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"I had a major writing breakthrough the other day. You see, I have this book I&amp;#039;ve been working on forever. Or should I say &amp;quot;working on and off&amp;quot; forever. It&amp;#039;s about a time in my life when I quit the corporate job (right after my son was diagnosed with autism) to take a job at a big discount store that was open 24 hours (and who shall remain un-named for legality purposes) on the overnight shift, stocking shelves in a rural small town. It&amp;#039;s fiction (based on a true story, obviously) and has a lot of hilarious fish-out-of-water type experiences, which are fun to write about, but I&amp;#039;ve been stymied by the other parts of the book. Namely, dealing with a newly diagnosed autistic child, and discovering my husband&amp;#039;s girlfriend not long after. Both those items are important to the story, but it&amp;#039;s been hard writing all that in - much harder than I thought it would be. There&amp;#039;s a fine line between plot and self-indulgent venting, and the bottom line is, I needed to back off and take a lot of myself out of this thing, rearrange a few items, and turn this book into a little more fluff and fun.  I have a hard time writing about an autistic child without stepping up on a soapbox, advocating and educating - which are great things, but don&amp;#039;t work in this particular book. I also can&amp;#039;t wring all the pain of that time and my crumbling marriage into the book so much that it&amp;#039;s eclipsing everything else.  And really, it&amp;#039;s hard to write all that misery now because I&amp;#039;m just not in that headspace anymore. That was the biggest breakthrough of all. I&amp;#039;m not that sad, lost, miserable, exhausted soul anymore.  Now I&amp;#039;m a somewhat apprehensive, mostly-doing-ok, still occasionally exhausted soul, and that&amp;#039;s a world of difference. So the writing has picked up again, and I&amp;#039;m feeling good about not being so &amp;#039;me&amp;#039; on paper. Or maybe, not being so much of the old me. Does that make any sense? Anyway, it&amp;#039;s big for me and I wanted to share. Thanks so much, all of you, for your constant words of wisdom and encouragement. I have the best readers anywhere! [Follow Ellie on Twitter and Facebook] "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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