The Autism Diaries?! (Part 12)
A new occasional series here at “Sounds Good“
At school, we had the Publishing Board. If you were lucky, and it was approved, you could get your story posted there for the class to see. I wrote stories every day, had them checked, and added to the board. I wrote about going to see the cricket, I wrote about playing cricket, I wrote about my toys, and the books I was reading. I wrote about my collections. I wrote about writing. Pretty soon I had the board to myself — I’d taken every spot. I started in on some special projects. I wrote a 10-page study of animals. I called it “Animals”. It had a cover page, table of contents, and a series of précis sketches about various animals, studiously copied from the animal encyclopaedia. I was always sure to change the order of the words I copied, and to rewrite a few of the sentences. That project — “Animals” — was pinned to the corner of the Publishing Board. People could take it down and thumb through it if they wished. I streamlined my focus for a second special project. Australian animals this time. I wrote about the kangaroo, the wallaby, the koala, and the platypus. Also the echidna. They were dealt with together of course, being “monotremes” — egg-laying mammals. The only ones in the world. All of this was captured under the winning title, “Australian Animals” and pinned next to “Animals” (aka Vol. 1) on the Publishing Board. Which housed about two dozen stories by me, and for that week or two, none by anyone else in the class. This was a peak time for 10-year-old me. This was my Stephen King era. My Prince era. My Brian Eno era. I was so on a roll. Dominating that publishing board. Writing for an audience. But really just writing for myself. I put away such childish things for high school, went inward; wrote a diary every single day of my teens. And then the internet came alive and I turned to blogging. It’s all the same day really. Cricket, animals, basketball, Bob Dylan, pro-wrestling, records, tapes, CDs, books. Brian Eno. Prince. Stephen King.
