How Not To Build A Hug: A Blog Post About Getting Lame Advice

My books do not sell.  I ended my professional relationship with my publisher and resolved to retire as an author.  My therapist was unhappy that I had decided to quit and suggested that I contact the Autism Society of Indiana as well as animal rights advocate and autism spokesperson Dr. Temple Grandin.  He said I should ask for help promoting myself.  Maybe I could send Dr. Grandin a book.  Though I thought there was little point in doing so, I did as he suggested.  I sent messages to these two entities via their websites.

I got an email from Dr. Grandin's people.  It said I could call her at a certain number and that she would return my call.  I don't like talking to strangers on the phone but I called anyway and spoke to someone who was not Dr. Grandin.  I told this person why I was calling and that I was uncomfortable speaking on the phone.  He said Dr. Grandin would email me.  She called me instead.

I was very nervous. I paced through my apartment while I told her why I was calling.  I didn't know how to promote myself.  I was socially incompetent and I couldn't interact with people in meaningful ways, so I couldn't inspire them to buy my books.  She told me I should go online and promote my books in fora and writing groups.  I had done this, but I didn't say so.  Calling me forced me to improvise.  I didn't have time to compose my thoughts or to screw up my courage.  I could only listen to Dr. Grandin describe things she had done, successes she had enjoyed.  She talked about cold calling meat packing plants and walking up to editors and getting their cards.  She suggested that I watch other people socialize online and imitate what they did.  I didn't tell her that I'm incapable of imitating complex social behaviors.  I can do the same things others do, but I can't generate novel iterations of those things.  I don't have that skill.  Apparently, Dr. Grandin does.  My autism comes with profound social disability.  It seems that hers does not.  She is autistic, too, but we are not each other.

My books are works of fiction in the fantasy genre.  Dr. Grandin explained that she wasn't "a fantasy person," and she suggested that I change the title of my most recent book, The Gardens Arcane.  

"Will fantasy readers know what that means?" she asked.

I told her they would.  She said that I should add a subtitle that included the word "fantasy."  I didn't tell her that no fantasy author in their right mind would do that.

(I wonder how Dr. Grandin would have advised Professor Tolkien regarding the title of The Silmarillion or Brian Jacques about Salamandstron.)

Dr. Grandin also instructed me to "leave the autism out of it" when I talked to people about my books.  If I told people I was autistic, they might treat me differently, she said.   I am not going to take that advice.  I joined a writing forum after I got off the phone.  I wanted to be proactive even though I didn't like what Dr. Grandin had had to say.  In my first post on the forum, I disclosed that I was autistic and nervous about interacting with other members.  I only know how to be who I am.

At the end of the call, she told me to call her in a month and tell her how things were going. I won't be doing that.  The advice Dr. Grandin gave me is frustratingly familiar: pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, call the company and ask for the manager's direct line, all it takes is gumption.  This is naive, and it presumes that I've made no efforts on my own.  It's possible that Dr. Grandin was as ignorant of how she came across as she was of what useful advice would have sounded like.  

In closing, I want to say this: interacting with a group of strangers isn't as simple as jumping in and joining their discussion as a full equal.  That isn't how humans build groups.  There are rules, games, expectations, traditions, politics.  There are cliques, and trends.  There is favoritism.  And so much of this is unspoken.  The way my autism manifests, I can't integrate into group cultures.  I know this from decades of experience, the bewildering loneliness of my childhood and teenage years, being told that I was just like everyone else but lazier, twenty years of youth and twenty years of adulthood, growing into myself, learning my limitations.  I know what I can do.

Temple Grandin has had a movie made about her life.  She may be a hero in the autism community, but she doesn't know me.  The advice she gave me was actually for her.  My conversation with her was a waste of time.