Hi all–look at that. I used a double hyphen 🙂 Wait, is this AI?
Sorry, couldn’t resist. I read the back story on AI and the use of the double hyphen and I just rolled my eyes. Writer’s have been using em-dashes forever. People love to knee jerk and leap on bandwagons before they know if something’s legit or not. Oh well, it is what it is. For me, I love the double hyphen to show a quick shift in thought. For me, it’s changing gears fast as a story unfolds. I’m taking a mental walk down imagination lane–holy hell, there’s a dinosaur!
Yeah.
Sorry, got distracted. IT happens to me all the time. I was going to write about the dreaded ‘writer’s block’ but now I’m changing buses while we’re on the move. Go figure. Double hyphens led to changing gears which led me to what I do want to talk about.
It basically has no bearing other than I don’t mind sharing. Turns out I’m ADHD. I was diagnosed in my early 50’s, though even before I knew I didn’t quite think like most people. I’ve never been great at following multiple directions, and if you give me a pattern to follow, chances are I’ll get befuddled if there’s too many steps. However, give me a problem to solve without any guidelines or “rules” on how to get there, and I will figure it out. Probably not the way most people would, but I’ll solve it. And do a top notch job.
Why am I telling you this?
Because it affects my writing. Honestly, though, mostly in good ways. For those of you that don’t have ADHD, my brain pan is in 4th gear most of the time I’m awake. I wake up slow in the morning but once I get moving, it slips into high gear and stays there. I once tried to explain it to my boss. I told him that while we were walking down the street to go find lunch, I was literally contemplating multiple things along the way. I might get distracted by a person coming my way, a truck, or I might be finishing a creative thing going on in my head before we walked out the door. I do have an internal monologue going on all the time and while sometimes I lose track of a current conversation that’s really happening, it’s often because the convo was moving too slow and I knew where it was heading.
Not bragging, just saying my mind is in overdrive most of the time once I’m fully awake. Even now, I’m typing this, but I’m listening to a song and also thinking about editing my YA novel and realizing my can of Dr. Pepper is almost empty, and thinking about texting a good friend of my mine. My head juggles a lot of things all the time.
I think it’s why I sleep hard and it takes me a long time to wake up. When I’m on, I’m ‘going guns’ and when I finally rest, I crash. SO why did I get tested? I saw patterns growing up bleeding into adulthoood and though I managed just fine in school (once I figured out and taught myself how to study and retain information), I had to learn my own ways of succeeding in the work world and life in general. I ran across a test for dyslexia one day at work and ended up scoring “significant risk” on it and a couple of others. It led me to actively getting tested only to find out I was ADHD instead.
It actually explained some many of my mental quirks and was a great relief to know. And it’s not something I see as a “bad” thing. It’s just different, and I have to approach problem solving differently than most people.
However, (told you that was one of my favorite transition words :)) when I’m writing I do have the ability to hyper focus. I can ignore the entire rest of the world and juggle my plot, side characters and upcoming twists all while I’m typing at the speed of around 60+ words a minute. ADHD is a boon to my writing because I can see the chapter I’m working on but also what’s coming and contemplate what Kali Jain’s response to a given situation is going to be before she gets into it.
And when I get stuck on a story, you ask (I did tease you with talking about writer’s block…)? I usually have multiple stories I’m working on at the same time–at least 2, and sometimes 3. Often it’s a short story, but if I’m working on a novel like I am now, and the words aren’t coming for that, I take a break and start in on a short story. Or go edit an existing novel. Or work on marketing…or a plethora of other writing related things.
That’s my solution to the dreaded WRITER’s BLOCK. I just walk away because I trust my brain to get back to me with a solution. Call it faith, implicit trust, whatever you want, but my brain never fails me on a story. I have a novel called The New World and it took me over 3 years to write, but I was working on it while I was writing Project Threshold stories. I poked at it from time to time when I’d get stuck on my other projects and now it’s complete. And edited (thank you to Anyssa because she’s a badass editor–if you need one, holler at me).
The point is, you have to treat writer’s block (WB) as a friend. When it shows up, it’s telling you to take a break and let things percolate. WB is basically saying, “Here, let me deal with this part of the story for a bit. Go work on something else and I’ll let you know when I figure it out for you.” I don’t believe this is a function of my ADHD, I think it’s a function of my brain pan and my imagination. Sometimes you have to walk away and let a story breathe.
Trust your mind and trust the process.
Back to my original thought, my ADHD isn’t a bad thing or a good thing. IT’s just how my mind works. Like so many things, ADHD is a mixed bag. It’s got some exhausting side effects but it’s also got some advantages I’ve figured out how to make the most of it. I don’t think of myself as ‘disadvantaged’ just that I have to do things in different ways. The problems come in when people expect things a certain way–because I don’t deliver.
As I’ve gotten older, I’m more willing to point out that there’s always one way of solving a problem and someone else’s answer, just because it works, it isn’t the only answer, and it’s not always even the best answer. My way is valid too 🙂
So chew on those sticks of gum (sorry–stealing a line out of Dave E Lish–yeah, you get a royalty cut, Dave–keep your tie on…).
Bottom line: don’t beat yourself when writing isn’t happening. It happens to us, but your perspective on how you deal with it, is up to you, and if you treat it like a buddy telling you to take a break, it might surprise you how fast you side step it.
Hang in there. Keep writing. And reading.
Craig