Writing With the Can't Focus Syndrome

I have been diagnosed with ASD - Autism Spectrum Disorder. I may also have some variant of ADHD, but the jury is still out on that. And I've self-diagnosed myself with some aspects of OCD. I joke that I have enough issues to run a periodicals library. You'd think you need some intense focus to sit and write a book. It should be impossible with Can't Focus Brain Disorder(tm).

And yet...

I can't not write.

Words are my toys and I keep coming up with interesting ways to play with them. I build worlds, I make people, I revolt in my own small way against the evils of this world. Twenty-six letters, assorted spaces and punctuation marks. All tossed together in a rich salad that puts images into other people's heads. Writing is the closest alternative we have to telepathy that we have to hand.

I keep a document of rough ideas and little memos in a personal Discord. I have a few settings and characters that are very useful for the Flash Fictions I do on the daily [Read them here]. And in the process of organising all that, I can generally keep things going.

Writing short stories is one thing, writing whole novels is another. So you might be wondering how to do both. Or rather, how I do both. Just keep in mind that my methods are my methods and they might not work for you. You can at least try them and see how they fit.

I don't fully plot. I started off as a Pantser [writing by the seat of my pants], and gradually evolved a milestone system where the pantsing could happen between those milestones. The very roughest outline so I know which direction I'm going.

I have characters with issues. Which makes them very fun to write and gives them a strong presence and a definite mindset I can put myself into for an interesting perspective point. Plus, I make them characters I find compelling so I can put them into situations and watch what they do.

And, like Lois McMaster Bujold, I think: "What's the worst that could happen to [CHARACTER NAME]?" and then throw them into that situation.

I haven't often rewitten a story before A Devil's Tale, but I took a couple of goes at telling Kosh's story for personal closure. One of them is a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure over on AO3. [You can read that here, but it might be private because Scraping is bullshit. I will send you a copy if you ask] It was my Writer's Group where I got to explore some options and resulted in the start of what turned out to be a six-book epic tale.

I'm as surprised as you are.

So how the hell did I manage to turn a "brief little thing to get the cobwebs out" into a five-googdoc, six-book epic? Well... You know how I'm moderately brilliant at writing short stories? Yeah. I just treat each and every chapter as a short story with a specific point to it. Or a specific vibe. Before I start a chapter, I put a brief little reminder to myself about what the overall goal is. Sometimes they're memes. Sometimes they're nigh-nonsensical to what comes out in the actual narrative.

For an example, one of my chapter reminders was "Cordelia and Thanks It Has Pockets". The infamous "squeak chapter" [The chapter that made Beloved squeak and hide under the covers when I read it to her] was "Kosh and You Shouldn't Have Said That". The equally infamous "carrot chapter" was, "Kosh, Delia, and We Meet Again".

Making the work interesting enough to keep going on it is like catching lightning in a bottle. I've been evolving the world of Alfarell in the Writer's Group and on PEAKD. I've thought a little too hard about making a fantasy world seem rational and be a commentary on the world we live in.

I'm in the midst of writing the last seventy chapters of A Devil's Tale. The current reminder is, "Something something stage play?" and will deal with the origins for my William Shakespeare expy. I'm not going to pretend I can write in iambic pentameter, nor that I can write anything like the Bard.

But I am planning to have fun with it. It's the best way to write and keep writing.

Take heart, you who share my Can't Focus Syndrome. You can do this.

As for the silliest of Silly Tricks, there's a few ones that have worked in the past:

• Clapping on each syllable while chanting "Hocus Pocus, I need to focus!"
• Putting binaural beat brain music on into my headphones
• Long format video essays running while I write, just for the white noise
• Having The Main Thing visible whilst I do another project

Being easy on myself has been a definite thing since The Plague changed all our lives. And it's been amazingly good to me.

My best advice is this: Try a few things, but especially try to have fun. And if it doesn't work, that's okay too. We are capable of making wonderful things, no matter what anyone else has to say about it.