Writing a Novel When You Have ADHD

Do you have ADHD? I have ADHD.

I’m not talking about ADHD in the colloquial sense, used haphazardly by neurotypical people when they can’t seem to focus that day. I’m talking about the actual executive function disorder that requires an uphill battle and an act of god to get a diagnosis.

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder is a piss-poor name for what it really entails. I am the least “hyperactive” person I know. It’s actually an executive function disorder, which affects not just attention, but also memory, motivation, organizational skills — to name a few.

My brain is just like your brain, but it has a problem with prioritization. We all have a little doorman in our brain, opening the door and directing our thoughts to the proper places — while assigning them a category. Some thoughts are A-list celebrities and world leaders and get attention first. Other thoughts are D-list celebrities or maybe our brother’s girlfriend’s neighbor’s cat, which can always be addressed later.

With ADHD, my doorman thinks every person is Beyonce, so every thought gets more or less the same VIP priority.

Another way to think of it is this: your brain is a web browser, and you have 75 tabs currently open.

The real pain in the ass is that I’m also the creative type. I’ve been an avid reader since the first grade, sneaking Babysitter’s Club chapter books into my desk and reading them during class. I was constantly writing short stories as a child, and I was closeted fanfiction writer in my early twenties, before it was cool to write fanfiction.

Now the writing bug has bitten me. Actually, it bit me a few years ago but I’m only taking it seriously now. I’ve had a world and characters and a story in my head for six years and I want to bring it to life, even if it means only my husband reads it and it’s never a New York Times bestseller.

So, I began seriously world-building about five months ago. I love fantasy, my story is fantasy, so a rich and colorful world is imperative. My favorite fantasy authors are incredible world-builders who spent an insane amount of time fleshing out details that might not make it into the story or be related at all to the plot. These details serve a passive purpose though — they help shape characters and places, and they add depth to the world. Plus, it’s material you can always use later.

I’m a great world-builder. It’s a structured enough task to keep me focused, but it gives me free reign to go in any direction I desire — all in the name of the story. But the biggest obstacle comes when it’s finally time to get down to business — writing the damn thing.

When you have ADHD, there’s a high probability you’re an expert procrastinator. I am no exception to this. My life is a masterclass in procrastination. There’s no hour like the eleventh hour to a master procrastinator. My very best work has come in the eleventh hour, much to the chagrin of literally every college professor I’ve had.

I struggle with procrastination so acutely that I have come to imagine her as a Siren. Her song is so seductive and her lifeblood is the unfinished and abandoned. Once ensnared, I’m done for.

At their cores, world-building is the planning phase and writing is the execution phase. And planning is comfortable. It’s non-committal — and the Procrastination Sirens love non-committal. I can easily research to the end of the Internet on what type of card games were played in taverns during the Middle Ages so I can weave it into some minute detail of my story.

But eventually, there has to actually be a story to which to add those clever details, and that entails the whole “writing the damn thing” bit. Executing those well-laid plans is quite committal. And scary.

Writing of any kind compounds the procrastination factor, because writing is hard, even for writers without ADHD. It’s vulnerable and uncomfortable, and, oh god, someone is going to read it. Maybe (hopefully!) many someones are going to read it.

Furthermore, it’s easy for me to hoard my writing and not want to let anyone else read it until every single sentence is perfect and every detail totally fleshed out. Eventually I think to myself, “Jesus, I know nothing about commas or grammar anymore, maybe I need to take some online English and writing courses before I attempt this. Everyone will know I don’t have an ivy league degree if I release this shit!”

These thoughts turn into a cycle of self-doubt. Once the Doubt Gremlins get their talons on this, who knows when I’ll release anything? Self-doubt is the yin to my Procrastination Siren’s yang. They enable each other. My Doubt Gremlins create a litany of prerequisites — minor bosses I must slay before I face the main boss: writing. And my Procrastination Siren is perched on my other shoulder, casually filing her nails like, “Fine by me!” Procrastination didn’t want to work anyway.

Aside from plugging your ears and tying yourself to the mast of your ship as you pass by the Procrastination Sirens like you’re Odysseus, I don’t know the magical formula to overcoming these obstacles if you’re like me — a writer with ADHD. I do however, have some helpful observations from my journey.

1. You don’t need to know every single nanoscopic detail before you begin. That’s just your Doubt Gremlins whispering in your ear. There’s world-building and planning, but much of what happens develops organically. Enjoy the ride.
2. Many writers identify as “pantsers”, who fly by the seat of their pants and just write. If you have ADHD, you will probably struggle as a pantser. Unstructured and ambiguous tasks are hard for our brains, and if you don’t do some kind of plotting and planning, your novel will look a lot like one of my random Wikipedia binges — I start out because I wondered how tall Kevin Bacon was and five hours later I’ve got medieval secret societies in one tab and the pharmacology of iodine pills in another.
3. Find an accountability person or group — like-minded people who build you up, keep your head in the game (and away from the Procrastination Siren’s seductive song), and can give you feedback.
4. Understand that if you cling on to the notion that you have to write a Pulitzer Prize winner or bust, you’ll never get past the first chapter.
5. Set small deadlines or milestones for yourself. You need a sense of forward progression to keep the fire going. Besides, if you don’t have a deadline, you won’t procrastinate to very last moment and then churn out your brilliance.
6. Give yourself some structure, but don’t live and die by that structure. Figure out your plot, your main characters and their motivations, a loose timeline (think of the writing adage “three disasters and an ending”), then run with it. Some structure is good. Boxing yourself into a corner that ends up squelching your creativity is bad.

And above all else? Be gentle with yourself. Anyone is allowed to share their story with the world — you don’t need a Ph.D in literature. You just need the audacity.

Unleash your creative beast, my neurodiverse friends. Don’t let ADHD (or anything, for that matter) be the barrier between you and engaging your imagination. Find your tribe, find the balance of structure and creativity, and slay those Procrastination Sirens and Doubt Gremlins along the way.