It's Not Just Procrastination
Being a writer is a difficult enough process. You have to get the thing written, have a cover designed (or do it yourself), have people beta read, copyedit, proofread, translate, you name it. Publishing a book is hard. It's especially hard when your brain isn't exactly cooperative.
I have ADD. After years of not being able to figure out why I can't concentrate on most things for longer than twenty minutes, I finally found the answer. And that just makes the publishing process that much harder. At the moment, I'm nearly finished with the first round of self-edits, after which, my manuscript will be sent off to beta readers. I had a nice schedule of how many words/chapters I was going to edit a day, and how long it would take to finish editing. Optimistically, I set the deadline as 1 May. Each day I don't have my manuscript completed raises my anxiety about the entire thing, but I literally cannot get myself sat down to finish writing. And when I do sit down to write, it looks something like this:
Open Word document
Stare at manuscript
Go on social media
Stare at the wall for half an hour
Avoid going on pseudonym social media
Play video games for three hours
Revise half a chapter
It's taken me two weeks to sit down and write this blog post, not because I didn't want to, but because I couldn't get my thoughts together. Every time I attempted, something would pull my attention away and I would never get it back. But it's a bigger problem than just jumping from one thing to the next. Sometimes I don't jump to anything at all. Sometimes I stare into space for what feels like (and just might be) hours. That time certainly isn't productive, and I come away from it feeling frustrated and dejected. I want to finish this manuscript. But the words certainly aren't coming, and since I'm in the story one moment and playing Guild Wars the next, it feels like I'll never get anything done.
What this means for me is that I have a different writing process than most. It isn't impossible to write with ADD, it's just difficult. I've started more books than I can possibly count that I've never finished, just because they couldn't hold my attention. Here's what I've found works for me.
Set mini-goals. If the goal is to finish a chapter a day, then set mini goals and stick to them. Things like I'll finish 500 words before lunch and that sort of thing. Breaking the task into smaller chunks makes it a bit easier to digest than I'll finish the entire twelve page chapter today.
Take part in sprints. This has been the most helpful thing I've done as a writer. And again, I find a shorter sprint is much easier to manage than a forty five minute or hour long one. That way, I can't get sidetracked by the internet or my housemates or the blank wall.
Plan every part of the book. I'm a planner by heart, but this has helped tremendously by cutting out plot bunnies. It also keeps me interested in the story because I have a clearer idea of where it's going. I can be excited about chapter seventeen because there's some intense action there!
Find alternative ways to stay excited. For The Viscount and the Artist, I have a Pinterest board and a playlist on Spotify. The playlist is new, and a work in progress, but the songs all come back to a mood or tone at a certain point in the novel. I've always been able to resonate with music, so having that tie in with my novel and being able to listen as I write helps me focus in ways I didn't even know were possible.
So those are four of the tips and tricks I use to write a book as someone who's ADD. It doesn't always work. In fact, I should be writing right now. But I've put this post off for far too long.
Do you have any tricks for writing with ADD or anything similar? Share down below in the comments!
