Inside My Writer’s Shelf as an Autistic Girl: books, BJD fashion, and 3 a.m. ideas ⚡📚

Inside My Writer’s Shelf as an Autistic Girl: books, BJD fashion, and 3 a.m. ideas ⚡📚 If a bookshelf could diagnose your personality, mine would probably say “this girl collects mythologies like side quests and stitches couture for dolls while plotting a thriller in her Notes app.” I know that sounds chaotic, but it is also the most honest way to introduce you to my world. Hi, I’m Ara, short for Arabella Sveinsdottir, twenty, currently living in the USA, and my brain lights up like a pinball machine whenever a story throws me a puzzle.

I grew up reading everything I could touch. I fell in love with cinemas, doodled in sketchbooks, and got addicted to the quiet electricity of turning thoughts into chapters. Being an autistic writer with selective mutism means my words do not always come out in conversation, yet they sprint when I sit with a page. That is why this shelf matters. It is where my voice lives when my mouth refuses to cooperate.

Let me paint the scene. The top row is for the books that built my taste, the ones that taught me how to sit with silence and stay curious. Fantasy occupies a proud corner, because I need worlds where rules stretch and doors can open to something shimmering and wrong in the best way. Beside those are my thriller favorites, the stories that understand tension like a violin string pulled to the edge of snapping. Modern literature lives nearby, sometimes confused about why it is neighbors with a stack of webtoon anthologies and game art books, but it has learned to share. This is not a museum display that begs you to keep your hands to yourself. It is a working shelf that smells a little like highlighters and fabric glue, because I also sew tiny outfits for my ball-jointed dolls here. The dolls are part runway, part therapy. I treat them like characters that walked off the page and asked for wardrobes.

If you peek at the spines you will notice a secret code. I arrange stories by mood. Magical realism titles sit like calm sparks, for when reality is heavy and I need something slightly slanted to remind me the ordinary is always a trick mirror. Thriller spines feel like little countdown timers and I reach for them when I want my heart rate to wake up. WLW romance and literary fiction stay close, because I love watching intimacy written with precision. I learn pacing from thrillers, tenderness from WLW books, dream logic from magical realism, and ambition from modern lit. When these genres talk to each other inside my head, they create the tone I chase in my own writing. It is not about copying. It is about letting my influences argue until a new voice steps forward.

There is a stack of dog-eared paperbacks that looks like it survived a storm. Those are my rereads, the ones that train me to notice craft. I track how chapters open, when reveals land, how dialogue cuts or floats. I underline choices that feel dangerous, like a quiet line placed in the exact middle of a scene that suddenly reframes everything. I am ruthless about studying what makes a reader turn a page, because I want to respect people’s time. Attention is precious. If you give me five minutes, I owe you momentum. That is why I love thrillers and why I map my chapters like quests. The reader should always feel like they have a reason to move.

The shelf also has a soft corner for art books and museum catalogs. I really love losing myself in art events and museums, because curation is its own storytelling. A gallery shows you how objects talk when you place them in sequence. That lesson translates to any creative life. I borrow palettes and textures from paintings, camera angles from film stills, and negative space from photography. When I write a scene set in a city at 3 a.m., I think about how a museum uses light to make you notice a detail. When I describe a character’s room, I imagine a curator deciding what the eye should meet first. It keeps the prose visual and grounded without drowning in adjectives.

Below the books is the weirdest part of the setup, which is my BJD workstation. I keep rolls of fabric, tiny zippers, and miniature shoes arranged in labeled bins like a fashion studio for pixies. Sewing for dolls is not just adorable. It trains patience, precision, and problem solving. It forces you to think about stitching order, constraint, and silhouette. That discipline sneaks back into my writing. I build outfits and chapters the same way. Each seam or sentence has a specific purpose, and if it does not serve shape or movement it needs to go. The dolls make me playful too. When I hit a block, I dress a character in a ridiculous cape, laugh, and then return to the draft with a better mood.

Some people think being autistic means I will only like structure, but my shelf proves the truth is more interesting. I love structure because it gives me a safe frame. Inside that frame I experiment like a scientist. Selective mutism taught me the value of alternative communication, so my shelf is full of tools that help me speak without speaking. Book quotes live rent free in my head and I collect them in a notebook, not to sound smart, but to recharge. When a sentence lands with clean force, it reminds me language can be a ladder out of a shutdown day. Stories let me participate in conversations I cannot always join out loud.

Outside of pages, my life feeds the shelf and the shelf feeds my life. Martial arts training arcs live here because I practice and because I love the narrative of effort leveling up into confidence. RPG side quests show up because I am that player who will happily ignore the main campaign to solve a tiny mystery in a fishing village. Stray animals wander in because I will always stop for a dog that looks lost, even if all I can offer is water and a call to a local rescue. Cinemas give me a bigger canvas, especially when a director plays with silence or frames a face like a landscape. Sketchbooks hold messy ideas that become chapters later. Everything loops back into the shelf, which loops back into me.

People ask what it is like to write as an autistic girl with selective mutism, and I can only answer for myself. I do not feel broken. I feel differently wired. A crowded conversation can flatten me, yet a blank page feels like oxygen. When I am silent, I am not empty. I am collecting. I am noticing the rhythm of your laugh, the pattern on the floor, the way a joke bends the mood of a room. I store those details until I can share them in a form that feels safe. Writing is where I can be exact without performing. It is where I can be kind without apologizing for needing quiet. It is where my interior world is not a burden. It is the main event.

If you want a practical takeaway for your own shelf, try this. Pick one genre that feels like home and one that scares you. Place them next to each other and make them talk. If you love fantasy, add a clinical memoir beside it. If you love romance, place a crime novel as a neighbor. Notice how your brain reacts. You might hate the clash and that is fine. Or you might discover a new frequency, the way salt makes caramel brighter. That is what my shelf does for me. Fantasy softens my thrillers. Thrillers sharpen my romance. Magical realism keeps every chapter slightly tilted, which is exactly how my mind experiences a loud grocery store. It validates my senses and makes me feel seen.

I also believe a shelf should have a purpose beyond aesthetics. Mine is a promise to my younger self who read under blankets and felt too much. It says we built a place where your feelings can be sorted and saved. It is also a promise to future readers. If someone hands me their time, I will reward them with a scene that breathes. I will not waste a paragraph telling you what I could show with one specific image. I will not drop a twist just to prove I can be clever. I will invite you in, seat you comfortably, and then take you somewhere that feels both strange and inevitable. That is my favorite feeling as a reader and the standard I chase as a writer.

The last thing I will tell you about this shelf is that it is always changing. New obsessions arrive. A museum show sends me hunting for a monograph. A webtoon panel triggers an idea for a set piece. A single line from a WLW novel makes me rethink how I write a kiss. A rescued dog curls at my feet and suddenly I understand how to write gentleness without being sentimental. The shelf grows because I do, and I grow because the shelf keeps asking me better questions. What are you curious about now. What truth are you avoiding. What little object did you underestimate that deserves a whole chapter.

If you have read this far, I will leave you with a challenge. Stand in front of your shelf or your playlist or your camera roll. Ask yourself what it says about your interior world. Then rearrange it until the answer makes you proud. You do not have to be a writer to curate your life like a story. You only have to notice what you reach for when nobody is watching. My shelf tells me I care about wonder, bravery, and the long game. It tells me my voice does not need volume to matter. It reminds me that silence can be full of power if you give it the right words.

The next chapter for me is already peeking out of the stack. It smells like midnight coffee without the coffee, glows like a museum light in a quiet room, and hums like a cutscene right before a boss fight. I will let it marinate for a minute, then I will stitch the seams and pull the thread through until the shape holds. If you want to see what it becomes, keep an eye on this shelf. It always gives away my secrets one book at a time.

Maybe the reason my bookshelf feels alive is simple. It is not a piece of furniture. It is a map, and I am still figuring out where the path goes next.

Why Writing Is My Forever Love: The One That Never Ghosted Me ✍️💘

  Why Writing Is My Forever Love: The One That Never Ghosted Me ✍️💘 Here is the messy truth that every creator eventually has to admit: I did not pick writing because it was easy or trendy, I picked it because it picked me first. Reading was the first spark, drawing was the cute crush, but writing is the relationship that kept showing up when the algorithms did not, when the views dipped, when my attention span sprinted away.

If you have ever stood in Barnes & Noble, Fully Booked or National Bookstore and felt a book spine hum like a live wire under your fingers, you already know what I mean. Writing is what happens when that electricity refuses to stay quiet. It is the voice that will not let you scroll past your own life.

I learned to love words before I learned to perform them. Childhood felt like a series of secret tunnels made of paper and glue. I would sit on the floor with a book and vanish so completely that the world had to knock twice to get me back. That was the first miracle. Then came the second one, the one that never stops shocking me. At some point the stories I read started asking for an exit, like a crowded theater that needed a new door. That door was writing. I did not realize it then, but every chapter that gave me chills was quietly leaving tools on my desk. A set of rhythms. A sense of timing. A taste for the kind of detail that feels like you just found someone’s diary and they left it open on purpose.

People love to compare writing to drawing as if they are rivals when in reality they hold hands. Drawing is the image that grabs your collar. Writing is the explanation that saves your life. When I sketch, I catch a mood. When I write, I chase the why. Drawing shows the gleam on a teacup at 4 p.m. Writing sits you down and tells you why that cup is the last clean thing in a messy kitchen and how that matters to a girl who promised not to cry today. Writing is the long exhale that turns a pretty moment into a true one.

There is a reason book culture keeps exploding on the internet. BookTok did not make readers. It just turned the lights on. Suddenly you could scroll and find ten people who cried at the same line you underlined at midnight. Suddenly the shy kid who used to hide their paperback in a bag has a community that will argue about which chapter wrecked them the most. That same energy flows straight into writing. The page is no longer a lonely place. It is a crowded, glittery train station where people are late for their feelings and you can volunteer as the conductor.

Back in the Philippines, in Manila, the annual rush to MIBF hits like a festival of permission slips. You walk into those halls and it feels like a city signed a treaty with imagination. Tables stacked with debuts and deep cuts. Authors leaning over podiums trying not to shake. Readers lugging tote bags that could bench press a scooter. I remember every time I go there I feel the same tug that I get in Fully Booked on a quiet weekday or at National Bookstore while waiting out a thunderstorm. It is the tug that says take this home and turn it into fuel. Writing is my forever love because it lets me repay that debt. Every page I write is a thank you letter with a deadline that only I can see.

There is also the discipline nobody posts about because it looks boring on camera. Writing taught me how to show up at a desk when the day has already taken one hundred small bites out of me. It taught me to forgive bad sentences as if they were practice laps. It taught me that focus is not a thunderbolt. Focus is a faucet. You turn it slowly and the water looks weak at first. Keep turning and it surprises you. On mornings when the words do not want to come I bribe myself with an ugly goal. Write a paragraph that nobody will ever see. Then another. By the time I hit the third, the voice that sounded rusty starts to sound like me again. By the fifth, it sounds like the version of me who got enough sleep and believes in happy endings.

Writing is my forever love because it is honest about the work and generous with the payoff. Drawing gives you instant applause in the form of a pretty frame. Writing asks you to wait for the echo. Sometimes that echo is a comment from a stranger who says they felt less alone because of a sentence you almost deleted. Sometimes it is a friend who admits the piece you posted helped them call their mother. Sometimes it is you, two months later, reading your own paragraph and realizing you finally told the truth about something you used to avoid.

Reading lit the fuse. Writing keeps the light on. I remember the first time I realized a book could be both a mirror and a window at the same time. That is not a metaphor you forget. The mirror told me who I was allowed to be. The window told me there were more rooms. When I write, I am trying to leave both behind for someone else. A mirror that flatters without lying. A window that opens without slamming shut the moment life gets loud.

Let me be clear about the economics because creators need to hear it. The path is rarely linear. Some days the analytics will treat your work like lost luggage. On those days I remember the physical places that raised me as a reader. I picture the maze of shelves at Fully Booked where I fell in love with a paperback I did not plan to buy. I remember lining up at MIBF with a list that I promptly ignored because a debut author read two paragraphs that hijacked my wallet. I think about National Bookstore on a weekday afternoon when a random aisle becomes a time machine. Then I open a blank document and try again. Platforms change. Pages do not. Writing is platform proof in a way that keeps me calm when everything else gets loud.

Another reason writing wins is the way it respects memory. Drawing captures an emotion like a snapshot. Writing lets you track it across a timeline. When I write about a breakup, I can include the coffee stain on the saucer, the text message that landed like hail, the shoes I wore to pretend I was fine, the song that ruined a perfectly good walk. That level of detail is not indulgence. It is documentation. It turns a chaotic feeling into a map that other people can use when their own weather turns strange.

Reading words silently inside your own head is a small magic trick. It makes the voice feel like it lives in your mouth for a second. When a reader tells me they heard me, I believe them. Not because I shouted, but because they let me whisper.

Finally, writing lets me fail in private. I can be clumsy in a draft without burning a hole in the internet. I can try out a risk and delete it before sunrise. I can throw away a paragraph and bring it back six months later when I figure out what it was trying to say. That kind of sandbox is priceless. It makes the public parts better because the private parts were allowed to be messy.

So yes, I still draw. I still fill sketchbooks with faces and furniture and the way rain leans sideways on bad days. I still read like a thief casing the place. But writing is the one that kissed me on the forehead after the party and asked how I really was. It is the one that holds my hand while I turn a hard thing into a true thing. It is the one that will be here when the trend cycle forgets my name.

💘 WATCH: https://youtu.be/9J0twDTNF-E

If you asked me to pick one love to take into the next decade, I would grab a notebook and a cheap pen without blinking. Not because I think writing will make me famous, but because I know it will keep me honest. The only question that matters now is simple and scary in the best way. What story do I not want to tell yet, and what happens when I write it anyway?

📖 Why Writing Saved My Mental Health (And Still Pays My Bills)

 📖 Why Writing Saved My Mental Health (And Still Pays My Bills) 📖 Books were my first therapy session — before I even knew what “mental health” meant.

When I was 13, I picked up a slim paperback from a secondhand stall. It wasn’t a self-help guide. It wasn’t even labeled “mental health.” It was a diary-style novel that whispered: your feelings are valid, even if the world doesn’t understand them.

As an autistic reader, I didn’t just read books — I lived inside them. They became the blueprint for how I work today.

Every page taught me something offices, deadlines, and even therapy didn’t:

➡️ Words can hold you together when nothing else does.

➡️ Structure (in books or workflows) makes chaos feel less loud.

➡️ Telling the truth — even if it trembles — builds trust with clients and readers.

And here’s what I’ve carried into my work:

✨ Book rec: Please Don’t Look at Me by Arabella Sveinsdottir — lyrical self-help for introverts that feels like a friend, not a lecture.

📚 Workflow truth: Reading daily reminds me that systems are just stories with bullet points.

💡 Efficiency trick: I edit like I’m revising a chapter — cut filler, keep the soul.

🖋️ Client love: They tell me my storytelling makes even “boring” reports feel human.

At the end of the day, writing is mental health for me. Editing is therapy. Storytelling is survival.

💬 What’s your go-to book when the world feels too heavy? I’m building my 2025 mental health reading list.

📩 And if you’re a founder, CEO, or fellow writer who needs someone to turn your story into something readers won’t forget — my DMs are open.

🔥 Please Don't Look at Me: A Gentle Self-Help Book About an Anxious Introvert Learning to Say No, Set Boundaries, and Exist Without Apologizing by Arabella Sveinsdottir

Paperback 

📦 Grab it now ➤ https://amzn.to/3IlG7Cr

Disclosure: This post contains Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, this website earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.

Picnic, Pages, and Pure Magic 📚✨ Arabella Sveinsdóttir’s Big Reading Day at Cambridge Common

 Picnic, Pages, and Pure Magic 📚✨ Arabella Sveinsdóttir’s Big Reading Day at Cambridge Common What if your next favorite book wasn’t found in a store, a library, or even online, but was read to you live by the author herself—on a picnic mat, under the open sky, with kids from local orphanages listening right beside you? That is exactly the kind of rare magic set to happen at Cambridge Common this August, and trust me, you are going to want to be there.

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If you have been anywhere near BookTok lately, you have probably seen the name Arabella Sveinsdóttir floating around like the literary star she is quickly becoming. Known for weaving words into moments that feel like they belong only to you, Arabella is more than a novelist—she is a storyteller in the truest sense, able to hold a crowd in quiet awe until the very last sentence.

And now, for one golden afternoon, she’s bringing that gift to Cambridge Common. On August 15, 2025, at exactly 4:00 PM, Arabella's team will host an intimate reading event, sharing passages from her debut work Nowhere Strangers along with selections from her other books. But this isn’t a solo stage. Joining us will be two special guest readers—Edwin McCann and Mariko Sui, both international students from Brown University—who will each bring their own voices and perspectives to the gathering. The result? A multi-voice literary experience you won’t find anywhere else.

Cambridge Common, for those who haven’t been, is a sprawling green space just steps from Harvard Square, rich with history but buzzing with everyday life. On any given day, you’ll see kids running across the grass, students sketching under the trees, and couples sharing picnics in the shade. On August 15, this familiar park will transform into something magical: a shared story circle where three unique readers will bring worlds to life under the summer sky.

The event is completely free and open to everyone. The only request is that attendees bring their own picnic mats or blankets and, of course, any snacks they’d like to enjoy. And there’s a deeper purpose behind this gathering—Arabella has chosen to partner with a foundation that promotes free books for children. Representatives will be there, and kids from local orphanages have been invited to attend, making this not just a reading, but an act of community and generosity.

If you’ve never been to a live reading, picture this: the reader’s voice rises and falls with the story’s rhythm, every pause purposeful, every inflection pulling you further into the world on the page. Around you, the park is quiet except for the soft sound of the wind in the trees or the occasional laughter of a child. Now multiply that feeling by three—Arabella’s deeply personal storytelling, Edwin McCann’s thoughtful delivery, and Mariko Sui’s lyrical style blending together in one event.

Arabella’s Nowhere Strangers has already earned a devoted following online for its exploration of identity, belonging, and the unseen threads connecting strangers. Hearing it directly from her is a rare chance to experience the book’s emotional beats exactly as she envisioned them. Edwin McCann brings his own literary sensibilities to the event, offering a reading that reflects both his global perspective and his connection to contemporary American literature. Mariko Sui’s presence adds an international layer of artistry, her voice carrying the subtle cadence of multilingual storytelling that resonates across cultures.

What makes this setup so special is how accessible it is. There’s no ticket booth, no reserved seating—just open grass, a welcoming atmosphere, and a shared love of stories. You can spread out on your mat, sip something cold, and settle in for an afternoon where the biggest task on your list is to listen.

And this isn’t just for seasoned bookworms. Maybe you’ve never read Nowhere Strangers. Maybe you’ve never even heard of Edwin or Mariko until now. That’s the beauty of events like this—they’re discovery engines. You might walk in curious and walk out with a new favorite author, or with lines from a reading that you can’t stop thinking about for days.

Cambridge Common adds its own magic to the moment. The history in its pathways, the expanse of green, the way the sun shifts in the late afternoon—all of it turns a simple gathering into something you’ll remember. And because this is an open public space, passersby can wander in, drawn by the sound of voices telling stories worth hearing.

For those planning to come, think casual and comfortable. Bring your picnic mat or blanket, dress for the summer weather, and consider packing a little extra to share—whether that’s snacks for your friends or juice boxes for the kids from the orphanages. The goal is to make this afternoon feel warm, inclusive, and memorable for everyone.

Beyond the pleasure of listening, this event carries a message: that literature is not just for private moments on the couch or solitary nights with a Kindle. It’s for sharing, for sitting together and letting words move through a group of people in real time. Arabella, Edwin, and Mariko are not just reading—they’re inviting you into a space where stories are a bridge, connecting strangers, neighbors, and friends.

And that’s the real magic. The stories will end, the mats will be folded, the snacks packed away. But the feeling you carry home—the memory of sitting under the Cambridge sky, hearing three distinct voices bring characters to life—that will stay with you.

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📍 Where: Cambridge Common, Cambridge, MA

📚 What: Free open-air reading with Arabella Sveinsdottir, joined by guest readers Edwin McCann and Mariko Sui

📅 When: August 15, 2025 · 4:00 PM

Bring your picnic mats, your favorite snacks, and your love for stories. Everyone is welcome—including kids from local orphanages who’ll be joining us through Arabella’s chosen foundation promoting free books for children. ✨

So when August 15 comes and the first words drift out across Cambridge Common, will you be there to listen, to imagine, and to become part of the story?