistic Characters

Instigated by this Tumblr post, particularly the part where iridescent-enby asks what a writer can/should do if they realize they are writing an accidentally autistic character. How do they make the autism explicit without speaking for/over us (do they make it explicit?)

I’m responding as both a writer and an autistic person. Finding out that you were accidentally or unintentionally writing an autistic character is not the same as setting out to intentionally write an autistic character. When you set out to write an autistic character, you probably do research about autism. Hopefully, this research includes things written by actually autistic people, but... I'm well aware this isn't always the case. 

And advice about writing with autistic characters can be found. So can letters to writers about autism, examinations of common narrative methods for "showing" autism, analyses of problems like character development meaning "overcoming" autism or acting "less autistic," and discussions of behaviorizing vs. humanizing approaches to writing about autistic people and characters. I've even thrown my hat in this ring before, with "Who Gets to Stay Autistic?" In retrospect, I think I should have left the comma in the title: Who gets to stay, autistic?

There doesn't seem to be so much about what you do when you realize you're writing an autistic character. Which is kind of funny, because there are so many autistic characters running around who we're never told are autistic, who we recognize because we know ourselves. I definitely recognize characters as autistic while I'm reading. Alanna of Trebond and Olau, later Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau. Annie Cresta, with the added dose of PTSD that literally all the Victors have. Hermione Granger, because if I am just like her, then she is autistic too. Emily, from Questionable Content. Dairine Callahan.

It's not hard to write an autistic character without setting out to do so, because we're people, and you'll see us around in life. We exist, and knowledge about autism is such that you'll often only realize that we're quirky or eccentric, not that we're autistic. Something is different about us, and maybe it's interesting to you as an author, but you don't have the word for it and therefore neither does your now-accidentally-autistic character. 

That doesn't mean you can't find out later. Most likely, you'll find out because all of a sudden autistic people are noticing that they have a lot in common with the character, and maybe we're even telling you about it. Somehow or other, you find this character you wrote is autistic. Now what?

If you realize a character of yours is autistic while you’re still writing things with that character, and they’re in a context where the diagnosis and some level of popular awareness of it exist, you can arrange for it to come up. They could hear that their accommodations request could get approved. (If it's approved, you don't need to devote a plot arc to making this needed accommodation happen FFS, what is the ADA anyways?) They could have a teacher ask, "I thought there was something in your IEP about that?" (The school social worker asked me this when I quit group. I never had an IEP.)  They could show that they've known all along by mentioning it off-hand. ("Not eating that. Autism thing." or "No, everyone is not a little bit autistic! If everyone were a little bit autistic, fluorescent lights [or other sensory issue for the person] would not exist!" if they get into a situation where someone makes the joke about everyone being on the spectrum.) They could show up in a T-shirt that indicates autism. (Shirts of mine which would work for this purpose: Autistic Party Giraffe by Sparrow, Autreats Amazing Annual Adulthood Accalamation from when Autreat still existed -- this one involves some verbal explanation since non-autistic people who went to Autreat as kids and then as adults could have this short as well--, and "I love someone lacking autism" from Tone it Down Taupe.)

They could run into another autistic character who does already know, recognizes them, and says something. (This is perhaps more realistic than you'd think: I have literally been approached by another autistic person and greeted with, “Did you know you’re autistic? Come have lunch with me!” Subtlety: not something we’re usually known for, and autistic people recognizing each other as similar is a thing that happens whether or not we have the word autism. If one has the word and the other doesn’t, this could be how the second gets the word.)

Whether or not it's practical to include a reference to make the characters autism explicit in the actual work, however subtle or obvious, you can respond with Word of Author (aka God.) Don't claim you were intending them to be autistic if you weren't, we generally don't like lies. But! You totally can (and should):

1. Be noticeably not-insulted by the insinuation you could write (or play) an autistic character. Yes, folks have gotten insulted by the idea that a character they wrote or played or were otherwise involved in was getting read as autistic.
2. Accept the possibility (probability) that the character is, in fact, autistic. We're pretty good at recognizing our own. 
3. Be noticeably not-insulted by the idea that fans noticed something about a character you didn't necessarily intend. It's super easy to accidentally write an autistic character if you don't know that the real people they resemble (who you may have borrowed some autistic traits from) are autistic themselves!

Perhaps counter-intuitively, I would suggest that you not immediately go research autism for the purpose of writing the character if it becomes clear you’re writing an accidentally autistic character. If we're reading your character as autistic, that means you are already writing a good autistic character. Reading what supposed experts have to say about us is not going to help you write a better character. It will put stereotypes in your head that you will then need to work to avoid.

Why don't you just make your own? WE'RE TRYING!

All too often, when people talk or write about representation in fiction, the responses we get are somewhere in the area of, "So write your own stories." We do! Getting them published and disseminated is the hard part, because mainstream publishers (and film companies, etc) in the USA and probably a good chunk of Europe too are of the opinion that the default person we can all relate to is the cisgender straight white vaguely Christian abled man. Any deviations from this supposed everyman occupy the difference slot. (You mean you have/are that too? Yes, that too.)

So we wind up crowdfunding our anthologies, or self-publishing, or making our own publishing companies, or one of any number of things, if we get our stories out at all. Autonomous Press exists. I have stories on Amazon. Kickstarter and Indiegogo often have crowdfunding going on for anthologies by and for marginalized folks. I'm actually thinking of, and supporting, one in particular as I write this post: Hidden Youth: Speculative Stories of Marginalized Youth has a Kickstarter active at the moment, with about a week left. I would love to see more people supporting it because I want to read the book. (I pledged for copies of both books, since this is the second in a series.)

I would also love to reach the point where stories about disabled people, people of color, queer people, women, and especially people who are more than one of the above are not shunted to the side with "write your own!" followed by "those stories don't sell," where we get these anthologies without needing to make Kickstarters and Indiegogos and found our own companies just to see ourselves in fiction. (I love the idea and reality of us having our own media companies and collectives. I do not love the idea that us having our own media companies and collectives is the only way we can get representation.)

But right now, crowdfunding is where we seem to be at. (Also Star Wars, since the leads for The Force Awakens are a white woman and a black man, and it grossed great. There isn't actually evidence for the idea that stories about anyone besides the supposed everyman don't sell. It's just a convenient lie for folks who are used to being represented and don't get why we're all up in arms about not getting stories where we're the heroes.) So if you want to get to read and watch these stories, please, do support them when you come across them and can do so. Hidden Youth: Speculative Stories of Marginalized Youth has about a week left on its Kickstarter and I want those books. 

Back to School

I'm now a (partial) week into the fall semester, taking three classes, teaching one, playing Ultimate, and applying to doctorate programs. Since I'm wanting to combine disability studies (already an interdisciplinary field, though mostly humanities) with engineering, finding one department I can apply to is tricky. I expect finding an adviser is also going to be tricky, for similar reasons (I have some ideas of who I might like to work with, but they tend to be in departments I can't realistically get into, so even if I'm working with them, they're unlikely to be my on-paper adviser...)

Still, this is probably the lightest workload I've ever had for a semester. I have Monday and Wednesday mornings off, and Ultimate practice is literally my only Friday obligation most weeks. That means I can actually wear my disability scholar hat during the semester, which I wasn't able to do last year, and it means that I have time to have things go in unexpected directions without everything falling apart in new and interesting ways.

As far as teaching goes, I have one section of basic algebra and trigonometry. It's a different class from last semester, so I need to do new lesson plans, and I'm teaching Tuesdays and Thursdays rather than Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, which means longer classes but fewer of them per week. So far we've met once, and I've gotten the online math homework set up for the first chapter. I also had trouble getting the door open for the first day of class because we meet in the building with weird doors that have twisty handles that then don't actually twist even when the door is unlocked. It's also literally across the street from my dorm so I have the shortest walk of anyone to go to class, which is convenient.

On the student side, I'm taking measure theory, which has something to do with Lebesque integration and integrating badly discontinuous functions. It's also got something to do with ideas of size for weird sets that don't really have length, like apparently the Cantor middle-third set is uncountably infinite but also has measure zero. That is weird to me. That one was originally going to be Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for 50 minutes each meeting but is instead going to be 75 minute meetings on Mondays and Wednesdays. I'm happy because that means I will get to slightly more of Ultimate practice this week when I can start walking before practice starts instead of from class an hour into practice.

I'm also taking a graduate level probability class that will use some measure theory things -- I think most of my classmates for that class have either already taken measure theory or are in measure theory with me now. I've taken probability classes before that involve calculus, even multi-variable calculus, but they were a while ago (Fall 2010,) comparatively light on the proofs, and different from measure theory, so I suspect I'll be learning a lot in this class. It's a Tuesday and Thursday class, and I generally have something else going on about half an hour after this class so I have a break but am not done for the day.

The last class I'm taking is programming for scientists. I've got more of a computer science background than is strictly expected for this class, but I also don't have enough to reasonably go into anything that has programming ability as a prerequisite, so this should be a comparatively easier class. It meets once a week, on Tuesdays.

Programming is not the class I was originally planning to take as my third, though. I was planning to take multicultural psychology, but I've heard that the teacher for the section of that class I'd signed up for is not great about anyone who is "different," and that there have been issues in the past. I was tempted to take the class anyways and be the pain in her ass who makes her deal with accommodations, but I did that at Tianjin Normal University all of the '13-'14 academic year and I don't particularly want to do that again this semester while also applying to graduate programs. I might be willing to get into fights over basic and important stuff like my being able to type or write and have a person or computer speak my writing for me when I need to, but I can't actually deal with everything ever at once so someone else can have that battle if they want it.

I turned in my submission for the Spoon Knife Anthology from Autonomous Press, claimed a pinch hitting assignment for the Autistic Exchange, and I'm trying to edit a paper of mine for a journal submission but it's kind of scary. I'm also working on a chapter for a book, plus fiction stuff. Maybe I'll even give NaNoWriMo another shot come November, since I have such a light course load and all the writing stuff I have going on is either due by the end of September or doesn't have a specific due date at all. 

The Worst Nightmare You Don't Know

I am your worst, I am your worst nightmare,
You, you will suck, the life out of me.
You're trying to save me, stop holding your breath.
I'm just a problem that doesn't want to be solved.
Tired of being what you want me to be,
I am your worst, I am your worst nightmare,
Stab me with your steely knives, but you just can't kill the beast!

I'm a failure to you, a failure to you, yes I'm a failure to you.
Can it be, I'm not meant to play this part?
Oh, my soul needs to be free
I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game.
Bury it, I won't let you bury it.
I won't let you murder it, I won't let you smother it.
All I want to do is be more like me and be less like you.

I am your worst, I am your worst nightmare,
You don't know what it's like to be like me.
Get along with the voices inside of my head!
I'm not drowning; there's no one here to save.
I'm through accepting limits cause someone says they're so.
The flaw you're looking for does not exist,
It's just a figment of the higher man's tongue.
All I want to do is be more like me and be less like you.
I am your worst, I am your worst nightmare,



This poem is echolalic, pulling from song lyrics. I used lyrics from:
Novocaine- Fall Out Boy
Monster- Eminem/Rhianna
King of Anything- Sara Berellis
Defying Gravity-Wicked
Hotel California- The Eagles
Bats in the Belfry- Dispatch
Strangers Fate- High Tide (now The Saturday Nights)
Reflection-Mulan
Welcome to My Life- Simple Plan
People of the Sun- PONS (now The Saturday Nights)
Numb-Linkin Park
Open Up- Dispatch
Time is Running Out-Muse

I may attempt to record this at some point, we'll see.

In this poem, "I" is me/autism/autistic me, and "you" would be the folks who for some reason think autism is the scariest thing ever, just to be clear.

Fiction and Representation (For Me)

After many, many years of being asked to visualize things and never being able to do it, and not forming pictures of characters or places in my head as I read, and never being able to accurately guess what a place actually looks like based on floor plans, I have reached the conclusion that I don't have a minds eye. (I reached the conclusion a while ago, so this isn't new, but it's relevant to the slightly unusual way I interact with representation in fiction.)

In fact, not only do I not come up with a mental image of a character as I read, but I also don't really remember the details of how a character is described as looking. (For similar reasons, I don't pay much attention to those details while I'm writing, which I'm working on because I know representation matters to people in all the ways they can interact with the information, and if I don't provide descriptions that show otherwise, people are going to assume all my characters are cisgender heterosexual able white people.)

One example I like to use for this is Hermione. The book descriptions of Hermione could be describing me, and I didn't realize this. After I saw the first movie, with Emma Watson as Hermione, while they were still trying to give her actual frizzy hair, I picked up on the bit where Hermione is a character who looks like me, but that didn't make Emma's Hermione take over the non-existent slot for my mental picture of Hermione. It didn't make me take over the non-existent slot either, because that slot doesn't exist. (Also, the book version of Hermione and I are fairly similar, personality-wise, which is the way that I can understand and interact with.)

For me, the non-existence of mental images for characters means that I personally don't much care what a character looks like. I care about it for the people who'll notice and care because they have minds eyes like that, and I care about it some (still not much) in movies because the pictures are given to me, but as far as making me feel represented goes, it really doesn't matter what the character looks like. I need characters who act like me, whether or not they look anything like me.

Give me characters who are awkward even when it isn't cute. Give me characters who avoid shopping because it's loud and bright. Give me characters whose interests don't line up with the idea of "geek" or "jock" or "creative type" or any of those, but have a mix from all. Give me characters who are good, really good, at some of the things they like but have to work hard to even manage "not terrible" for some of the others. Give me characters who act like me, with personalities like mine.

The physical descriptions matter for the people who can translate those to images, but that's not me and it will probably never be me. 

Nonfiction writing quality by gender? Yeah, no.

This is an answer I made on Quora. The question was incredibly sexist in my opinion, but someone other than the asker requested I answer and it caught my interest for rebutting. 

The question was:

Do you agree that nonfiction written by women is typically less interesting than nonfiction written by men?

The reasons given were that women tended to write with more attention to emotion and character, while men tended to write with more attention to taut arguments and scientific methods, which led to women's writing being superficial while men's writing was idea-rich. I am not sure if I can find a portion of the reasoning which actually holds up under examination. Anyways, next paragraph begins what I said.

The prioritization of quantitative stuff that's easy to measure over qualitative stuff where emotions make sense as richer is part of the problem here: each focus has its use, and devaluing the one that's associated with femininity is part of sexism, especially since women are taught that they need to be in touch with  emotions and then punished for being so.

Additionally, many serious nonfiction topics involve human factors. When human actions are involved, analysis of thought processes is necessary to properly address the topic. Despite the extent to which many of us wish to believe otherwise, humans are generally driven more by emotion and instinct than by rationality: we are rationalizers, not rational creatures. With this knowledge in mind, the idea that bringing emotional factors into the analysis makes it less idea-rich is shown patently false for many topics.

Next, there is an implicit assumption that these areas of focus are contradictory. Taut argumentation can still be used when discussing emotional responses, and scientific methods can be applied whenever causes and effects are observable. This is true even if the effects are qualitative rather than quantitative. 

Finally, confirmation bias is a known factor: once such an opinion is formed, a reader is more likely to notice examples that confirm this opinion and categorize exceptions as "the exception that proves the rule" or something similar.

Two New eThings and Happy Birthday to Me!

I am 22 today!
Woot.

I also have two new things out. (And if suggesting you get them because it's my birthday will work, then consider this said suggestion.)

The first is a short science fiction story.
There is an autistic character. There is a character who is technically a cyborg. There are a bunch of characters who are alien computers. There is no intersection between these categories, and I've been told there's some response to/coverage of the trope where the alien or the robot is like the autistic character.
It's also fun with a smuggler and her friend visiting a planet of sentient computers.

Where None Have Thought to Go is on Amazon.

Cover of "Where None Have Thought to Go." The background is the surface of a "planet" and stars, composite from photos courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech. There is a semi-transparent brain and computer chip combination superimposed over the stars, and the title and author are in white text. (Alyssa Hillary is the author.)

I also have a collection of poetry, Poems Can Be Fun(ny). 
It's about what the title suggests: original poetry, humor included.

Cover of "Poems Can Be Fun(ny)" by Alyssa Hillary. The background is an abstract geometric design in pink, blue, and purple by the author, and the title and author name are in black text.

All the things are here, just in case my other stuff sounds interesting. I do have another story with an autistic character already, and she has point of view for the whole story. I also have a (very short) story about a tomato and cheese soup ending the world by consuming it, if ridiculousity if your thing.

Now for stuff that's mostly not self-promotion, and mostly is life updatey stuff.

1) I know, I know. The last three days on my blog have been commercial-ish. Tomorrow's post and the next days post are written and scheduled, and they are not commercial at all.

2) I'm moving back to school today! I'm going to be a teaching assistant, teaching a section of precalculus. That's gonna be pretty cool.

3) Apparently The Queens Readers is just about ready, which is yay because I'm in it. I'm talking about neurodiversity in Tamora Pierce's work. The criticism parts just happened to not fit in with the rest of the essay according to the editors (not sure if I entirely trust that, but I really was disorganized and writing at the last minute so not sure that I distrust it either.) So I really do believe the positives that I said, just remember that there are also negatives that I didn't say. (Like chemical restraint in Cold Fire oh my god, but also realistic terribleness...)

4) I have a paper accepted for the INSPIRe conference that actually connects my disability side and my STEM side, so that's cool. I need to finish actually writing it though.

5) About a year ago, I was going ARGH about a thing with The Feminist Wire and their call for papers, which inspired a proposal for a text chapter. Well, the chapter got accepted and is a good bit of the way written.

6) That whole Accessing The Future thing I talked about the day before yesterday? I think I know what I'm submitting. It's in the same universe and a semi-sequel to Where None Have Thought to Go, but with a more mixed narrative format. (Presenting a piece of tech you see offered to the autistic character in the story to folks on Earth and watching the reactions from quite a few directions, essentially, with some additional side-plot themes that get some more into examining the alien/robot as autistic trope.)

Blog hop: Accessing The Future Fiction

I just found The Future Fire thanks to a friend of mine, That Crazy Crippled Chick, because she linked me to an article listing 5 positive representations of disability in science fiction. As a disabled person (and a disabled writer who sometimes does science fiction and fantasy,) that's totally a thing I want to see.

Anyways, they author of that post is also crowdfunding for Accessing The Future, a planned anthology of speculative fiction (so basically everything I read and most of what I write) with disability themes. I'm totally going to submit a story once they get to that point.

Also a blog hop.

1. Tell us about your Work In Progress (WIP) / Current Read (CR) and the world it's set in.
   
   I'm almost done with a story tentatively titled Where None Have Known to Look, where a smuggler and her friend visit a race of sentient computers on a planet no one else knows about... and the friend has the choice to become part computer. It'd be useful, certainly, but people already think he's not fully human- is he willing to let them be right?
   
   The reason folks think he's not fully human is that he's autistic, so while I didn't think too much about the world it's set in before... I'm going to say it's socially pretty similar to that of today, just adding in contact with interstellar trade routes and the extra technology involved in making that possible.
   
   By almost done I mean tomorrows post is probably going to be the announcement that you can buy it on Amazon. (I've got other stuff there already.)
   
2. Who are the most powerful people in this world?
   
   At a local to planetary level, there's a good bit of variation, but in general, the folks who control interplanetary trade control most everything else. At planetary levels, that means whoever was rich enough to get into the space trade early (for their planet) has come out on top.
   
3. Where does their power come from?
   
   Controlling trade means they're controlling how goods and services flow, which means they can make or break a planets economy if they really want to. Mostly they just want to have that as an unspoken threat, but it's effective enough. Think the current corporate mess, just at the interstellar level.
    
4. What physical and/or mental characteristics underpin their positions of power?
   
   Whatever underpinned power on their planet before they made interstellar contact still does- so on Earth, being white, male, heterosexual, cisgendered, ambulatory, generally able-bodied, close to neurotypical, and having received a western-style education is still a big determining factor.
   
   If you get off your home planet for whatever reason, most people you meet won't know what your species-typical and culture-typical things are, so it reverts to your place within the trade hierarchy, unless and until you're dealing with someone familiar with your planet and species, at which point the same biases you deal with at home are coming into play.
   
5. How does this affect the weakest people in the world?
   
   It's theoretically possible for someone closer to the bottom of the heap to be an exception and get off-planet, which is totally a functioning escape method: Trevina is Hispanic, and she faces racism on Earth. But she's an independent trader/smuggler (mostly grey market,) and when she's off planet she'll rarely run into anyone who knows enough about humans to understand that skin color has any significance... or even that we come in multiple colors. She'll just deal with her status as an independent trader (common folk love her, big trading companies hate her, law enforcement doesn't really trust her but will probably look the other way unless she does something really egregious because she's considered a little fish) and as a foreigner.
   
   But she's made it to that level, which means she's rather emphatically not one of the weakest people in her society. She's got some social categories in common with her planet's share of them, which is very different, especially considering that she's mostly not on her home planet.
   
   People generally don't starve- it's gotten to the point where starvation would be bad enough publicity that they make sure everyone can eat- but it's not pretty. Shelter is not a given, nor is medical care, unless you can pay. Most people don't actually have any contact off-planet unless a close friend or family member has gone to labor on an asteroid or in helping make a new planet fit for life, but jobs are often moving to planets where wages are lower or resources cheaper. For the moment, resources are fairly expensive on Earth but wages are low, so service jobs and low-resource crafting (artisanal work) are easy to find. 

I didn't realize I knew this much about my universe. I might need to write more in it...

The Beginning of Her Hell

It's another short story! This time, I'm following an autistic girl named Leah, stopping in to take a look every so often from when she's about six months old through sometime in high school. Other people are... realistically terrible.

You can get The Beginning of Her Hell on Amazon for $0.99.

Image is of the cover of "The Beginning of Her Hell." The title is in orange text along with the author's name, Alyssa Hillary. The background is white, with a pair of blue eyes looking out over a typewriter.

The Apocalyptic Soup

I wrote a short story!

The main idea can probably best be covered by a floating sphere of soup declaring that everything shall be soup.

The folks who've read it so far liked it. You should consider getting it and reading it, because maybe you'll like it too.

You can get it here!

Fiction and Injuries

Warnings: Significant discussions of injuries including animal attacks and broken bones, healing process. Also, brief mention of menstruation.

I write fiction sometimes. A lot of people do. Unrealistic injuries and reactions to them are really common (often authors neglect the fact that while a character may be able to adrenaline/stubborn their way through injuries at the time of the injury, there is also time spent healing and recovering lost strength, itching/aching scars are things, stuff like that.)
People deciding reactions I've actually had to my injuries are unrealistic are also common. Sometimes causing me to have my recovery path be that of "no treatment," including for a broken foot.

So here's some stuff I'm going to point out, coming from major injuries I've had.

1) If you get a concussion, the worst effects might not be the right-away effects. They weren't for any of the times I got concussions, actually. Right away effects were mostly along the lines of "ow that hurt," but later on? Especially a few days later? Nasty headache, and I had difficulty concentrating. Dizzyness can happen for a while too.


2) Broken bones: It is absolutely possible to break bones and not know right away, so long as everything still takes weight and moves approximately the way you tell it to (or about as close to that as it did before.) This also assumes that there's not bone sticking out visibly or something.
HOWEVER.
Even in these cases, healing will take just as long as it normally does. Eventually, you're going to figure out that it was broken.

a) Broken nose? Headaches, oh my goodness the headaches are terrible, and it can last a few months. Also, I didn't get a nose bleed the time I broke my nose so that is possible. If someone is a doctor/healer/nurse type, they will recognize a broken nose should they see it, and will probably comment, but there may or may not be anything that they can do. Sometimes they can make sure the bones are lined up properly, sometimes doing so would require re-breaking the nose.

b) Broken tailbone? Sitting is going to be very unfun for a while. Horseback riding is for no. If your character menstruates, there will be a bigger blood splat from whatever impact broke the tailbone (soooo many things make bigger blood splats during menstruation it is obnoxious.)

c) Broken leg? The type of fracture matters. Someone with a focal fracture may or may not realize they have a broken leg until it still hurts much later than it should for a bruise or even when they realize months later that "oh wait my leg bone has a dent in it." I might be speaking from experience. [I am. There is a dent in my right shin from a focal fracture that happened about five years ago.] If it's a focal fracture, your character can probably walk and run, but their leg hurts and will for a while.
If it's not a focal fracture, your character still might be able to stand, depending on if it's broken all the way through or not (there's levels of how broken legs can be) and if they have anything they can use as a crutch, but they shouldn't choose to unless it is truly dire. Healing crooked may be a worry if they can't get at treatment, and unless magic is in play the broken leg will be an issue for months.

d) Broken foot? This is one of the ones where my actual reaction gets called unrealistic, because I could (and did) stand, walk, hike, run, etc on my broken foot. It was not a good idea, but because my pain threshold and tolerance are both ridiculous, I didn't realize it was broken for a while.
That said, I did eventually figure it out, and healing took a long time. I got the injury near the end of July of one year. An MRI happened near the end of August and the location of the break was pretty visible. I was told it couldn't be a break because "to look like that a break would have to be a month old," with the doctor knowing the injury was a month old. No, it doesn't make sense to me either. I think "walked on a broken foot for a month" was too much for the doctor to handle.
I couldn't physically get my foot into my sneakers until late October. That's how swollen it was. (I'd worn approximately hiking sandals all summer and into the school year, it wasn't until I attempted my cleats for Ultimate that I realized I couldn't get my feet into those and tried (and failed) sneakers. Cleats took until January or so.


3) Attacked by a wild pig/boar? Well, mine was theoretically domesticated, but at 800lb it's fairly close. So a few points: Your character is lucky to be alive. They should be aware of this. If they were bitten, they are at risk of infection (this goes for getting bitten by smaller animals as well.) If they were bitten, even with treatment this is going to take time to heal, and depending on where they were bitten, this will put different sorts of hitches in their plans. Remember that wild pigs/boar are big, and this is likely to be a crushing injury (or a body parts missing injury.)
For me (rammed in the rear, then bitten on inner thigh,) I limped significantly for about a month. I took several more months before I could run/walk the same distances I used to walk/run. The doctor told me to expect to miss several weeks of school due to inability to walk (they didn't count on stubbornness+ridiculous pain tolerance, and I mean ridiculous. If your character has not trained themselves to ignore large amounts of pain and does not have sensory processing issues, your character can not do what I did.)
Five and a half years later (this happened in the same school year as the shin fracture but not the same calendar year) there is still a scar, and it still sometimes itches. The bitten thigh remains slightly thicker than the uninjured thigh. Despite the fact that I am right hand/foot dominant, my left leg remains slightly stronger and more flexible than my right.

So remember: injuries have long-term effects. Even if your character is able to ignore/push through major injuries at the time (and there should be a reason that they can, if they can, as well as a very good reason for them to choose to should they be aware of the extent of their injuries,) they will still have to spend a good long time healing. Some injuries will have permanent effects.
Even if you aren't registering the pain consciously (or can't feel the pain for whatever reason, like if someone is paralyzed from the waist down and then has an injury on their leg) pain still affects the body.

Daine... #Neurodivergence of a Supernatural Sort?

Trigger Warning: Attempted murder for being "crazy"

Still working on the Neurodiversity in Tamora Pierce Works thing...

SPOILERS FOR WILD MAGIC BY TAMORA PIERCE
 
I just read the first book from Daine's quartet, and I'm not sure if I should consider the forgetting she is human and not an animal from her wild magic and self bleeding into each other a portrayal of a magical neurodivergence. Wild magic is different from the Gift in that it can sometimes do things outside the control of the person who has it, and it feels like something that caused her to be considered crazy by her village would belong...
So these are the notes I have on that bit.

Daine went mad for some period of time prior to meeting Ouna. This was apparently intentionally caused by some sort of divine figure to teach a lesson. (23.)

“Surely listening wouldn't bring on the madness. She wasn't trying to be an animal, she just wanted to hear them” (30.)

Daine's horse, Cloud, tells her that she's of the “People,” or the animal term for themselves, rather than being fully human (62.)

Daine notices that she in Tortall, she can get away with a lot more than she ever could in Galla, that women do wear pants and fight, but she is sure that they'd still care if they knew she went mad once (80.)

Listening to a wolf-pack, Daine nearly forgot she was human and not an animal (107.)

Daine also almost gets lost in a horse herd, Cloud pulls her out of it and orders her not to run with the People until she knows how to hold onto herself (130.)

“He makes it sound easy, but it's not. There's something wrong with me, she decided. It's the madness, just waiting for me to drop my guard so it can take me again. That's how he can protect himself- he never forgets what he really is. And I can't remember” (133.)

After Daine ran with the wolf-pack, some people from her old village tried to kill her, saying that she was crazy and had to be put down quickly for her own good (154.)

Numair puts up a magical wall between her wild magic and her inner self, so she does not forget who she is again. She still has and can use her magic; she just won't forget that she's actually human anymore. (158-9.)

I also notice that the voices of gods do not hurt Daine's ears in this book. They do hurt Alanna's ears, even that of her patron goddess when being gentle/whispering. If I remember correctly, Numair doesn't have any problems with god-voices either, nor does Alianne, Alanna's daughter. Since "voices of the gods" is a kind of supernatural thing, I wouldn't have counted it as a likely sensory issue for Alanna if it weren't for the whole "everyone else is fine" thing that we need some of the other books to see. But if other people, including other Gifted mortals (Daine's a demi-goddess, but Numair and Alianne are mortal) are fine and Alanna needs all her willpower not to cover her ears... that's a bit odd.

Tris from the other universe has some noise sensitivities too, but hers aren't supernatural noises.

Interview With Jill of Spectrum: The Film

There is a project called Spectrum, The Film, which will be making a short documentary about autism and sensory perception for Autistic people. The person running it interviewed me over email, and this is what was said. You can also find it here Have a read!

• Alyssa (ME): My name is Alyssa, and I blog at Yes, That Too. I asked my mother if I was autistic when I was eight, making me the first person to put the pieces together by approximately five years (Lydia of Autistic Hoya was the second, soon followed by much of my high school including the psychologist.) Somehow, it still took until April 2012 for someone to actually diagnose me. In any case, I'm 20 years old, study mathematics, engineering, and Chinese, and seem to have acquired autism as my latest autistic obsession. Whoops.
• Jill: I'm amazed that you were able to identify yourself at such a young age. It's great to hear you are studying three incredibly awesome and useful subjects! First question: How would you describe your autistic sensory perception?
• Alyssa: My autistic sensory perception is interesting, to say the least. My *whichever one is the name for knowing where my body is in space* isn't quite useless, though it is close to it. My spacial reasoning is great as long as my body isn't one of the objects I need to reason about.
• My hearing is slightly better than average- I can hear quieter things than most people and I can hear both higher and lower notes than most people. (Something like 16-25000Hz instead of the 20-20000Hz that is supposed to be average.) However, the maximum volume I can have is dependent on a lot of things- even small noises will make me jump if they are sudden/unexpected, and loud noises often physically hurt. I jumped at the school bell all the way through my senior year. There are also certain frequencies that are painful, mostly higher ones. Also I can't really process multiple people talking at once. Sound is one of the big factors in sensory-based meltdowns.
• Taste-wise, I tend to be mostly OK, though I can't stand anything mint.
• Vision-wise, flashing lights are my biggest issue. I'm not going to have a seizure (no epilepsy, thankfully), but yeah. Sensory badness. Once fluorescents start flickering, they are bad, though the same can be said for flickering incandescents...
• I tend to be OK with most textures for wearing, though stockings, tights, and leggings are all out of the question. For food, rubbery textures (eggs) and yogurt-like textures are problematic. On bad days, I can't even have pudding. I feel like I'm missing some, but I can't really remember what all issues I have except for running into them.
• Jill: Is there anything that you do to help your body know where it is in space?
• Alyssa: Not really. I've just gotten used to the fact that I crash into things/walk into walls.
• Jill: Seems like a fair adaptation. :) Have your other sensory issues changed or improved over time?
• Alyssa: My tolerance for some of the textures has gotten better over time. Other sensory stuff varies with stress and energy levels- higher tolerance when I am under less stress and have more energy.
• Jill: If you had a billion dollars to spend on making the world a more sensory-friendly place, what would you do?
• Alyssa: I would lobby to outlaw strobe lights outside clubs. (Yes, this would include banning them for cop cars/ambulances. They can figure something else out.) I would also fund research to find a way to signal class changes with something other than the current school bells and get them ALL changed. Given how corrupt government is, I'm not sure how much I would have left after this, but I'd get noise-cancelling headphones for as many people as possible after that, with me first.
• Jill: Haha! I think if you had a billion dollars, you should absolutely be the first one to get noise-cancelling headphones. Thank you so much for sharing with me. I look forward to following your blog, Yes That Too @ http://yesthattoo.blogspot.com/.

You can find more information about Spectrum: The Film on Facebook, Twitter, or their main website. They are raising funds for the project on Indiegogo as well.