Writing with ADHD Episode 2: Interested in literally everything all of the time
Writing with ADHD Episode 2: Interested in literally
everything all of the time
or,
How do I overcome ADHD to just sit down and write?
Episode 1: https://timothyscottcurrey.com/timothy-s-currey-blog/2021/12/9/writing-with-adhd-episode-1-the-shame
The most common question I get is: How do you get your ideas?
A better question might be: How do I focus on ONE idea when my brain constantly juggles hundreds of them?
Something I like about myself is that I get passionately interested in things.
I might say that I have a lot of hobbies and interests, but it would be more accurate to say I have one hobby, and that hobby is becoming intensely interested with completely random things.
Sometimes this reaches the level of obsession, which can be good and bad.
Recently I’ve been obsessed with:
Learning Mandarin
Reading non-fiction books about extremely varied topics
Gardening
Improving my squash skills
Future plot points of the series I’m working on.
Eight dozen other story ideas
Video games
Watching informative YouTube videos about a variety of topics
I have a love-hate relationship with all these things.
Each of them brings something valuable to my life. I’ve wanted to become fluent in a language other than English my whole life, and my current Mandarin skills are the closest I have ever gotten. I feel like I just need a little bit more to break through!
I love all the non-fiction books I’ve been reading. They introduce me to such engaging ideas that I’d never considered before, and I can almost physically feel my mind expanding.
I love practising my squash skills, and I really have been getting better lately. It’s so important to stay fit (for ADHD people especially). I might be in the best shape of my life, at least in a cardio-vascular sense.
I love tinkering with all the new story ideas that come up! They can really spark my imagination and transport me to daydreams in far-off lands that last for hours.
Do you see the problem?
The problem is that, while I do love all these things, and the do bring me joy and value … none of them are ‘sitting down to write.’
I don’t know how much you know about writing fiction, but the ‘sitting down and writing’ part is kind of a really crucial step that can’t be skipped.
How to keep my hobbies from disrupting my writing?
This heading is posed as a question on purpose. I’m actually asking it. I’m asking because I don’t know.
It’s not rhetorical, and I’m not setting myself up to answer it for you.
TEN WAYS TO STOP PROCRASTINATING AND START WRITING
….. is what I wish I could say.
The boring, complicated, unsatisfying, thoroughly honest and true answer, is that it’s all about balance.
Maybe I could write more books if I didn’t have such passionate interests to distract me. Maybe I’d sell more books if I focused on marketing instead of trying for the 99th time to beat the boss I’m stuck on in Dark Souls 3. Maybe I’d sell more books, have more fans, even win some awards—all that good stuff.
But if I didn’t get so deeply, intensely interested in such a variety of things, I wouldn’t be me.
And ‘me’ is a unique person.
THE HIDDEN VALUE OF PROCRASTINATION
!WARNING! ** ASTERISK ** DISCLAIMER! ATTENTION!
I’m not saying you should procrastinate on purpose. I’m not condoning it. Do your assignments! File your taxes! Write your stories! Do the work that needs to be done!
Procrastination can be a benign little set of distractions, or it can be crippling.
Procrastination can sneak into your life, bit by bit, and for some of us it takes over.
If you always treat your procrastinations as indulgence, then you should hopefully be alright.
Procrastinating with something interesting is a treat.
Having said that … here are some of the valuable things my hobbies bring me.
Learning Other Languages Teaches Me About English
See, being a writer means you have to work on your language skills.
Most people do this by learning grammar rules, vocabulary, and rhetorical techniques within a single language, the language they write in.
I definitely spend time working on my English skills.
But I spend much more time working on my Mandarin skills (and French skills, and Dutch skills, and Italian skills, and …)
As a result, often I’m playing on language learning apps or google translate, or chatting with people online who speak my target language. A lot of the time I’m doing this, I should actually be writing my books. (Or doing housework. Or even real work at my day job…)
The thing is, I believe that learning a language very different from English, such as Mandarin, it’s possible to gain a fresh perspective on language skills that are not otherwise possible.
Expanding vocabulary, learning grammatical rules, and understanding new idioms in Mandarin shines a new light on all the English words, rules, and idioms I have become so familiar with.
This kind of thinking follows me back into fiction writing. I take great care to get things just right when it comes to word choices, sentence structures, and literary devices.
I think working on language skills doesn’t have to mean working on ONE language only.
(Having said all that, maybe I’m just trying to justify how many hours I spend on language learning apps ….)
How My Gardening Hobby Inspired a Magic System
I write fantasy.
Fantasy is all about creating worlds that have never been, with mysterious forces of magic working in them.
As a big genre, with many kinds of magic floating around, it’s tough to be original.
While I was into gardening—really, really, into it—I was consuming every guide, article, video, and book I could get my hands on.
I came across permaculture, then I came across a number of different schools of thought within permaculture.
One major idea that really grabbed my interest was the theory of the soil web of life. It’s fascinating. The logic that usually dominates gardening and farming is turned on its head. Don’t worry too much about the health of the leaves, flowers, and fruits—the parts above the soil. Instead, worry about the intricate microscoping food web under the soil.
Bacteria, fungi, insects, worms, and a bunch of other little critters—properly balanced—are able to do all the jobs of conventional fertilizer, tilling, aerating, and yes, even pesticide and herbicide.
I’m not qualified to evaluate whether it’s true or not. I’m no soil scientist.
But as a writer … the idea that hidden creatures under the soil dictate the health of what grows in it … that’s compelling to me.
So, I made a magic system based around it.
You’ll have to wait until the Elixir of Power is out to read about it, but it has been an amazing thing to base a magic system around.
Reading Non-Fiction and Reading Fiction Is Equally Valuable
One of the most common bits of advice in the writing world is to read many, many books within your genre. This is true and good advice.
I’m not disputing it.
I’m just saying that the part about only focusing on your own genre is not 100% true. I think even reading fiction exclusively is a bit limiting.
Personally, I try and balance non-fiction and fiction at around 50% each. I think that’s ideal.
But this is me, remember? I don’t do ideal things. I don’t quite achieve the balances I aim for.
I read closer to a 80% non-fiction / 20% fiction split. I don’t think that’s a great way to do things. If I had a choice, I’d get closer to that 50% mark, I swear.
The thing is, when I’m learning new, interesting information on an engaging topic, it just sucks me in like nothing else. I can read long-ish non-fiction books in a couple sittings. Fiction books take me a bit longer. More like a couple hundred sittings …
It’s not that I’m not interested in fiction. (I hope that’s obvious …)
What happens here is: My brain knows I ‘should’ be reading more fiction. Like a cat resisting being put in a bathtub, my brain hates anything it ‘should’ be doing.
If you don’t like reading dry non-fiction books about economics or history, this might sound absolutely backwards to you. But when my brain ‘clicks’ with a topic like that, I can’t stop myself from reading it. My brain ‘knows’ I shouldn’t be reading three non-fiction books about the French Revolution back to back, and that I ‘should’ be reading the fiction book I spent good money on. I ‘should’ be reading great fantasy books to help inspire me to write fantasy.
But again, my brain hates anything I ‘should’ be doing.
The positive spin to this is that I learn about such interesting and varied topics, they always inspire ideas that make my books better.
Reading great fiction can teach you to write with better style, tone, atmosphere. It can teach you to create compelling characters and plotlines. These are all crucial.
But only non-fiction can spark story ideas that nobody else has thought of.
What if… something like the French Revolution took place in a fictional land where elves practice magical permaculture? What if … a society had an economic system that became its religion? What if …..
The ‘what if’s keep coming, each one a collision of completely unrelated topics. All thanks to overindulging in non-fiction.
This Is All Great … But At Some Point, I Do Have To Write
Sitting down and writing the project I’m currently working on is always tough.
My brain knows it’s a ‘should’, and treats it like it.
Thankfully, I’m able to make progress, bit by bit. Inching towards finished drafts.
When my writing inspiration runs dry, I can always find a way to refill the well. The problem is, that the act of taking a break from writing to refill the well always feels wrong, like procrastination and distraction.
But I’ve been struck with ‘eureka’ moments too many times to ignore why and when they are striking.
I never get a eureka moment while I’m actually writing.
It always comes when I’m least suspecting it. I’ll be zipping up my squash racquet in its bag, I’ll have my hands on a particularly stubborn weed, I’ll be reading a book comparing different Keynesian economic theorists, or I’ll be halfway through a tough level in a video game …
And I’ll suddenly be hit with a compelling idea, as though by a bolt of lightning. I’ll know exactly what to do in the next scene of the book.
And those moments fill me with so much inspiration and excitement, I can’t help myself.
I have to sit down and write.
However …
Inspiration Is Never Guaranteed
Whether we have ADHD or not, all of us writers have to find ways to do the work of writing.
Lightning-strikes of inspiration are incredibly fickle and unpredictable events. You can’t rely on them. If you do, you’ll be headed for disaster.
If I go a week (or three) without doing any writing, my flashes of inspiration seem to be about things that are not writing. So it seems like writing a few times per week is an essential ingredient. The brain works on creative problems subconsciously, but only if they’re recent and relevant.
The best approach I’ve found that ties all the above sections together is something like this:
Try and keep a healthy balance with everything in life—exercise, social life, reading, writing, etc.
Don’t wait on inspiration, but leave room for it.
Pursue new interests without guilt, but don’t let them take over.
Write regularly, inspired or not. Inspiration will come — but only to those who write.
If writing leads to a feeling of burnout, a short break is better for productivity than trying to push through.
The main insight I’ve been trying to internalize is the idea that having a diverse array of hobbies, interests, and distractions is not a reason to feel guilty. It’s never fulfilling to pursue distractions and neglect everything else. But demonizing the distractions themselves ignores the value they bring, and leads to frustration and other emotions that stifle creativity.
I suppose I’m saying, there’s a positive way and a negative way to look at these things.
The negative brain looks at me playing games or learning Mandarin, and says to me, “You should be writing! Look at all the hours you’re wasting on these things! You’re terrible!”
This makes me feel bad. Feeling bad wears me out and makes me seek … distractions, games, and other low-effort pursuits.
The positive brain looks at me watching endless Youtube videos, and says, “This is fun, if not productive. So what? Not everything has to be productive! On the other hand … the joy of finishing writing a novel is better than the short-term fun of distractions. Tell you what, if you write for a half-hour, you can watch all the videos of cats with funny meows all you want!”
The reframing done by the positive brain takes a lot more effort than the automatic, grumpy negative brain. The negative brain attacks when defences are low already.
It takes effort, but I believe there’s a way to accept the place distractions, hobbies, and interests have. That place is different for everyone. The healthy balance they should take is defined by each person’s situation and goals.
For me, I’m going to stick to the idea that distractions are a treat. My brain wants them so badly, they work perfectly as rewards. So I’ll say as long as I write X hours a day, or a week, I’ll let myself pursue whatever eclectic mix of hobbies my brain wants to pursue.
You need to eat your vegetables before you can have dessert. We all know that.
Why can’t writing be the same?