I Was a Second-Rate Wilford Brimley

In addition to contributing to the Patch, I have a not-for-profit gig called blogging. People blog for various reasons:  to share pictures and news with distant friends and family members, to connect with other bloggers within their niche, as an outlet for writing, or as a cheap form of therapy. I blog for all of those reasons, but also because I was told that I had to. 

You see, I have been writing a book about life with my daughter. I am just about halfway through a blackly humorous memoir covering the early days of discovering she has autism and the effect that it had on our family and my sanity. 

When I started pitching it to literary agents, they all told me I needed a “platform,” which means some fame, notoriety, or credentials that ensure there is a built-in audience for a book. This ignores the fact that if you had that kind of fame, you wouldn’t really need them at all, but who am I to argue? Nobody, that’s who!

It’s not that I think I’m the greatest writer in the world and entitled to be published, but it does kind of sting when you see every reality star under the sun getting a book deal. Sure, they have platforms. Oh yeah, Snooki, Paris and the Kardashians have lots and lots of platforms.

But just because they are reality bimbos is not to say that they don’t also have valuable insights and fabulous writing skills that shouldn’t be shared with the world. Actually, yeah, I think that is exactly what I’m saying.

I tried to go the reality show route, but a fellow special needs mom and I were summarily rejected from Amazing Race when we could not find our asses with both hands and a Garmin. So to the blogosphere it was. I started writing and amassing a readership, but then the issue for prospective agents was that I didn’t have enough readers or a large enough media footprint or ten enough toes, and on and on and on the goalposts keep moving. But I’ve kept at it because I enjoy it, and the community that I’ve become a part of, and all of the many cyber-buddies that I’ve met along the way. 

One of them is a guy called “Big Daddy Autism,” whose blog is much in the same vein as my own. Big Daddy writes about his 13-year-old son, Griffin, who has autism and whose obsessions include elevators, Wilford Brimley, mall maps, and The Weather Channel. How could you not be a laugh-riot with a kid like that as your muse?

After getting to know Big Daddy, I found out he took the exact same write book/get rejected/start blogging path that I had. Only he finally decided to take matters into his own hands and self-publish his book—a humorous account of life with Griffin which would serve to show the world doesn’t come to an end when your child is diagnosed with autism.

That being a message that I can get behind, I was thrilled and flattered when Big Daddy approached me to write the introduction to his book.  I was feeling like quite the grand dame of our little funny-special-needs-parenting-autism niche.  Because you usually try to get the most famous person you can for intros, blurbs, and endorsements, right?  I toiled away at an introduction for 10 minutes or so and, voila, I was a published author! 

Some weeks later, Big Daddy mentioned that he’d just heard from Beverly Brimley. What? Who? Seems that he’d first approached Griffin’s hero, Wilford Brimley, to write the introduction to his book, and his wife Beverly had responded to turn him down.

Oh, I see how it is. I was the second choice, and probably not even a close second, to Wilford Brimley. As much as that hurts my pride, I guess there’s no arguing that Wilford does have more of a platform than I do, what with all of those Liberty Mutual ads running on a loop on channel 26. And his expertise in the "diabeetuss."

Hey, quit laughing at me! He also was in a movie with one Tom Cruise, remember? Not to mention a classic episode of Seinfeld, as the Postmaster General. Sheesh.

All I can say is that Wilford Brimley’s loss is my gain. And that sentence, along with “Levi Johnston just signed a six-figure book deal with Simon & Schuster” is one that I definitely never thought I’d write.

You can find my blog at www.autismarmymom.com, Big Daddy’s at www.bigdaddyautism.com, and you can buy his book, including my essay and fabulous introduction, by clicking here.