A.D.D.- A Writer’s Gift

It was a beautiful week and a half of vacation for my family and I. But, today was the day I had to get back to all my writing responsibilities. As a matter of fact, I had to chain myself to the computer seat tonight to make myself get back to work. And of course, I’m so misconbobulated from being away for those glorious days. If you saw me, you’d think I was the most ADD person you ever met at this moment. You can ask my buddies from the writers’ conference. They can tell you what I’m like when I’m hyped up on forgetfulness. I become a human ping pong ball.

Sometimes my writing gets that way too. I jump from one subject to the next. My characters forget they were sitting when I make them leap up to spar. Or they speak out of character for two pages until I’m forced to retract and put the words back in their mouths to start the conversation right.

I even give my character the wrong name when my ADD kicks in. One of my critique partners will be reading along and all the sudden someone from my previous book shows up on the page(embarrassing!). That puts my partners in quite a quandary, I’ll tell you.

So my answer to the craziness that only sometimes possesses me, oops sorry, a bit of an exaggeration there….

  1. The answer- stop.
  2. Take a deep breath…or two…maybe three.
  3. Start a list to keep on track.
  4. And fight the fidgets that do their best to capture me.
  5. No changing tasks until the previous one is completed.

If you struggle with this sometimes wonderful, sometimes infuriating condition you know that it can wreck your intentions to write. It can make your plans fall to pieces, and make you want to hit the wall with your forehead when you have to back track three times to remember what you were on your way to do.

But its flip side is the ability to hyper-focus. It may take me forever to get into the mode of writing, but once I do, I can crank out some serious work. The first two hours of moving, dancing, bouncing around turn into three times as many hours of productive work.

Thank you God for my attention disordered gift.

0 thoughts on “A.D.D.- A Writer’s Gift

  1. I have never considered myself ADD, until I began to write. I can play stupid games for hours. I can edit endless pictures, but open a fresh page to write and all of a sudden, my mind goes blank and I think of ten other things that I need to do.

  2. And doing those other things always seems to win out over writing, don't they?

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