Published on 12, July, 2020
Do you generally read or write fiction and/or fanfiction?
I spend my life reading and writing stories of various types, and I wondered if this is normal for autistic people. I thought we were supposed to have very limited imaginations and interests and that was how we got diagnosed. But my imagination is vast, I tend to live in a fantasy world rather than the real world because it is nicer tbh!
What is your imagination like?
Me too. Writing skills were a huge part of my working life for years. Fanfiction and fantasy aren't my thing and I think I live in the real world most of the time (who knows?) but I also have a pretty big imagination. There's no Blue Print. We're all different.
I learned to write grammatically correct English at a very early age - but I couldn't articulate the rules of grammar. I had a large vocabulary, and could deploy words with precision. I knew if something was wrong with a sentence, and I could correct it, but couldn't explain why. I was always right, though.
It maddened an English teacher in my early teens. I was like a talented musician who plays by ear and can't read music.
I had to fix this for professional reasons, later, and I put myself thro an agonising self-teaching process (pre-YouTube) which required horrendous levels of self discipline. Then I 'got it' and tipped the other way. I fear I may have spent a few years as a tedious grammar nerd, some time back in the 80s(!)
I too knew the correct grammar instinctively without knowing the rules.
Like knowing when to use a, an and the, but when someone starts talking about subjects and objects my mind switches off.
Exactly!! It's perhaps because we are seeing patterns in the grammar, rather than technicalities, but who knows?!?
For example,
But I only learnt the actual specific rules last year in order to pass an English exam.