Success Stories

Post Reply New Topic

Hi ...

There don't seem to be very many people like me around.
Old farts who discover they are autistic very late in life.

I couldn't find a success stories section on Wrong Planet.
It seems a good idea to occasionally remind ourselves that what we have is a gift.

Anyway, I'd like to share my success story in hopes it resonates with someone else who dreams like me.

A few years ago I wondered why some people thought compassion was so important.
This "sincere" question led me on a search and now I write about it.

I learned along the way that if you are going to write about something serious, you better make it silly -- or they'll just kill you.

So I write about compassion in funny ways.

I have a website, Funny Flash Fiction.com (one word.)

It's a .com, but I don't have anything for sale.
That's not the kind of success I'm talking about. That's a future dream.

The kind of dream I'm talking about is a success story that is happening right now.

Since asking myself why compassion seemed so important to some, but not to others, I've written 9300 jokes (1200 or so posted on the website.). The jokes are written in dialogue format so that when read the audience can "hear" the sound of the joke and in the sound, come to recognize the intention of the speaker.

To make the intention clearer, I then took 500 of those jokes and turned them into very short play (often a single page, typically just two page long). In the play, I assigned archetypes (the characters of the play), and put them into a symbolical setting where they could be seen within a context.). About 100 of these plays have been posted so far and I am successful at publishing two new scripts a week.

When I was done, I had over 20 major archetypes and dozens of minor ones.
I should mention here, that I only write about myself and the characters I create represent some aspect of myself.

To make these characters "stand up" in my eyes, I then adapted over 150 of them in short narrative fiction by adding a third person omniscient narrator who explains the behavior seen in the joke. About 75 or so of these flash fiction stories can be found on my website.

Later, I experimented with using the jokes in other formats, so I've also posted about 100 cartoons I drew in a minimalistic style, plus about 100 separate jokes that are put individually within a framed context (Penny-a-Joke, on the Menu on the site.)

All of these are intended to give an autistic person who might have difficulty understand jokes, a leg up. I hope to create thousands of stories and plays that explore the joke fully so that it loses its power over us.

Please visit my website, and if you like the jokes, cartoons, joke panels, flash fiction, and two minute scripts, please share them on social media and mention that autistic kids - even old ones like me -- can find success.