"It's agony to utter the words aloud. With them, I finally kill the fairytale that Zack would be functionally normal and be fully included in school, have regular play dates with peers, develop typical romantic relationships, go to college, marry and so much more."
Aunt Frances Owens: My darling girl, when are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage!---Practical Magic.
Seriously. Normal is a setting on the dryer, & a boring one.
"I've been grieving over a child who is alive and happy. A mother bereaved, only my child is able to laugh and run free and maybe even a great deal more if I'm willing to contemplate a different outcome for him."
She still talks about 'training' us to do menial labor jobs because (the sense is) that's all we CAN do.
and here's me... who was an awful lot like Zack when he was young, with a masters in world history, a background in forensics and who does a really great job writing and editing.
Ugh. And of course, instead of reaching out to autistic adults to see if, you know, we might know something... she decided to FORCE her son into situations to 'cure him' of his phobias.
I don't offer it to many ppl bcs I'm usually disappointed. It's just been my life experience.
Today I've realized that I'm likely to be friends for a very long time with one person I haven't talked to much lately bcs of life/baby stuff.
& I
sadly realized that two other peeps I had in the *friend* category have been demoted to *ppl I talk to sometimes*.
I don't really understand how or why that happens for me. It's very clear in my head, it's not something that's intentional in any way.
It just happens.
Usually
something happens that makes me realize they obviously don't feel the same way abt me as I did abt them.
Like if they considered us *casual mates* and I thought *found family*, or if they thought *potential love interest* and I thought *fun person to chat online with*
I snort every time I see people down on mobile eyebrows for writing stuff.
It's ridiculous. Do all y'all writers ever actually LOOK at another human's face? Eyebrows, lids & corners of the eyes are the MOST mobile & expressive parts of our faces.
Even more so than the mouth.
I am quite proud to cling to my eyebrow motions in writing. My brows are the easiest way for you to tell how I'm feeling.
I can control my mouth and eyes okay, brows? Not so much.
Wiggly eyebrows are GOOD when describing characters. As with anything it shouldn't be overused,
but it's like that REALLY AWFULLY BAD ADVICE to get rid of all instances of *was*.
Seriously, have you ever tried that? (I have, it equals a very horrible piece of prose.)
With all writing advice, please, please, please remember that it's YOUR story. YOU write it how y'all see