A couple of years ago, I decided to write a book. I figured that I had read just about every book about autism and had tons of personal stories about it, so I should I write a book. Piece of cake. I wrote a dissertation after all and had years of blogs posts that could be stitched together. In a month, I would have a best seller! Guest spot on Letterman! A country house by the beach! That how I roll. It's only a matter of seconds between the idea and the country house and Letterman.
I actually hammered away at the project for about six months. I have files of documents in Dropbox. Chapters are organized in Scrivener. Because electronically organizing words is much better than writing words.
I retired this project back in 2011. Writing little articles was much more fun and provided immediate gratification. Also, the book-writing process was becoming more and more painful. It was probably painful, because the whole thing sucked.
I opened the files this weekend for the first time in two years. Boy, was it awful! I was unable to commit to one type of book, so I tried to do everything at the same time. It was part memoir, part academic, and part tips and tricks/humor. The memoir was overwritten and melodramatic. Nothing salvageable there. The academic stuff was ok, but could be boiled down to an article about how kids with special needs received no public education until the 1970s, and now special education takes up about 25 percent of all education money. The tips and tricks stuff could be brushed off. Maybe I'll do that.
You know, it's really hard to write a book. Hats off to all my friends who have done it. It's more than just stringing together some words. Spewing out words is not a problem for me. I think that to write a book, one needs a commitment to tell one story. That's not a easy task.