The idea evolved over a decade. My mother-in-law made an offhand remark when Sam was still very young that I ought to write a book. The task seemed daunting, but I understood her point that the wisdom needed to be shared. After I participated in some of the earliest online autism forums in the mid 1990s, I began to believe what I’d learned really was helpful to other parents, even professionals. In 2001, during my second year of journalism school, I had enough time to try out my writing muscles. I wrote several essays, began weaving them into chapters, and eventually a story arc emerged that I felt could be a successful narrative.

Not very much of it. Sam tells people that the book is about him when he was young. I’ve asked him if he remembers some of the things I’ve written about and he doesn’t.

Once I began in earnest in 2001, I finished it in 2007. Months went by when I didn’t work on it directly because I was blocked, but I thought about it all the time.

I wrote the book to help other parents of children with autism, or other challenges, and to help professionals understand what parents go through. That being said, I was not surprised that the process was sometimes therapeutic. Our lives had been chaos. The process of deciding what to write about helped make some sense of what happened. I may not have made all the best choices back then, but every day began with love and that helped me accept some of the mistakes I made.

I felt like a dark horse winner because I was new to the writing business. I hoped having my manuscript in a workshop would help me figure out how to solve some of its structural and characterization problems. If I knew how to end it, then I could write my way to the finish.

It took a long time and a lot of intervention to realize that my initial story arc wasn’t right. Early readers pointed out parts of the story that weren’t satisfying. I struggled to address the different problems they pointed out. The story is a memoir of our lives — and we are still living it! Life is doesn’t lend itself to a tidy story. But I got good help from those early readers and from my editors, Mike Trimble and George Getschow. Mike helped me write with internal logic. George helped me see myself just as much a character in the story as Sam was.

Early readers complained that the book ended without resolution to the tension in our marriage. It took a long time to figure out how to write about how Mark and I came to understand each other and our different ways of dealing with all the problems we had. I’m grateful that I was able to put that on paper and share several very tender moments with Mark discussing it, since he was killed in a motorcycle accident just before the book went to print. By the way, I hope someday to meet a couple that has resolved all the tension in their marriage.

I cried a lot. It was hard to revisit the hurts from the past. I read certain passages to family and to Mark, of course, to check my memory. It was hard to see that it pained them, too.

To help young families better cope and to help professionals see how they can help. If the book reaches a wider audience, I hope the general public will learn that when one of life’s supposed nightmares becomes your reality, true love and happiness aren’t far away.

The book has barely been on my family’s radar screen until recently. There’s too much going in our house – the boys learning to drive, for one thing — for the book to be the center of our universe. For me, learning to write it took a long time. The rest of the family wasn’t impacted as much at the beginning, but in the six months before we went to press, it was hard on them.

I think I know how to do it now, so I might try again and see if I can write one in less than a decade.

No. There are better books on the market for that.

Lots of people have great stories to tell. But that doesn’t mean you can write it. I was really afraid at several points that the book was poised to fall into the abyss. But I kept the faith and accepted help.

Love. Listen/Observe/Read. Act. Repeat.

Early diagnosis is key to proper intervention. I included descriptions of my pregnancy and of Sam’s infancy to encourage the autism community to see how far back they can push this envelope to help parents and kids as soon as possible.

It’s in the book – start each day fresh, as if old hurts never happened, and don’t be afraid of your heart, because it will lead you straight into the light.

Yes, but I’m not sure it will be another book about living with autism.

I’m not sure. We are in pioneering territory right now, with so many adults with autism leaving the school system and entering the working world – or higher education. There’s a lot Sam is dealing with, and figuring out, that could be helpful to people to share. But it’s also my son’s adult life and his story to tell. I’m not sure I can write another book about our lives together without taking something away from him.

It’s a universal story about love and acceptance. Every child with autism I’ve known has been unique and wonderful as every “normal” child I’ve known.

I didn’t want to write too far into Sam’s childhood where he would have memories of his own. Our struggle to get a diagnosis lent itself to a natural story arc as well. The first person point of view seemed the only legitimate way to let the reader into our lives to see the transformation – from ambivalence to confusion to anger to acceptance.

We got over any desire to “fix” Sam pretty quickly. Instead, we helped him adapt. I still bristle when someone suggests he might be better off with medication. He’s learning how to cope. It takes time. The rest of the world needs to be patient. What are we all in a hurry for anyways?