By, Saburah Murdoch

I was asked to look over the layout of my article for Abilities Magazine tonight. It's official, it's done!

Except...I'm feeling that weird feeling that I get when things that I write are edited to death. Mind you, saying that this was edited to death is a bit strong I guess, but I definitely noticed some changes from the final draft that I sent in. I know that's to be expected, especially at this early stage in my journalistic writing. But whether it's my profs, my friends, or in this case a real editor changing my words I can never help but feel like a little bit of my vision is being taken away. I'd better get used to it, I know...especially in this business of angles and "styles". It's just hard to send my work off into the oblivion of E-mail and have it return appearing different. I kind of hate the sub-titles the broke it up into too--"Pizza & Politics"...oy! I know that's something that I'm definitely going to learn to surrender cuz generally writers don't have any involvement with headlines or the like. Granted I'm not very good at them anyway but I was hoping I would escape a bad one this time.

I think what's really throwing me off though is the personal twist that I was asked to take it to in the end. They wanted me to end it with a student quote. But as those (especially ones coming from students with disabilities) are rather hard to come by in the summer, I decided to use a personal anecdote. Rather then ending with that though, they decided to expand on it and put it in the sidebar with my picture. I was sort of leaving out the detail about my working for RyeACCESS to avoid any bias issues, but once my picture was going to be included, I kind of had to tell them. So then that info was added too (except that they kind of mixed it up and I hope they'll take my corrections) and the few lines that I originally provided became this big story. I hate mushy exaggerations that turn people's experiences into sob stories...so I couldn't help but suggest a few word changes to avoid bordering on that. But the bottom line is that the full medical term for my disability is prominently placed and I'm being painted in the light of "disability". I don't know, I suppose I could've said no, but at the time it seemed okay...it still is okay...it just doesn't necessarily feel like me. It's not that I deny that I have a disability, or want to hide it, on the contrary. I just don't necessarily make it who I am...I just feel a bit medicalized. I think I wanted my first published experience to be a little less personal and a little more anonymous, for lack of a better term.

Oh well, I generally write about things that are close to home for me and this was no different. I suppose it might've been expected. C'est la vie!

On a side note, I was in the bookstore the other day and I happened to come accross Kyle Maynard's new autobiography. For those of you who don't know him, he's definitely someone to check out. He was born a congenital amputee, meaning that he was born with no legs below the knees and no arms below the elbows. However, despite his disability he went on to compete against able-bodied athletes on his highschool football team and has since become a champion wrestler, beating able-bodied oponants right and left. My mom saw him on Larry King Live a couple of years ago and I saw him on an episode of Extreme Makeover Home Edition. I read about half the book today and there is no doubt that he's a very inspiring guy... and despite the slightly iffy writing-style of a 19 year-old boy, it's an interesting book. But writing about disability, and then writing a bit about my own experiences this book gave me a bit of a different perspective. Kyle's book is called No Excuses and his no excuses philosophy, which acts as his motivater, runs throughout. It's a good philosophy but I can't help but find it slightly problematic somehow. The obstacle that I've always faced with disability advocacy and with working for RyeACCESS in my own life, is the idea that by pointing out the fact that people with disabilities are equal within society, we are segregating ourselves slightly. Like I said, this could just be related to the inexperienced writing style of a 19 year-old, but Kyle has written his story in a very fluffy way. It has that Easter Seals quality to it that I notice is generally present in most disability writings. Now I know Kyle didn't intend it to be this way, as he is clearly talking about overcoming and succeeding. But, and as with the way they edited my personal blurb in my article, he talks about his obstacles in terms of an able-centric view, about wanting to be normal. By comparing disability to ability are we not creating a divide by default? By presenting stories of triumph and inspirsation is that not putting your differences out there even more?

Either way, check out Kyle's book. I don't agree entirely with the way he's being "marketed" but he's pretty cool. I can only hope that my writing (or something) will get me as far as his athletics.