I’ve found recently that a lot of the things that annoy me about the way my brain works, and a lot of things that truly drive me insane, like “why can’t I do what I planned today?” is a function of ADHD.
Which is kind of interesting, because not all the will power in the world is going to make it work, if it is a brain dysfunction.
Oh, mind you, there is a lot I can do with sheer will power, determination and a careful schedule. Or at least a lot I used to be able to do. Apparently estrogen protects against ADHD, so the whole thing gets way weirder when you enter menopause. All your routines fall apart, and suddenly you’re very, very busy and getting NOTHING done.
For a while I thought it was just writing, then I realized I had about a million, give or take a thousand, projects strewn about the house, in various states of completeness and incompleteness, because I keep failing to apply myself for any appreciable length of time.
Yeah, yeah, adderal helped. I’m now waiting for my doctor to realize that he’s calling the replacement prescription to the wrong pharmacy, where I don’t have an account and which is all the way across town. It’s happened three times now. He calls it, we tell him it’s the wrong pharmacy, he says sorry, cancels it, then sends it again…. I’d say it’s ADD but it’s more an office problem to be fair.
Anyway, things that help include a good, steady schedule that is NOT (repeat not) based on your kids’ school schedule. Because when your kids go to college…. yeah.) which I’m trying very hard to create, and I’d appreciate honestly if we could do one month without a disaster. Just one. Because then I could–
Er… Okay. It’s just been a very difficult year.
But here’s the thing: Some of the stuff that helps and isn’t always obvious: Not right now, but for a while I could work better while on the treadmill. Moving helps. I think right now the problem is vision not working well for the distance on the treadmill desk.
Another thing that has helped in the past is writing more than one book at one time. Yes, I know that sounds insane, but when one seemed to be at a blah point, I could work on the other.
In fact, I’m trying that experiment with the serializing substack, as well as forcing myself to perform. Even when I was very ill I got Witchfinder written because I had to do a chapter a week for my blog.
So, do books crosspolinate when you write two or more at once? A bit. My highest number at once was three (in a month. It was that sort of year) and at one point I had a lot of trouble confusing China with Elizabethan England. It helps if one of them isn’t historical, honest. I had to send a last minute correction because wooden bells weren’t a thing in Elizabethan England. (To be fair, it could have passed, probably, but….)
I mean you will see some themes crop up across the two or three books, but it’s weird how they manifest. What’s weirder is that these many years later, I can’t remember which books were written together, or find a trace of it. (I’m fairly sure I know what those three were, just because of setting/time, but still.)
Honestly, writing two — or three — books at once shouldn’t work for anyone, including ADHD people. But then again, to be fair, I can only clean while listening to audio books. Either activity on its own is way too boring, but I can do both at once fine. So, I might be too weird even for a writer.
In the end each of us has to find what works for him or her. Let’s face it, ours might be one of the oldest professions, but the local storyteller didn’t perform by writing until very recently, human-history wise.
So what we do is highly strange and unnatural. Anyway we can make it easier if valid.
If you need to hang upside down in a water tank while dictating your novel via a series of pre-programmed clicks?
That’s fine so long as the book gets done.
Mad Genius Club 
8 responses to “Everything, All The Time – Sarah A. Hoyt”
Honestly, writing two — or three — books at once shouldn’t work for anyone, including ADHD people.
“Should” is such a funny word, isn’t it?
My main issue with writing is this damn internet thing. See the fact that I’m typing a comment when I have maybe three hundred words left to write on a short story, and I could just do that and then bask in the glory of a completed tale. But I’m not. I desperately need to get to the library or some place without internet access, but right now, the kid is out of school, and I can’t go anywhere without her–and going to the library with the daughter unit is worse for productivity than just staying home.
Is there a park?
Sometimes dragging mine to the park worked.
…at least, I got maybe 1/4 of the time there writing, not on the internet…
And hearing about what works for someone else might shake loose a way that works for you– either copying it, or looking at why it wouldn’t work for you, and going off of that.
It’s hard to find the right way to get our creative work done…
Completeness can get in the way, indirectly. As in… have I paid all the bills yet? Gotta get that outta the way before I start writing or it’ll nag at me. Better make sure the ads are still running. Did I finish making that arrangement to get together later this week? etc. etc.
Of the finding of tasks undone that crowd the mind when everything is otherwise perfect for writing… there is no end. I really did fall badly behind with business during chemo (which has been over for a couple years now) and that adds extra emphasis to what is really the perfectly ordinary minor neglect of the present. It’s like an anxiety pendulum – I need to reset it so that I can write in the morning exclusively again, and let the afternoon chips fall where they may.
Switching books can help . . . except I find myself using them to avoid writing the one I ought to be writing, right now. Must exert *some* discipline . . . I know i have some around here, somewhere . . .
The fancy notebook that feels right in the hand is my main weapon for dealing with writing distraction. Vague plot bunnies nibbling at the edge of my brain space can be put out to pasture; world building and story development questions can be answered so that they don’t paralyze me later.
I personally have not been very successful at rough-drafting more than one thing at a time, but am glad that it works for other people. Usually when I try to do that, it turns out that one of the things isn’t coherent enough/interesting enough to finish, and it just slows down the thing that is. In this case, Regency Fantasy Mystery got pushed to the wall (1)when I got more deeply involved in Hunter Healer King (fka Gothic Steampunk Dunedain). Some one-shot fanfics got written along the way, and a couple of longer form fanfic ideas are languishing half-written.
Something that has worked for me at different, and is maybe worth trying if rhetorical-you can’t bring rhetorical-yourself to switch between initial drafts, is to switch between the rough draft of the one thing, the editing (…cover design, marketing) of the other thing, and the brainstorming of the other, other thing.
(1)(although I will probably revisit the hero at some point, the setting, heroine and plot/suspect gallery all seem to need work)
Having more than one project going at once is “productive procrastination.” If you can set it up so that you’re always procrastinating on one thing with another thing, you end up fairly productive.