Going Non-Verbal, the Dangers of Advice, and the Latest Music and Writing News

Since this blog was originally intended more for personal use, and to practice my writing, I'm going back to that format for a little while. It helps me get back into it, and also fills people in on how things are going in my world.

I went non-verbal the other day for nearly twenty-four hours. Normally I talk a lot around my husband, but I couldn't bring myself to speak. I was upset about something that wasn't anyone's fault (anyone currently in my life, at least), and couldn't talk about it. It was so huge inside me, taking over every thought I had so that I was unable to care, or speak about, anything else. And I wasn't ready to discuss the problem until I figured out what the hell it really was.

I do that a lot. I didn't even notice I was doing it, but as I look back at my life with the fairly recent knowledge I'm autistic, I see the behaviours I didn't see before. I see the years of getting lost in books. I see the many months of gaming, when I barely spoke to anyone. Later in my life it was guitar, where I practiced for hours every day. My activities are nearly always solitary. Music is a little different, since I'm making a career out of it and my husband rehearses with me, but my whole life has revolved around activities where no one else was involved, and I had no need to talk. Even my jobs were solitary. And my work still is, for the most part.

I spend my time in silence thinking about what's bugging me. Until I have it sorted, and find a solution, I don't want to talk at all. Not about anything. Even when I do have a solution in my head, I don't discuss the problem unless it involves others and I have no choice. People have complained about that trait, telling me if they had known they would have been there for me, but I don't want anyone there for me. Usually that involves advice I would never take, and since people are insulted by that I prefer to avoid the situation.

It's not just about not taking advice, since I don't like giving it, either. Even when people ask me. I don't feel people should be giving advice on anything unless they're experts and fully understand the situation the other person is in..and they should never give advice without being asked for it. Anything else is rude and intrusive. I find it offensive. It's like saying to someone, "You're too stupid to figure this out on your own, so let me tell you what's best for you."

Maybe it sounds arrogant, but my IQ tests say I'm intelligent, so to assume I don't know how to fix a problem in my life is a pretty big assumption. If I don't have an answer and need help, I go to people who have the real answers.

When I was much younger, I was insecure enough to listen to what everyone else thought. So I gave up on music after being told I didn't stand a chance of making it, because so few people actually did. I believed people who had no knowledge of the industry, or even of music in general. I did the same with my writing for a while, too, until I realized those people had no clue what they were talking about.

Naysayers derailed my life plans for a very long time, because I allowed myself to believe them. But when I finally got to the point where I no longer cared what those people thought, I realized I needed to listen to the people who knew exactly what they were talking about. I listened to published authors who were friends of mine, and became a published author myself. My books have done better than I expected, considering what people used to tell me.

When I was finally ready to go back to music, I decided to take lessons from someone who knew what they were doing. I needed an expert. A heavy metal rock star. Which is exactly who I got. If you're a guitarist, Michael Angelo Batio probably needs no explanation or introduction. I asked him for private lessons, and since the first lesson worked out well, we've continued them since April. He's offered to solo on one of my songs, so that's going to be an awesome experience for me, and he's helped me so much with my confidence (not to mention my playing). Michael's an amazing teacher, and he's been super nice to me.

But that's the difference, isn't it? Getting advice from the people who know what they're doing can make all the difference. Especially if they encourage you. I've been lucky in recent years to have the right people in my life, encouraging me to follow through on my dreams.

My husband has been terrific from day one. He never doubts me, and that alone makes me feel like a success. He's never laughed at me, and most partners would have, I think, when their late-forties wife says she's starting a metal band. Instead he wanted to join. He's supported my dreams in every way.

My past catches up with me a lot, though. The trauma I endured as a child will never be gone. I was changed, inside and out, by physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. The latter lasting about nine years. The two former lasting two or three decades, depending on how you look at it. There is no way to forget all that. I recovered from the sexual abuse, despite being sensitive about people talking like sexual predators. I think most women are, though. Friends will unknowingly echo things without thinking about what they're saying, so I'm left feeling like I have to say something about it, and it puts a strain on my friendships.

Right now I'm going through situations with a number of people in my life, and I'm having a hard time coping with all that. It gets to be too much, so I drop out of socializing entirely. While I've been pretty verbal with my husband (with occasional exceptions) I haven't been speaking to anyone else. I don't make phone calls, no matter how much I love someone. Phones freak me out. I consider them a necessary evil when I have to yell at a company for lousy customer service. The only person I speak to, verbally, other than my husband, is Michael. It's surreal, I know.

Fear of a deadly pandemic does not help. My daughter works in a retirement home and I don't think any of them are taking enough precautions, so I bitch at her (in text) for that, knowing at some point she's going to stop speaking to me entirely, but also knowing I don't want her to die. I'd rather have her silence and anger, than have to bury her, if it means she remembers to wear a mask and take all the precautions.

Our Premier isn't doing anywhere near enough to stop the spread of the virus, because he's more interested in doing things for businesses than in preventing deaths, so it's left up to individuals to do what they know is right. The problem is, people aren't yet understanding where this virus is going, and some are being truly stupid about it. We are not going to get the vaccine in time to prevent a horror show, and because a vaccine is on the horizon, people think they can relax their guard. As our Prime Minister has said (and yes, I think he's a tool, too), a vaccine in a few months' time will not help you if you get the virus tomorrow. They're preventative measures, not cures.

A deadly pandemic is actually right up my alley when it comes to what we have to do to avoid getting sick. I'm not a germophobe by any means, but I'm definitely an enochlophobe (someone who fears large crowds). I like staying home, and happily remain there for months at a time. I mean that quite literally. I don't leave for very long stretches, and I've been like that for years. I go out only if I absolutely have to. Right now there is no compelling reason for me to leave our home. My husband goes to see his son (even though they remain physically distant and wear masks, they still hike together nearly every day), and if there's anything we need he picks it up. A doctor's appointment is pretty much my only reason for going anywhere, and those are done by phone mostly now.

The interesting thing about my life is that we recently bought, and moved into, an RV. There were a few reasons for this, but one of them was so that we could do a bit of travelling at some point without having to leave our house behind (the only way I would ever be willing to go anywhere). We still have residence in the form of apartment space, since you need that to keep your healthcare, driver's licence, and insurance, but the last thing we wanted was to be stuck in a crappy apartment in an even crappier city. We enjoy being able to live in the country, where the worst thing we hear is a cranky neighbour and howling dogs (wolves?) in the middle of the night. We don't get sirens and gunshots anymore, which were not good for my stress levels.

I'm going to have some YouTube videos out about the whole thing once I get them edited (takes me forever, seemingly, and I have tons of footage). I'll be putting some on my writing channel, with a focus on the whole off-grid living aspect to things as I put in solar panels and an incinerator toilet, etc. For my music channel (available here, though it doesn't have much on it yet) I'm going to be showing another side to RV living, where we get to travel to various recording studios in Canada, as well as Canadian guitar luthiers. I intend to record in the studios we visit, if there's a song we're currently working on, so there will be footage of the recording process, as well.

None of that will happen while the pandemic is raging, of course, but waiting for the vaccine gives me extra time to practice and build up my music following online in the meantime. It also gives me more time to prepare for the eventual day when I have to perform live (terrifying thought). I'm planning to do a bunch of livestreams on YouTube while I have no fanbase, just to get used to the concept. It should be interesting to see what goes wrong there. I haven't been getting along well with technology lately, and seem to have become something of a luddite; hopefully I can figure it all out without a fatally-embarrassing delay.

As for my writing, well, I have quite the ambitious project on the go, so you'll have to bear with me. One happy reviewer was hoping for another book showcasing a couple who appear in book three of my trilogy (Salvage Rights, it's called), but I was already planning another trilogy that connects to the first one so they will not be disappointed. The characters they liked will be prominently featured.

And that's not even the ambitious part. I've got another series in the works, and it encompasses thousands of years of human history, so the research has been complex. I have some help with that, since my husband has a degree in social anthropology. Not only does that mean he understands human culture, but he also understand how to do proper research. I've got a video interview planned with him that I'll be sharing on my writing channel, talking about the research we do.

If you're curious about the writing channel, you can find it here. It's about writing for a living, so I've got videos on there about publishing, editing, etc. I was supposed to have a tour of the Diefenbunker up a long time ago, but the pandemic has prevented that, too. I did provide a 360 tour someone else created, which is what I used to help me visualize the Diefenbunker while I was writing Salvage Rights. I can visualize my own mental creations just fine, but I needed the research to be accurate for a real place.

For now I'm going to keep practicing, and also get back to my writing routine. Hence this blog post. I've gotten out of the habit of writing all the time, but my ideas are starting to clutter up my brain again. It's time to get them written down. I haven't written much of anything other than e-mails since I published Salvage Rights in March (right after they announced a global pandemic...lovely timing, that). I do have a couple of chapters done for the newest books, so they're in the works.

The song I'm recording with Michael is called So They Say, and it's about my musical journey, so it's a very personal song on a variety of levels. It will be out pretty soon, so I'll let everyone know when that happens. I hope you're all staying healthy and safe. (And reading plenty of books & listening to lots of music, of course.) I'll talk to y'all again soon!