This is the intro post for a series I’m doing on how autistic characters have been portrayed in traditionally published books.

(Note: I’ll be using the word “autist” to describe myself and others. “Autistic person” is a mouthful. “Person with autism” makes about as much sense as “person with whiteness” or “person with [gender].” I prefer not to use that language.)

The thing is, I took a lot of flack for being autistic, growing up. My speech wasn’t fluent, I flubbed social scripts, I was really slow at figuring out how other people were feeling, and I didn’t know when to shut up— I either did too much of that, or too little.

Masking my autism equaled immediate, astounding life improvements. The better I got at it, the nicer everyone around me was. That equated to more security. Friendships! Connections! Job interviews! Money! Getting through the checkout line without the cashier frowning at me for freakish behavior! This was incredible.

It took me many years of inconsistent performance, a lot of watching and copying other people, and more than that, reading anecdotes about strangers’ social fuckups online. (Having the “bad at mirroring others” disorder gives you an XP penalty to all “watch and learn” activities, go figure!) But I got there. Nowadays, unless they see me tired or overstimulated, 95% of people have no clue my brain is wired wrong. (The remaining 5% have autistic family or are autistic themselves.) I am the alien in the people suit. Whee! I stitched the skin together myself.

After all of this effort, why should I take it off?

Dropping the mask runs counter to deeply-engrained instincts. But. But. I’m a writer. There are approximately eighty kazillion oodles of writers. What do I have to say that they don’t, if I leave my unique perspective out of the picture?

Initially, my answer was, “Fuck it, I dunno, but I’ll figure something out! The autism is going in a shoe box under the bed! If I want people to like me—if I want respect—they can’t know that I’m broken in the head.”

Sounds healthy, right? But this is how I was trained. Sorry to say, but a lot of folks are MEAN to autists. Let’s not talk about school. The point is, a lifetime of experience taught me that being pegged as autistic was a social death sentence. It meant that my existence became a problem. When someone knew I was autistic, god forbid I try to communicate or express emotion, because I’d be ruining their day with my freakishness. My childhood was filled with people who were uncomfortable interacting with me. They figured I’d screw it up. (This, perhaps, is why I’m such a big reader. Books don’t get mad when your ‘tone’ is ‘inappropriate’ because your OS didn’t come with voice modulation software installed. Books haven’t decided that you’re a drooling idiot before you say “hello.”)

So, speech. Voice. Tone. Gotta watch all of that. My internal monologue is autistic. A lot of my effort, when drafting, goes into ironing this out. I’m not trying to write for people like me; that’d be such a small audience I’d never make money.

But here’s the thing: I read books to learn about people who’re different from me. About two weeks ago, like a flash of lightning, I finally realized what it means that others do this too.

The world’s gotten kinder.  (And the assholes have taken to wearing matching red hats, for ease of identification!) There’s more awareness that autistic adults exist now, and also, a huge cultural push to stop shitting on minorities in general. For years, while I was writing in my corner, I was certain I’d have to hide my autism to have a career. Then along came Chuck Tingle.

Of course I’ve seen all the #OwnVoices buzz on social media. I’ve seen agents express support for disability rep. I’ve made friends with other autistic people. I’ve even got openly autistic acquaintances who landed an agent. This has all moved my internal needle on whether it’s safe to be out. But more than that… It’d be fun to write in a deliberately autistic voice. An interesting technical challenge. What if I unwound those years of programming myself to be better understood by others and went, “Nah, it’s y’all’s turn to work to understand me?”

Acting on the wild sense of freedom this inspires, I’m going to start with research! As you do. How have published authors portrayed autism? What do readers think an autistic voice ‘sounds’ like? Because, let me tell you, I’m kind of anxious about relaying my autistic perspective and having people go, “You’re lying.” (This has happened. And I’m triply diagnosed, which goes to show that you can never be vetted enough to be credited with your own experiences, so long as assholes think their opinion matters.)

Research will absolutely not improve my authenticity. But it’s fun, and it’ll make me feel better. Plus, it’s helpful as an intermediate step for deliberation, as I’m organizing my thoughts. Not gonna lie, I already know exactly what book I’m writing, everything in it, who the autistic characters are, and what they sound like. But y’know, it couldn’t hurt to check out what other people have done.

I started with the big famous one: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.