Hello everyone.

[Cloudy Stuart]

My name is Stuart. 'Cloudy' refers to my additional diagnosis of A.D.D.

I am an ancient person with Asperger's aged 64 who self-publishes stories. I am a trained artist too (where the clouds actually help quite a bit.)
I came here to explain that although I write my books they don't sell hardly at all and I have often wondered whether calling myself an autistic writer
(which I feel comfortable with) is a part of the problem. Maybe there are story writers here who have self-published too. If anyone is interested I can
provide the address of of my blog, although this is not why I came - I mean to push books at people. I think that mainly I am just curious what
people think about being creative and being on the spectrum. If there is another category where I should ask this then I will look now. This is basically
a hello to my fellow clouds.

 

[Outdated]

Hi Stuart, welcome to the forum. Many of us here are prolific writers but more in the sense of info dumping than story writing. We have a few of the more artistically inclined here too.

 

[the_tortoise]

Hi and welcome.

I also have both Autism and ADHD.

I am sort of an ex-artist, or um...artist on extended leave from art things...but I'm a visual artist, not a man of words.

(I once wrote a lot of cringe-worthy-bad hip-hop style poetry trying to teach myself how to hear prosody -- didn't work at all, btw-- that's as close as I have ever come to creating art with words....

I do write a lot but that is my substitute for [and pathway to:] speech, and mostly consists of the info-dumping "prolific writing" @Outdated speaks of.)

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

Welcome.

I’d love to be as ancient as you. Many of us are older than you, so you can feel comfortable here.

 

[Cloudy Stuart]

Hi Stuart, welcome to the forum. Many of us here are prolific writers but more in the sense of info dumping than story writing. We have a few of the more artistically inclined here too.

Thanks Outdated.
If I am honest I would say that there are times when I don't want to write stories, but people on the spectrum know the score activities that don't stop. I like older DSLRs and lenses too and that interest has got me into company through photography groups and what not.

 

[Cloudy Stuart]

Hi and welcome.

I also have both Autism and ADHD.

I am sort of an ex-artist, or um...artist on extended leave from art things...but I'm a visual artist, not a man of words.

(I once wrote a lot of cringe-worthy-bad hip-hop style poetry trying to teach myself how to hear prosody -- didn't work at all, btw-- that's as close as I have ever come to creating art with words....

I do write a lot but that is my substitute for [and pathway to:] speech, and mostly consists of the info-dumping "prolific writing" @Outdated speaks of.)

Thanks the-tortoise.

Writing can be a very lonely thing to do. If I hadn't got glued into it I might have been better doing something else. I do like art, and mainly landscape - though my landscapes have no people in them, which is why I like them.

With ADHD tagging along I just lose track of the details of life. Cloudy is my own word for it but sometimes it is more like a fog. I think art is good because I can choose the wrong colour and it does not really matter. Spell a word wrong in writing and armies of strange people get excited like it is the end of civilisation. Art is a lot more peaceful.

 

[Cloudy Stuart]

Welcome.

I’d love to be as ancient as you. Many of us are older than you, so you can feel comfortable here.

Thankyou WhitewaterWoman.

I think when I see rows of emoticons I mistakenly see youth and exuberance. On Whatsapp there are dancing rabbits that have me making the same mistake. No one is ever too old for dancing rabbits is the motto I should adopt.

 

[Outdated]

I like older DSLRs and lenses too and that interest has got me into company through photography groups and what not.

That's another popular hobby with the members here, many amateur photographers and a couple of professionals.

 

[Cloudy Stuart]

That's another popular hobby with the members here, many amateur photographers and a couple of professionals.

View attachment 148676

Very nice photograph. I have a Nikon 60-210mm f4 AF lens (a bit of a fossil) and Nikon 70-300mm AF VR lens. Neither can take discreet photographs of birds, although birds closer at feeders would be within their capabilities I would say. I tend to stick to photograph old paths and gates and overgrown places with plenty of contrast, most often in black and white. I have a Panasonic LX-3 that is a very fine camera for this.

 

[Outdated]

Very nice photograph. I have a Nikon 60-210mm f4 AF lens (a bit of a fossil) and Nikon 70-300mm AF VR lens. Neither can take discreet photographs of birds, although birds closer at feeders would be within their capabilities I would say. I tend to stick to photograph old paths and gates and overgrown places with plenty of contrast, most often in black and white. I have a Panasonic LX-3 that is a very fine camera for this.

The picture above was taken with a Canon EOS400 from around 2006 and the lens was their 75-300mm F5.6. I loved that camera but after a decade of living in the bush the dust and humidity eventually destroyed it.

More recently I bought another almost the same, the last of the Rebel series, the very last with a mirror. I got it with the same dual lens kit as the previous camera, 18-55 mm + 75-300mm, but this time around I'm very disappointed in the lenses. Compared to the older models I had they're complete crap, they simply don't give the sharp images that the older lenses used to give.

 

[JayLapointe]

Welcome to the forum. You are amongst a great crowd of folks. I'm also on the the AuDHD side of things myself. Not a writer but I do love fiction and reading.

 

[Cloudy Stuart]

The picture above was taken with a Canon EOS400 from around 2006 and the lens was their 75-300mm F5.6. I loved that camera but after a decade of living in the bush the dust and humidity eventually destroyed it.

More recently I bought another almost the same, the last of the Rebel series, the very last with a mirror. I got it with the same dual lens kit as the previous camera, 18-55 mm + 75-300mm, but this time around I'm very disappointed in the lenses. Compared to the older models I had they're complete crap, they simply don't give the sharp images that the older lenses used to give.

I do like older Nikons. I have the D90 and D7000 for walkabout. I have other cameras for talking photographs of paintings, but they don't feel personal in any way. There is an old lens called the Nikon 28-85mm f3.5-5.6 [I think that range is right]. It has an aperture ring and it feels antiquated but it such a lovely lens to use on the crop sensor cameras. As for Canons I occasionally owned the original Canon EOS 5D and found its colour amazing. Canon has a particular way with colour and especially with reds. With regard to the lenses the nicest one that I tried briefly was the 100mm macro (the first version). If I was to send my scarce money in search of a Canon it might be towards the Canon 6D. That camera came out sort of before the unaffordable mirrorless age dawned and it was overlooked as one of the last of the DSLRs.

I suppose in the harsh terrain where you live the old 5D would actually make sense there, being weather-sealed.

After everything I have said I am not a good photographer. I feel very self-conscious when I am outdoors and I don't take enough time to think about a shot because I want to get out of the view of other people. Because I paint in solitude I want the same with my landscape photography but that can never happen, mainly because I don't drive.

 

[Cloudy Stuart]

Welcome to the forum. You are amongst a great crowd of folks. I'm also on the the AuDHD side of things myself. Not a writer but I do love fiction and reading.

Hi JayLapointe.

I have always had a problem with reading because of my ADHD. I sort of lose track of the lines and sometimes my focus shifts back along the line and makes me lose my place. Having said this I have loved so many books, though I am sure the number is quite small compared to other people. There is a book titled The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery. It is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read.

I suppose we all have favourite books. Sometimes I have enjoyed a book because the place where I read it was just right. For instance during the hottest summers ever in the U.K. I read To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, which is set in Albama in The Great Depression. As the characters sweltered so did I.

Reading is a wonderful thing, It is just that I am a slow and clumsy reader.

 

[Outdated]

I do like older Nikons.

I was quite determined this time around that I was going to try a Nikon, but price killed that idea for me. Not that I can't really afford it, it's because I have a reasonable idea of what money is really worth and I like to see value for that money.

So the new mirrorless cameras came out and all of a sudden they were flogging off all the old models on the cheap. I couldn't resist. Only a cropped sensor but a nice camera, and I expected that I was buying the same lenses that I had previously, all in a bundle for Au$800.

It's the only camera I've got though. I bought it to try and encourage myself to start getting out and about more. When I lived up in Darwin there was so much wildlife to try and photograph and I had a lot of fun with it. Like you, I go out of my way to get pictures without humans in them.

In my mid 40s I lost the plot and ran away in to the bush and was homeless and living a semi feral lifestyle in a remote region, no camera can live through that lifestyle for long. Eventually age started catching up to me and I needed a big city to get social housing and get formally diagnosed for my autism, which got me a pension.

So now I've got a very cushy life, retirement is sorted, but I'm surrounded by city and people and that discourages me from going out much. I miss the peace and tranquility of the bush.

 

[Outdated]

I forgot to mention, the previous lens kit I had were Macro lenses, the newer ones aren't.

 

[Cloudy Stuart]

I was quite determined this time around that I was going to try a Nikon, but price killed that idea for me. Not that I can't really afford it, it's because I have a reasonable idea of what money is really worth and I like to see value for that money.

So the new mirrorless cameras came out and all of a sudden they were flogging off all the old models on the cheap. I couldn't resist. Only a cropped sensor but a nice camera, and I expected that I was buying the same lenses that I had previously, all in a bundle for Au$800.

It's the only camera I've got though. I bought it to try and encourage myself to start getting out and about more. When I lived up in Darwin there was so much wildlife to try and photograph and I had a lot of fun with it. Like you, I go out of my way to get pictures without humans in them.

In my mid 40s I lost the plot and ran away in to the bush and was homeless and living a semi feral lifestyle in a remote region, no camera can live through that lifestyle for long. Eventually age started catching up to me and I needed a big city to get social housing and get formally diagnosed for my autism, which got me a pension.

So now I've got a very cushy life, retirement is sorted, but I'm surrounded by city and people and that discourages me from going out much. I miss the peace and tranquility of the bush.

I know what you mean about using cameras to get out of the house. The camera I love the most is the old Nikon D90, which is very dated now. But it is the most grab-able camera and its controls are nicely placed and paired with a 35mm lens it is just right for wandering. I am accompanied most often by other enthusiast photographers, especially my deaf friend. She is a landscape painter like myself.

Unlike in Australia this part of the U.K. quite often has leaden skies. It always looks like there will be rain. The positive about this part of the country is the Yorkshire Moors. They are a brooding landscape, quite different from the part of the Yorkshire coast where I lived when I was young. Where I live now is urban and rather ghetto-like but I can see the moors on the horizon and there are paths that go there. Mostly I choose to photograph in black and white because somehow it gets the viewer to see the world as shapes and black and greys.

Years ago though, in my autistic youth (which was stranger than you might imagine) I ran into a camera enthusiast named Gary Heayes. He was interested in very cheap film cameras and enjoyed putting quality film in them. He became a master of making the world's worst cameras take astonishingly beautiful photographs. Later he moved to Japan. Below is his little website where he shows some of his extraordinary photographs, taken with old cheap plastic cameras that were awful even when they were new. It is this idea of turning lead into gold that inspired me to slowly take up a little photography myself. Gary Heayes; website is here, though I don't know if I am allowed to paste in a link.
heayes.com - photos

 

[JayLapointe]

Hi JayLapointe.

I have always had a problem with reading because of my ADHD. I sort of lose track of the lines and sometimes my focus shifts back along the line and makes me lose my place. Having said this I have loved so many books, though I am sure the number is quite small compared to other people. There is a book titled The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery. It is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read.

I suppose we all have favourite books. Sometimes I have enjoyed a book because the place where I read it was just right. For instance during the hottest summers ever in the U.K. I read To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, which is set in Albama in The Great Depression. As the characters sweltered so did I.

Reading is a wonderful thing, It is just that I am a slow and clumsy reader.

I can relate so much to that feeling of being a slow and clumsy reader. I am perpetually rereading paragraphs or realize I've flipped 3 pages but have no idea what I just read because while my eyes kept scanning the page I was actually thinking about something else.

Not sure I can say that I do have a favorite book. There are authors I love, Vonnegut, Palahniuk (wrote Fight Club), Atwood, Alden Nolan (Canadian poet), Gibson, Gaiman, Feist, come to mind instantly but I'm forgetful and ask me to list some favorite others tomorrow and I'm apt to give you 5 different ones. Fantasy/Sci-fi I would say are the genres that I'm into the most. Though the only book, if you'd call it that, that I've ever actually read multiple times and keep coming back to are the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius that last of the Roman Stoic emperors. Aurelius, Buddha, and Jesus all had some pretty great ideas, if only more folks would listen.

 

[Cloudy Stuart]

I can relate so much to that feeling of being a slow and clumsy reader. I am perpetually rereading paragraphs or realize I've flipped 3 pages but have no idea what I just read because while my eyes kept scanning the page I was actually thinking about something else.

Not sure I can say that I do have a favorite book. There are authors I love, Vonnegut, Palahniuk (wrote Fight Club), Atwood, Alden Nolan (Canadian poet), Gibson, Gaiman, Feist, come to mind instantly but I'm forgetful and ask me to list some favorite others tomorrow and I'm apt to give you 5 different ones. Fantasy/Sci-fi I would say are the genres that I'm into the most. Though the only book, if you'd call it that, that I've ever actually read multiple times and keep coming back to are the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius that last of the Roman Stoic emperors. Aurelius, Buddha, and Jesus all had some pretty great ideas, if only more folks would listen.

I have a friend who is dyslexic and who hates reading more than anything else but he sat down one day and began reading The Meditations Of Marcus Aurelius. He loved it and chatted about it each time we met. I have not been reading much at the moment but I was very impressed by how clearly Marcus Aurelius spoke to him from such a long time ago. I was very impressed with My Family And Other Animals. By Gerald Durrell. It is simply a man's memories of when he was a little boy and when he began studying animals in his own odd way when he and his mother and sister and brother are packed off to the Greek island of Corfu after his father dies. It is not a sad book. It is a book that makes you want to be a child again.

 

[Outdated]

Unlike in Australia this part of the U.K. quite often has leaden skies. It always looks like there will be rain. The positive about this part of the country is the Yorkshire Moors. They are a brooding landscape, quite different from the part of the Yorkshire coast where I lived when I was young.

I grew up in Adelaide but I spent more than 20 years in the tropics and got used to how green and lush and just how alive the place was. Now in comparison where I grew up looks dry and barren and the only time anything gets really green is in the middle of winter.

South east of Adelaide is Mt Gambier, a nice little country town sitting on the lip of an extinct volcano.

But if you instead go north of Adelaide the countryside looks like this:

 

[Jenisautistic]

Nice

I like writing stories too

welcome I hope you like it here