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Novel about a girl with selective mutism anxiety

I am wanting to publish the novel I have written and donate copies to school libraries.

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Novel about a girl with selective mutism anxiety

Novel about a girl with selective mutism anxiety

Novel about a girl with selective mutism anxiety

Novel about a girl with selective mutism anxiety

Novel about a girl with selective mutism anxiety

I am wanting to publish the novel I have written and donate copies to school libraries.

I am wanting to publish the novel I have written and donate copies to school libraries.

I am wanting to publish the novel I have written and donate copies to school libraries.

I am wanting to publish the novel I have written and donate copies to school libraries.

El Earl
El Earl
El Earl
El Earl
1 Campaign |
Sydney, Australia
$31 USD $31 USD 3 backers
1% of $1,881 Flexible Goal Flexible Goal
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Currency Conversion $16 USD
$25 AUD
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2 books to school libraries

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book for you

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your name mentioned in book

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My name is El Earl. Since I was five years of age I have not spoken to anyone but my family. I have an illness that is called "Selective mutism." It is an anxiety disorder, which makes me scared to talk to people. A lot of the symptoms are much like autism, yet selective mutism and autism are not related. 

I have trusted very few people and opened up to them. I have been working on a novel about my life and my condition. It is a story about how I got bullied my whole life and I dealt with it, but most of all it is a story about how even though I have this condition I have done so much in life, I have worked, I have attended university, I have held art exhibitions... This story is for all the teenagers, adults, and people out there who suffer everyday because they are different, or because they are bullied for some reason or another. I am hoping my novel will help people, for every person who reads it and for every person who feels better or stronger for it and who can relate to me and what I have gone through, I am happy that I am doing something for people.

I want to self publish this novel, and then I want to make copes and sell some of course, but also donate some to schools to have in their libraries. I think this will be a good read for school students, but also it is not limited just for a young audience. I think a lot of people will love my novel and find it honest, sad, quirky and most of all inspiring. 

If I do not reach my entire goal it is okay, there are cheaper self publishing options and I will just do them.

I hope after someone reads my novel they will notice a lonely person in school, or work or wherever and make an effort with that person. If that happens then I know my novel is a success. 

Why is my novel so important to me? an English teacher at school plus two university teachers said to me "El one day I am going to walk into Borders and buy your book" It is sad that Borders does not exist anymore but I am hoping that what they said comes true true, and one day they will be sitting on their couch on a cold Sunday night reading my words. 

I have a few publishers in mind and sussing out the best one. No publishers have read my book yet but one publisher that isn't very expensive has read a chapter and would love to help me make it a success. 

Other Ways You Can Help

Please tell people about this, about my book. I think my story may even help people in the medical field understand my problem a little bit better. I was a very lonely teenager, I had no friends so started to write this book is what saved me. I had something to look forward to. Years later I went over it and finished it, and I feel it is the best thing I have written in my life.

 

Here is a little bit of my novel :) 

 

Like Robert Frost said in his poem ‘The Road Less Traveled’ From the two roads ahead, you can only choose one, and you can’t turn back and take the other, because along the way there are going to be other roads to choose from. I must have somewhere taken the wrong road.

I stopped talking…

I got selective mutism.

           

Selective mutism is a childhood anxiety disorder. Its much more then just shyness. The child is not refusing to speak because thats what they want, they just cant. The child continues to speak at home but stops speaking in school, and at other social events. They dont have autism, or a communication disorder.

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

Mid 1997

 Age: 16

 

You’re somewhere in between, a pale stair,

An ocean way too deep, skies up where they belong,

Cold sensation on the neck, hard ruffle in the grass,

Running faster through thousands of tree’s, as if there’s no way out.

A maze of insecurities, keep going the wrong way,

Bumping into dead ends, if turning back which way to go?

A hint of a wind, now it’s gone.

 

Henna painted arms, leaking from the rain,

Like smudged mascara, dripping within tears,

Like a waterfall, throwing a person into the ocean,

Nothing.

 

 

           

It is my first period of the day; science class. The science room door is green with a little glass window on the top of it and has the word science written on it. Every time I approached this room I just want to run away, as fast as I can in the opposite direction. I imagine the school hallway going all dark, and have a chill down my spine as if some one in a mask and black coat is chasing me with a knife. I want to scream.

I walk into class.

            Seated please, Mrs. Brindchick yells in her accent, I can never figure out what accent she has. I find myself grinding the little bit of fingernails I have left (yes I am a biter) on the edge of my desk. Mrs. Brindchick doesnt try to understand me like my other teachers, she always finds ways to humiliate me in class, and then fail me on the pure fact;

I vill not pass a girl who refuses to speaka to me,

The funny thing is she gets away with it.

            You she pointes at me directly.  I have been in class less then ten minutes and already she has decided it is time to have fun, purely on my misfortune.

             I zone back into reality and stop thinking about what she would look like in hell with the devils and fire and

            You!

She never says my name; it is as if my name is as bad as saying fuck in a class full of sixteen year olds.

            I nod blankly.

            Vhy dont you start telling ze class vat last nights homevork readings vere about?

            I pick up my pen and paper and am about to write, but before my pen can even touch the piece of paper she interrupts me.

            Verbally.

            I sink into my seat.

            How about you Leslie? she asks another student.

That student does reply verbally.

            When I think class cant get any worse I am in for a surprise. We are paired up to do an experiment with a partner. I have to do mine with Mony. She is tall with dark brown hair and thinks she is beautiful, personally because of her personality she reminds me of a dropped meat pie. Okay thats a bit mean a dropped meat pie thats been put back together, there you go.

            You know just coz we are doing this together, it dont mean we’re gonna be friends or anything, she says lighting the Bunsen burner,     

            I nod.

            Like you know if I was gonna buy a parrot, like Id buy the parrot that spoke you know? If that makes much sense? Not the parrot that was dumb.

The word dumb rings in my ears like a siren.  I look over at her smiling face; it is as if she thinks it is okay the way she is talking to me. I dont know who I fell sorry for more her or myself; me for having to put up with her or her for having such a sour personality. Maybe shes just dumb? Yes lets leave it at that shes just dumb.

Sure I’m different but I know that when people put other peoples down it means that they see in those other people things they have in themselves. By putting these people down it means that they fell better about their own lives.

            Everybody in the world has differences however theyre hidden. Some people may have a toe missing, or something tiny like that, that people dont notice. However with mine everyday it gets in the way. People don’t want to get to know me, bosss don’t want to hire me, people in shops think I’m rude when I don’t reply to their Hello how are you?’” verbally or say Thanks after receiving my change.

            That afternoon I sit in my bedroom leaning against my desk; I am staring at a paperback novel I have to read for English class, it’s so boring. My hair swings over my face as if it is a curtain, and my face is the window that it is protecting from the world. A world, which I am afraid of, why? I dont know. I dont speak, I barely eat in public, and people scare the hell out of me. There were things that happened to me when I was a child; however I have somehow erased them from my memory, they are too painful to face. I may seem different to you because I dont speak, but dont be fooled by that I am just an ordinary girl.

 



Thank you

El Earl :)

 

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