The ADHD Writer
Go with the Flow
Growing up, I had no idea that I had attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The diagnosis wasn’t so common at the time anyway. I didn’t figure it out until after my daughter was diagnosed — and, oh, boy, yeah! It’s abundantly clear my brain is wired that way.
As for how I had been managing school and work, I was fortunate. While I was rather hyper-self-motivated, I have been very lucky to have intuitively figured out what worked for me.
For the other writers out there, both ADHD and neuro-typical alike, I am happy to share my (healthier) techniques, which conveniently consist of a very manageable list of only three things:
(1) No Blank Pages (Get Something Down)
(2) Do It Quickly (Deadlines)
(3) Do It Anyway (Low Expectations)
They say necessity is the mother of invention, and that I developed these coping skills in college is not happenstance. I was an English/writing major, and between literature, writing, philosophy, history, and the odd geology class, I was delivering about 4.3 papers per week. (Yes, I did the math.) Oh, and did I mention I also worked for the student literary magazine and had a part-time job? I had to learn how to be devilishly efficient.
I was staring at hard writing deadlines nearly every day. There was no time to get anxious or over-think it. It was write or fail. Do or die.
Fortunately, I find deadlines a pretty easy way to create automatic focus. For school or work, deadlines are imposed upon you. It can be a little difficult (or downright impossible) to get the same focus from an arbitrary deadline you set yourself. There are a couple of things you can do here. Give yourself writing goals, write them down, then revisit them at least monthly. (I could say something inspiring here about accountability and whatnot, but believe me, I know that only goes so far.) Make sure to also set deadlines outside of yourself — like submitting a poem to that journal you love before their reading window closes or submitting a story for that contest you read about, or joining in on the writing prompt series you follow. Doesn’t matter what it is; it just has to be something. And do that something quickly, like you don’t have all the time in the world to do it.
Wait a minute. Deadlines are #2 on the list. We haven’t even gone over #1 yet. Before you get all upset about that, this is very much an ADHD thing, so just roll with it. Speaking of which, this is as good a place as any for me to just drop in a fourth item to our list right here:
(4) You Don’t Have To Do It In Order (Editing)
So where were we? Oh, yeah. Number Two: No Blank Pages (Get Something Down). A looming deadline with a blank screen does not help me. My mind will go as blank as an unlined sheet of paper.
To reconcile this, I simply never start with a blank screen or paper. I will put anything down to get me going. It could be the goals of the project, a list of things I want to cover, the client name, the names of my characters, a quote, boilerplate formatting, mandatory language, an inspiring photo, any notes. It really doesn’t matter. I’ll take anything to get me over the hump of a strangely intimidating blank page.
In college, I did this by carrying around index cards. Any time I had any thought or idea, I would write it down. Each class or assignment had its own card. By the time I sat down, I already had a good start, if not a complete outline of what I wanted to say. Regardless of the deadline, I never began any assignment from scratch. Those index cards evolved to the note app on my phone, Google docs, txt docs, sticky notes, napkins, backs of receipts. Some people have a fancy journal. Me? I’ll write ideas on pretty much anything.
Amusing reminiscence here. A very good college friend of mine would get so frustrated with my hot-on-deadline style. As a fellow English major, we took many of the same classes together. He would spend a couple of weeks meticulously writing each paper we were assigned while I would knock them out the night or so before. We would end up with the same grades. (To be fair, this is exactly why he went on to be a college professor while I became a writer at an advertising agency where every deadline was a hellfire-and-hail apocalypse.)
That brings us to Number Three: Do It Anyway (Low Expectations). Your first draft is not going to be your final draft, so don’t pretend that it’s going to be. Throw caution to the wind and just get those words out of your brain. Do not judge your writing at this stage. Write incomplete sentences, character sketches, and anecdotes. Make spelling mistakes. Keep the gaps and elaborate on the side quests. A lot of it might not make the final draft, and that’s not the point. The point is to start the commitment of writing and get a draft done.
Let the words flow out of you like running water.
I find this a counter-intuitive but very efficient strategy for writing. You might end up deleting all your descriptions about exactly what your character was wearing because it doesn’t advance the story to the reader — but getting those details nailed down in your head will advance your visualization of the story and will get you to the important parts that will end up in the final version.
I have coached countless people through anxiety, self-doubt, and writer’s block by using this philosophy. It’s even worked on both my kids when they were assigned papers in primary school. Just let those words flow out of you like running water. Let it be messy.
This brings me to my final point: Number Four: You Don’t Have To Do It In Order (Editing). So much of writing is actually editing. That’s exactly why getting your first draft and all your notes visually out in front of you is so important.
Not a bit of it has to start out in order. If you’re inspired to write the ending of your story first, then write the ending. In the middle of a scene and you find yourself thinking about another scene, then switch to writing that one. Don’t stop the flow. Whether you physically cut and paste a printout together or you just do it on screen doesn’t matter because that’s what editing is all about.
It is at the editing stage that you can focus on perfection, if that’s your thing. But don’t let the concept of perfection hold you up. (Full disclosure: I don’t believe in perfection.)
A story (or poem or article or letter) that you’ve released into the wild is worth so much more than one stagnated in a password-protected file.
So…what are you waiting for?
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I don’t mean for any of these ideas about writing to be universal. Let me know in the comments what works for you, especially if they are different than what I’ve mentioned here.
