Congrats on your NaNo success. I completely understand that you need to go underground for a while to get everything in order, etc. I’ll miss you again, but agree that writing your novel is important. Write it. Get it out there.

As for words of wisdom in public speaking, rehearsal is as good for public speaking as it is for plays. Work out your speech and then read it aloud over and over and over until it sticks in your brain. Hold a practice session where you read it to a couple trusted people. Ask them to let you know if a point isn’t coming across to them, or if you’ve expressed something awkwardly. Remember, sentences that read well on the page might not read as clearly aloud, and vice versa.

Take either the entire text of your speech or a series of notecards with key points with you to the podium. That way if you have brain freeze, you also have a way to get past it.

Most importantly, take a couple of deep breaths before you begin speaking. You have something important to say which these people are eager to learn about. They want to hear you. They want to like you. They are on your side.

Best of luck! You’re going to do just fine.

Now that Thanksgiving is over, and I’ve got my Christmas fanfiction exchange story done-but-for-beta-suggested- word-tweaks-here-and-there, I can get into a rhythm of giving the novel a few hours every day. It’s about two-thirds done, and I’ve discovered that if I just sit down and map out a scene, even if the rough draft is crap, I can feel my way towards where it should go and what needs to be said and shown to move it along. And, of course, sometimes a scene is amazingly vivid in my head and comes out equally vivid first draft and is keepable. I may do NaNo next year on the second or third book of the series, as the story is really three novels, with potential to talk about other things in other parts of the world in future books.

And if anyone likes historical dramatic novels and is willing to beta for me, shoot me an email; I’ve got one, but I’d like a couple more so I get more perspective.

Welcome back, and congrats!

This Nanowrimo was my 1st time, and I tend to write short stuff, mostly poetry and the occasional short story. So, my intent was to just see if I could write that many words. Which I did.

So it is not a novel. It is probably 99% “dear diary” crap, with a 1% salvage potential (I’m so not ready to wade through that mess). But I’m OK with that. It’s a milestone for me, I finished, and next time, I’ll set the bar higher.

——————————-

Regarding public speaking, my bons mots:
- I once had a really bad experience, and it made me nervous for years afterwards. But what got me over it was practice.
- I have a friend who can be somewhat shy and private when meeting new people, but she is an amazing public speaker, as it’s part of her job. She just transforms into this really comfortable speaker, and it’s amazing.
- Sometimes, when someone who is speaking in public who clearly doesn’t do it all of the time comes across as a bit nervous (and says something to the audience about it), it’s really endearing. I think it’s a welcome change to the polished speakers. So, being nervous doesn’t necessarily detract from what you are saying, it sends the message that you care about what you are talking about and you want the audience to understand you.
- You have some really important stuff to say. Reading your writing and talking with you has changed my perspective on so many things. You provide windows, doors and bridges to people who are neurotypical to understand how we can better interact with people who are not neurotypical. So, maybe try to focus not on yourself but on who you will be helping with the information you are conveying.
- A couple of years ago I spoke in front of about 200 people at a conference and did really, really well. In a way, it felt like acting, but also like being the most “presentable” version of myself — not in terms of acceptability, but in terms of ability to get my point across. You don’t need to be any different than you are to convey the information you want to convey. You are the perfect person to do it.

As for your scenes being out of order, have you heard of a program called yWriter? It allows you to load individual scenes, and then lets you shuffle them around until you’re happy with them. It might make that reorganizing work a little less tiresome.

The best thing though? It’s free. You can get it here:
http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html

I’m working on the preliminary cleaning and editing so I can cash in my free copy from CreateSpace. I’ll also be working with my writers’ group to get feedback and get to a draft that I’m happy enough with to try and get published.

And again, because it should be repeated: Woo! Congrats!

Now he expects me to work through Christmas because he wants the next chapter on Dec. 31. That’s sooo not going to happen.

What I’m hearing from you sounds a lot like “that person made me so mad I had to hit him/her”.

There is also a difference between examining privilege and being ashamed of it.

(At this point, I’m just curious — did you even read what was in the links?)

“I *want to learn*”

sound more than a little hollow.

Thank you for shaming me.

Bye.

“Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one’s own actions or lack of action. If it leads to change it can be useful, since it is then no longer guilt but the beginning of knowledge. Yet all too often, guilt is just another name for impotence, for defensiveness and destructive communication; it becomes a device to protect ignorance and the continuation of things as they are, the ultimate protection for changelessness. – From the essay “The uses of anger” in the book “Sister Outsider”

The trouble is my reaction to that.
1. Omg! My guilt is just a way to hide!
2. Wow! That’s really horrible.
3. I don’t want to face up to how horrible that is.
4. I must hide bhind that with some more guilt!
5. Oh no! I’m hiding again! That’s evil!
6. Repeat steps 3-6.

And infinitely recursive loop of cowardice…

I admit I’m ignorant, but I *want to learn*.

Hmmm.
That *is* why I took the time to put the links there.

But perhaps you felt your rant was so important you couldn’t be bothered to read what was in them?

How about the people who are *not* able-bodied, able-minded, cis-gendered, straight, or white? Like, because I *am* all those things (none of which I have any control over) I *can’t possibly understand* what it means to be denied opportunities over things you can’t change? I admit I’m ignorant, but I *want to learn*.

I have been *shamed* on blogs (Feministe, for one) for daring to reach out to someone without my *privileges* because I thought we shared *similar* unpleasant experiences whereby we could connect and work together to try and eliminate such experiences for *everybody* (regardless of race, class, gender, etc.).

Guess I found out different. Silly me, wanting everyone to share in the opportunities granted me by my *privilege.*

(deep breath)

(deep breath)

Okay, rant over.

I hope that gives something of an explanation for my strong reaction.

http://octogalore.blogspot.com/2009/03/arms.html

It’s like the egalitarian version of the Serenity Prayer:

You aren’t responsible for your privileges, but you’re responsible for what you do with them. Learn the difference.

I do think entitlement is one of those things that’s not distributed equally – one of the hardest parts of solidarity work is encouraging people to remember they deserve just as much as everyone else (such as: it’s OK to wish the free food tasted better. You don’t have to be so lucky to be here that you accept bad treatment.).

I wasn’t aware that she was anti-healthcare reform or anti-FA. Care to elaborate?

meowser’s comment:
But she was writing about the stuff that was mutable at the individual source — which entitlement is, and luck isn’t. I can feel entitled to write an entire book of my own and make it as good as I can; that’s not enough to get it published for money, but it’s enough to begin creating a body of work that I can take pride in. Beats feeling like I haven’t accomplished a damn thing, lemme tell ya.

This is SO important. The personal IS political, right there.

That said, it remains an interesting post. I think it is important to acknowledge unearned privilege and it will never not rankle me when that is conflated with shame. Or, as said above, you don’t get stuck in the feelings.

Maybe self-esteem is privilege too, in a way.

I think that’s a right, or it should be. Or maybe luck of the draw? It would seem to be easier to achieve with the “right” attributes (of race, gender, class) but we’ve all seen the opposite. The person who appears to “have it all” and feels like shit. I will say that if a person has medical issues that cause them to lack self esteem having that treated IS a class/privilege issue.

From a comment:

But all too often, when people talk about all this, they end up arguing for bootstrapping and ignoring systemic, institutional factors entirely and saying, “Anything is possible! You just have to believe it! All this talk about racism is just a way of keeping people from trying!”

And that is the myth of meritocracy, and it’s a compelling myth, but wrong just the same (and it’s the kind of thing that galls me whether people talk about racism or fattism, because no–I can’t make the world a better place just by pretending that nobody else thinks bad thoughts about fat people. Just… no.)

Yes and reminds me I need to get Barbara Ehrenreich’s new book exposing the positive thinking “secret” “it’s really all YOUR” fault meme.

But she was writing about the stuff that was mutable at the individual source — which entitlement is, and luck isn’t. I can feel entitled to write an entire book of my own and make it as good as I can; that’s not enough to get it published for money, but it’s enough to begin creating a body of work that I can take pride in. Beats feeling like I haven’t accomplished a damn thing, lemme tell ya.

I think the important part is not to get stuck in those feelings.

For me, thinking about the other person’s perspective is a way to not get stuck.

See, when I was in the shit, I had exactly the opposite problem. I knew it was a good idea in theory not to make it all about me me me, but the more I thought about other people, the more inferior I felt. Everyone else is so honest and hardworking and has their neuroses under control, I am just made of ass! I really should die, and I’m a coward not to!

I am sure this has to do with the fact that my reality had been denied for decades and I was used to thinking of myself as someone who had repeatedly and spectacularly failed normalcy, rather than someone who was just wired differently and had to learn to work with that instead of against that. In the end, it took the Evil Brain Drugs of Doom to plug that hole in my noggin.

I’ve spent about the last year and a half finding out about Aspergers and becoming more and more certain that my lifelong experience of not being able to fit in with people, and not being able to fathom out why, might actually have an explanation. (I’m currently mulling over the technicalities of getting a formal diagnosis – I’m in the UK, and getting an adult diagnosis isn’t straightforward here – and what the future implications for work, insurance and my other future plans might be.)

The worst of it is that from piecing things together about my life and my memories of childhood, I’m pretty sure that while nobody in the 70s knew about Aspergers, my teachers, at least, did suspect I might have some kind of developmental issues – but my family always just saw me as a ‘problem child’ who just needed extra discipline to make me ‘normal’. Which for them meant treating me like I was utterly bad and wrong for behaviors I couldn’t help (not being ‘feminine’ enough in various ways had a lot to do with it). The message in my own head ended up being, very roughly: _If I can’t be the way people want me to be, I shouldn’t exist at all._ It wasn’t until I was actually in recovery from the most recent bout of depression, about five years ago now, that I realized I’d been thinking that way at all, and it was pretty scary coming face to face with that.

I’m still getting my head round the idea of entitlement, but I’ve reached the point where I find the feeling of guilt for living my life as I want without ‘earning’ it somehow is largely being replaced by anger at those who still insist that love, respect, fair treatment and the rest _have_ to be ‘earned’ in any way, by anyone. Which I think has to be a positive step.

And yes, those who mentioned it, dumb luck (good or bad) has more influence in most people’s lives than they like to think. An American friend of mine (and I admitted to him that I don’t blame America for this notion, because it’s also pretty common here in the UK) said that this is the big problem with the ‘American dream’ – the flipside of the notion that ‘anyone can make it if they work hard enough’ is ‘anyone who doesn’t is a lazy bum’. Believing there’s nothing you can’t change by your own efforts is ignoring the fact that sometimes, shit really does just happen. (This is the absolute random shit, not the stuff that’s down to unjust systems and assumptions that we can and should be working on changing. Point is, the random shit will always happen anyway.)

For me, thinking about the other person’s perspective is a way to not get stuck.

That.

I really don’t think you’re the “stoopits” one at all here. I did that thing again where I assume that if someone knows me they automatically know what ALL the acronyms I use are and what they stand for. Sorry about that. *blushface*