Would you be my muse?

I've started writing a novel and I'm going to be including a handful of minor autistic characters.  The main characters are autistic too, but I don't want to give too much away.

Would anyone like to be an inspiration for a minor character?   If so, let me know a few details below.  Favourite colour, favourite stims, personal mannerisms or quirks or things you enjoy.  How much you talk out loud or in other ways.  

This is purely voluntary and I won't pay you. ;)  

I could make up a few things, but you lot do make me smile and it's my way of offering a thankful tribute.

  • I'm more tech literate and even I struggle to navigate this system.  It's desperately in need of an update for more user friendly features.  But it's the one place I've found that seems to move at the right pace for me, so I'm sticking with it.

  • Thanks for that. I have accepted the request from a section I did not even know about. And since when has there been a notification section?! I have been manually checking for updates and replies since I arrived here! Typical tech illiterate me! It turns out another user had sent me a request at some point and I never acknowledged it (due to not knowing it was there). I do apologise to that person. I hope I didn’t leave you feeling ignored.

  • I've sent a friend request, which will be somewhere on your profile or notifications. Once you accept it, I can send a message.

    And don't worry, I'll keep the messaging to a minimum to maintain that balance.

  • Good luck with your novel. I've always been a minor human being so I offer my services for inspiration for your work. 

  • Well, that has genuinely surprised me. But sure, I’d like to help and would therefore be happy for you to send me a message.

    I have not had a message sent on here before and remember speaking to a user on here about not accepting a friend request/message in order to keep the balance manageable for myself. I really think this is the right way to go about this though, so would like to offer that user an apology for not managing the same thing back then (I believe it is Number who I owe the apology to).

  • you Brits do that, if you move

  • A lesson that we Brits would do well to learn, instead of shouting at non-Brits.

  • I wouldn't do that out of my own volition. It was a response to a need. You move abroad you must learn to talk like locals, or be forever stuck behind language barrier.

  • My god, you're talented as Nabokov...

  • Mate, you have the excuse of writing in a second language, which you do exceptionally well; I have no excuse. Smiley

  • That's why my writing looks like:

    sentences have three parts. First about my similar experiences, comparing with post originator. Second contains fixes/patches/solutions, if mine then I say that one is mine. Third - wishes of luck my way.

    There is so mucgh chaos and confusion nobody noptices I talk about me all the time Smiley

    Find your solution.

  • I'd suggest someone of chinese origin, they're naturally autistic :P because of oriental different culture, no eye-contact, except in some situations, no loudness, no demanding participation or answers, etc. Autistamatic made few videos about differences between oriental and western cultures www.youtube.com/watch

  • My longer post above this & my previous one is one of the most important I've ever written...because, for once, it is not about me or even what someone has done for me but about rightly focusing attention on them. People like my nominee deserve the attention and praise they never seek for themselves. They deserve to be noticed and celebrated.

  • Exactly, mate, you're quite right. I eventually thought to add an important sentence to my post: 'a version of her'.

  • You guys do make me giggle.

  • The depths of my brain are documented elsewhere, but this particular project is aiming to be more kid friendly. ;) 

  • It's so sweet of you to nominate Rainbow Tree, and I agree that she is definitely worthy.  I will certainly be including some if those attributes but wouldn't want to make her into an individual character without her permission.

  • Actually, I was thinking you'd be an excellent candidate!  I'll send you some ideas I had in a private message if that's okay.

  • If your novel is mostly serious in tone, then I'd like to nominate someone of serious 'weight'. This person's name, and even their forum username, unfortunately remains unknown to me, but perhaps regular members will be able to identify them even by my clumsy description: her avatar consisted of a rainbow icon combined with a tree.

    This next bit is going to read like an irrelevant piece of literary criticism but it is really is apt:

    In the great novel 'Middlemarch', the heroine Dorothea is a kind person who strives to make the world a better place for all. She tries her best to help others, and is serious about this. She is both intelligent and self-sacrificing. But she is nevertheless a passionate person who yearns for the more wonderful things life may present to us - not material things, but those things which truly complete us, for all the good and dutiful works we might do. Dorothea longs for the true poetry of life, of love. 

    The former forum member I'm nominating was like Dorothea - most of the time, our limited view only allowed us to see her generosity of spirit while her deeper heart remained hidden from us. Featuring a version of her in your novel would be a kind of tribute to such devoted, passionate souls who quietly and without fanfare make our lives better; those who deserve the poetry they've patiently longed for.

    'The effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half-owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life.'

    (from Middlemarch, by Mary Anne Evans aka George Eliot)

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