I was diagnosed with autism and inattentive ADHD in November 2020. Almost immediately after I found this out, I realized I hated saying that sentence, especially the "diagnosed with" part. I am still getting used to, "I am autistic," but through those words, I feel a sense of pride and relief: they help me know myself more fully. "Diagnosed with" never sat well, and as time goes on, it's sitting worse and worse and worse.
Getting beta feedback can make all the difference in your manuscript, but it can be difficult to organize the feedback you get. Microsoft Word can actually help with that! Here's a tutorial on merging comments and tracked changes from multiple readers into one Word file.
I knew I was autistic. So why did I bother getting assessed?
This is the fourth consecutive year I've written a "year in books" blog post, and 2020 is the weirdest of them all. This year (ugh, this year) has been wild, devastating, excruciating, depressing, anxiety-inducing, heartbreaking... We've all lost so much. Where I live, the library was closed--CLOSED--for a long period of time. So if I… Continue reading 2020 in Books
My recent autism and ADHD diagnoses have prompted some intense reprocessing of my own memories and lived experiences. It's like sitting in the chair at the eye doctor, and a new lens is flipped down. Suddenly, everything is clearer. Through the lens of neurodiversity, many things about me and my life make a lot more… Continue reading Why I Write: Through a Neurodiverse Lens
Even after hitting "Publish" on this post, I still don't know how I feel about the title statement. How it's worded, I mean. The ideas it represents are absolutely true. On November 9, 2020, I was assessed as having met criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In other words (and maybe… Continue reading I’m Autistic. (And I have ADHD.)
In an effort to process all that has happened in the past months, I collected and recorded what I'm calling Mantras for 2020.
Feeling stuck? Need some inspiration? Check out a nearly 400-year-old artist's statement by Japanese haiku master Matsuo Bashō and some reflections on how uplifting his thoughts and words are.
Where do dystopian and post-apocalyptic genre fiction stand when the external world looks worse than the stories?
Happy shut-in coronavirus days to you, internet traveler. I'm dropping a little shred of good news fluttering your way on the winds of uncertainty, isolation, and a shocking scarcity of toilet paper... This week, Pikes Peak Writers announced their winners for the 2020 Zebulon Fiction Contest. My entry, HALF-LIFE (the SF post-apocalyptic novel I'm currently… Continue reading Zebulon Contest News…
Allison Wall 