Aspie authors writing social interaction

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I think I may have found myself a potential literary agent!

A meeting will be this Friday at 11:30 at the agency's office so here's hoping I don't panic.

https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Horses-Writ ... 248&sr=1-1

While I've already posted this on it's own thread, I wanted to tell my fellow authors in particular that I had been invited to contribute a story in the anthology, Dark Horses.

From first page of this thread.. not a fan of diagnosing ppl after their death.
Just cuz someone is verbose and seemingly solitary (that too, in their old age )

Mark Twain did not have Aspergers.
If someone is gonna assume he did and claim something without proof I can claim the opposite...

Anyone who reads his books particularly his humourous travel writing will see he picks up on and makes fun of things that someone with ASD may actually display.
He had tons of friends, got on socially and was asked often to deliver humourous speeches for clubs and companies.
He noticed social ineptitude and awkwardness in people, including things that we would now call echolalia and poor theory of mind and stimming--and made fun of it.
ETC


Back in the day the majority of middle-class people didn't go to rock concerts and watch Kardashians and talk like Homer Simpson to 'fit in.' They were actually expected to be well-read and intelligible. Writers were expected to be observant.

The slower nature of life back then itself made the writing and personalities at an easier pace and afforded people like him (or Dickens who people will also no doubt label with ASD if they haven't already ) time to think, read, meet, research, discuss, and perfect their craft. Hence, quality.
Like how we have comic book and film conventions now - across the board entertainment - writers like him were celebrated in that cult-ish way.

He was actually very gifted and GIFTED= ASPERGERS isn't always or even mostly the case. I've met and noticed very socially adept gifted people. Sharp mind = aspergers, etc
Oh he liked routine and his own country's food/etc preferences? Do you know someone who truly doesn't - how many people are ok with day to day changes, and a gypsy lifestyle? Is there anyone totally without a routine who is successful in this world??
Was it to a debilitating extent? No. Was it quite, quite normal? Yes.
Let's just keep diluting the definition too, to suit our whims and ego. That won't do any damage for those who actually have these things and actually struggle greatly.


This kinda stuff makes me SO angry.
edit to add: let me give an example of a writer from back then who almost definitely was on the spectrum- if we are to guess: hans christian anderson. dickens (who i love but am not blind to his glaring flaws) and his equally snotty daughter ACTUALLY made fun of him and disliked him, even basing Uriah Heep on him, despite having him over as a house guest. other writers - his colleagues- while admiring him -
admiring his work - in correspondence, got on--
did NOT get on with him in PERSON, the way Twain and Dickens and others got on - because he was just so ... Aspie.
if you read about him and what they and others wrote of him, you get an idea of why i'm saying this.
even his writing displays that stoic flawed theory of mind, attempt at dialogue in stories but reads like what a person such as myself would IMAGINE the person in that story to say based on observation and our own understanding and feelings--
rather than a natural flow u can get when hearing people or comparing against other writers-

which to those judgemental snobs (didn't know better, still) showed something creepy (like hidden malintent) about him. even his characters, when he tries to make them elaborate, show 'aspie'-ness to me.

Not gonna touch the red-hot Twain issue...but there is a wonderful book by Julie Brown, a scholar (and mom of an Aspie) called...Writers on the Spectrum I think. In it, she puts Anderson (and Melville, Thoreau, and Lewis Carroll) in the dreaded box. More important than the celebs she fingers is the meticulous and rather convincing combination of medical and literary analysis she puts to use.

I also had a terrible time learning to write ( if it can be said that I ever learned). From physical issues grasping a pencil (no keyboards back then!) which led to sloppy handwriting (dyspraxia?), to an inability to pick up grammar...it was a mess. And organizing my thoughts was as hard as putting them down on paper.

Samuel Clemens was an oddball—but he was also a keen observer of human nature.

I don’t feel he had Aspergian traits at all.

Samuel Clemens was an oddball—but he was also a keen observer of human nature...

I didn't want to comment on Twain because he is on a bunch of lists and I didn't feel like arguing, but I agree with you. He also seemed too socially successful, from an early age, to be an Aspie. The man travelled everywhere and hobnobbed with polished literati.

Compare him to Anderson or Lovecraft, both of whom had a hard time "getting it together" as we might say today. Both were in some sort of unspeakable agony for much of their youths, struggled mightily with identity and sexuality, and both writing styles were more brittle and odd than Twain's.

Of course again this is all speculation and I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings or trigger them