Dear neurokin,
‘I’m confused…’
These are words I hear most week’s, when receiving feedback about my writing from the other writers on my two year creative writing programme.
I was struck by this feedback ‘I’m confused, in this bit she’s confidently striding towards him and then she’s unsure of his feelings’
Of course, I can relate to this sentiment so much. I think that’s how most people feel about me; confused.
My outside doesn’t match my inside.
Whilst that is true of all humans, the inconsistency and mismatch of the inner and outer landscape of neurodivergent folk can perplex your average human.
It’s no easy ride for us either! The disparity of what we show and how we feel can be isolating.
Sometimes the magnitude of overwhelm is hard to understand let alone describe.
It’s hard to resist the well travelled road of performing to appease the majority, playing by the invisible rules, instead of walking our own path in how we show up in the world.
‘This is bullshit!’
For this past month I’ve been in that uncomfortable part of my learning where I feel totally lost about my purpose, direction and competence.
The unlearning or experimenting, vital in all learning and growth, is exposing all my old wounds.
My instinct is to bolt, to do a runner, dramatically throw in the towel. The surly teenage inner critic is having a field day with me. She’s got her arms crossed, distractedly looking at her nails and muttering ‘this is bullshit!’
I’m not going to bolt. I’m sticking with it.
And I’m curious. How can I show up as myself in my writing and not lose my natural way of communicating in order to follow the 'rules’?
Is it possible for me to write a character who is not neurodivergent? I don’t know if it is, because this author is not neuronormative.
‘There’s a lot going on here’
My initial reaction to this feedback was to flinch at the mistake’s I make in my sensory descriptions in scene’s. The old stories of ‘I’m too much’ ‘I’ve got it wrong’ are poked and prodded awake.
Because of course the way that neurokin experience the world can feel like a collision of sensory information.
It’s challenging to simplify it.
Here’s some of the sensory processing challenges that show up in my writing. In one scene I wrote about how the protagonist’s feeling sounded:
‘her pit of dread growls’
For the person reviewing this piece of my work it was confusing for them, they described this phrase as a ‘non sequitor’ It does not follow logic.
The collision of senses is what can be known as synesthesia, where one sense triggers another. Tasting colours or hearing sounds as shapes. For me words have tastes and feelings have sounds and colours.
Whilst I am definitely learning to simplify my scene descriptions, to give my words space to breathe, I won’t ever be able to switch off my synesthesia.
neurokin: How do your senses collide?
Experimental and Unusual narrators
‘My mother had a face like wet laundry and a laugh that could dig up a field.’
Over the last ten weeks, on my creative writing programme, I’ve been learning about different ways to tell a story, different types of narrators and points of view. I’ve reluctantly experimented with all of this and been too hard on myself when these experiments didn’t work.
When our learning focused on experimental and unusual narrators I had an epiphany, one it seems I will have to keep on learning, to really embrace what it is that makes me different.
It’s not for everyone, neither am I and that’s ok.
I loved all of the examples of experimental and unusual narrators shared with us, especially The Night Alphabet by poet and author Joelle Taylor.
I loved the writing for these qualities: imaginative, abstract, vivid, metaphorical, collision of senses, playfulness in depth.
This week I tried a bit of experimentation in my own writing. I brought a bit of playfulness to depth and it really resonated with those who read it:
‘This is your strongest piece yet. It’s more tongue in cheek, lighter, funny and it really works’ ‘the imagery is vivid and evocative’
Hurray for being experimental!
neurokin: What do you want to embrace about being experimental or unusual?
Unlearning Autism
Of course, it’s always easier to give advice to others than to know this stuff for yourself.
This is a quote from a conversation I had with my friend and penpal Christine Doyle on her brilliant podcast Unlearning Autism
It was in response to being asked what I would like to leave listeners with.
Neurokin, I’d like to leave you with this thought about yourself today; embracing what it is that makes you different is where the liberation comes.
Andrea x
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