got something fun in the works

rainstorminsilver:

spacejammie-eimmajecaps:

rainstorminsilver:

ADHD Tips for Writers, Take 2

Hiy'all, I’m back on my shit because my old “ADHD tips for writers” post is the like only post I still see in my notes at all times and there’s a few problems with it so I’d like a do-over plz

Anyways, the obligatory disclaimer: I find ADHD tips are super useful for writers whether they have ADHD or not, so feel free to read & use the tips in this post if you find they apply.

• Respect your fatigue. Here’s the thing about ADHD. You get fatigued super easily. We know this. But when I say “respect your fatigue,” I only partly mean it as taking breaks when you’re tired. Before you decide you’re too burned out to write, weigh this: people who have ADHD wear themselves out MORE when they have nothing to mentally chew on. Sometimes respecting your fatigue means respecting that you need to paradoxically put in more effort to do your writing, because that will actually slow your fatigue down in the end. Try it, if it doesn’t work take a break.
• Get ahold of the pressure level. Pressure is a tool for you to motivate yourself, you should NOT be under it at all times. How to do this? Adjust your goals, don’t marry your outline.
• Set the right goals.Stressed by wordcount but can work by hour? Can’t focus for any stretch of time but can hyper-focus if you promise to get one scene done? And consider mix-and-matching. You can make a goal of getting a scene done in one day, but if that scene happens to go over 1k then it’s reasonable to quit. If you set a goal that is actually attainable, it’s safer to put pressure on it.
• Confines begone. Seriously, don’t try to make yourself do things in a Stupidly Specific Way. You do NOT need to draft in submittable manuscript format. You DON’T need it to fit your outline exactly. It doesn’t need to fit a genre, it doesn’t need to appeal to a specific audience, it doesn’t need to be what it was in your head. If working with those things slows you down or makes you stressed, YEET.
• Pavlov, Profit. I write on my bed with a scented candle while wearing a certain pair of pants. I use a specific playlist to cue me in to which WIP I’m working on. Maybe I pull out a specific stim toy I don’t use otherwise. I write at a certain time of day and look at certain pictures while I do it. I drink water with lemon in it when I don’t if I’m not writing. The words flow like a crystalline river and I don’t even know how.
• No I’m serious I cannot emphasize enough how powerful Pavlov is, literally it is the BIGGEST hack of my life. You train your brain to identify what “writing mode” is and afterward if you just set up the trappings of “writing mode” brain goes “OH OK NOW WE WRITE.” I can’t even
• Throw slumps off with word wars and writing sprints. As always, word of caution for those who have trouble with their self-expectations: if you can’t make the words sprint, that’s ok! This is super useful to me and others for kicking off a writing session, but if you struggle to focus for any length of time then don’t stress! But I do seriously recommend trying out word sprints at whatever time limit works for you, because after you’ve done it the words happen so. Much. Easier. I’ll personally rev up with 5 mins, 15 mins then 30 mins. That 30 gets into the “this might actively burn me out” territory, so be cautious. It really might not work for you.
• Don’t underestimate minor changes. Font! Color! Screen blue-light! Using a different word processor! Tweak and change, hack the brain.
• Journal about it. When I get stuck on a project, I will literally open a newfile and just ramble into the file like I’m explaining the project to someone. It’s rubber duck decoding, except it exercises the same muscles you use to do the actual writing. Makes for a great warm-up or dust-off.
• Identify if/when you need outside support. Sometimes you need to rambleto a friend in order to kick a slump, sometimes you need community support for a WIP through the whole process. It might change for each case.
• External incentives generally don’t work. Honestly, I find external incentives don’t work for me point blank, let alone to get myself to write. Maybe you can drag yourself across the ground like that sad cat on a harness by promising yourself a bowl of ice cream, but you’re just not going to do your best work like that. You need to foster genuine motivators.
• External motivators are different from incentives. If you’re writing because someone is waiting to read it, that’s not an incentive, it’s a motivator.
• Internal motivators that can be useful: fostering excitement for WIP elements (not by saying “if I write x words I get to make another moodboard, more like going ahead with the moodboard and using it to increase ur excitement), making a bar chart of progress and watching it grow, de-pressurizing writing so much that it can be used as a wind-down.
• Are you a pantser who lives in a constant state of writer’s block? No you’re not you’re not, you need to develop some sort of plan if you’re getting stuck constantly. It doesn’t need to be a super locked-in plan (I don’t recommend those in general), but using lighthouse planning or developing some guiding element is important.
• Contrarian hack: have someone who isn’t a writer write the thing your’re stuck on for you. (Consider: have AI write it for you.) Read it. Dislike it and use the motivation to write yourself. Profit.
• Struggling to get started because the WIP is too daunting? Don’t work on the whole WIP. Work on This Scene. This Scene too daunting? Work on This Small Part of This Scene. This Small Part too big? Work on the next sentence. Work on opening the WIP. Break the steps down as small as you need to.

SO. Be mindful of what you expect from yourself, do NOT let others decide how your process works, and do NOT hold yourself to any standard that inhibits you. Do what feels good both in the moment and after, because that is a good indicator you’re doing healthy, sustainable writing.

This is all super helpful, I have some new stuff to try!

I wanted to add one thing:

Sometimes forcing yourself to take a break even when you’re NOT tired is the best thing you can do, be that a few hours or a day or a few days (or even an entire week). This is especially true if you’ve got writer’s block that is keeping you from moving forward.

There have been many times when I felt like I was stuck, but if I go take a walk or let it stew in my mind for the rest of the day or ignore my laptop for a few days (as hard as that is), a solution almost always comes to me, and it’s almost always something very simple. Like a scene needing to start earlier/later, or cutting out a few paragraphs and trying it from a different approach.

I think of it as stepping back from the magnifying glass so that I can see the big picture. It’s easy to forget that there is more to the story than the scene I’m stuck on, and taking time to think about the whole story can make a huge difference when things just aren’t working.

With ADHD, a lot of us feel impatient and want things done as soon as possible, but I think one of the most valuable things I’ve learned as a writer is that giving myself enough time and enough breaks will make my story better.

Oh, for sure! I’m actually kinda mad at myself bc this is SUPER essential to writing when you have ADHD (maybe in general too) and I have my write/break process down so thoroughly I totally forgot I even do it. It should absolutely be built in. 

The way I think of it, ADHD brain gets more and more narrow (and less and less functional) the longer it focuses on a single thing using a single thought process. Like @spacejammie-eimmajecaps​ said, you really lose the big picture. 

This means “taking a break,” but it definitely should not be thought of as a resting break. What you do is you pick an activity that is 1. tactile and 2. does not demand your full attention, and you go do that while thinking about your story. Some good go-to activities might be doing chores like dishes, or crafts like knitting.

(Actually I also write better when I have a little zentangle drawing or a paper craft that I do whenever I pause to think. Never underestimate the need for tactile stimulation.)

I’m fully serious when I say this is EVERY bit as important as sitting down and plotting things. More so. You could potentially replace any traditional plotting method with this and have it turn out better. I used to work at a bakery, and literally every day I would spend my 7 hour shift mostly alone, just glazing donuts, scrubbing pans and thinking about my WIPs. Go on break and write 450-600 words in 13 minutes, then go home and spend the rest of the night writing with ease. I have never in my life done 600 words in 15 minutes before or since, an excellent word sprint for me is 400. One of the few times I actually finished a 100k+ story and felt confident in what I was doing. And I was doing it all sleep deprived. Literal magic.

The only drawback is if the brain decides it wants a new daydream you have to adopt a new wip sorry

unfunny-quips:

Hey so, writing tip that really helped me:

Instead of trying to jump in directly to the story (or essay or whatever) that you are trying to write, let yourself have a few minutes of a warm up to just jot down as messily as you want/can stand what you want the thing your writing to look like at the top of the page. Then leave it there while you start your actual writing a few spaces below.

I use this if I’m writing a chapter for a fic and I’m freezing up at the blank page or I’m feeling a little lost, I’ll give myself about ten minutes to just write down what I want to happen in a few paragraphs.

For example:

I want a scene between Character A & Character B. I want it to be moody, their talk is going to turn into a fight. I want it from Character B’s perspective, so I can focus on character B flaw. Some dialog I want is [insert dialog I thought up with earlier before I sat down to write]. I want that conversation to end with Character A storming off and Character B calling Character C.

Once I have that written I put a little space between my blurb and then start the actual chapter. Now I have something on the page, and I also have a little mini outline that I can follow if at some point while writing.

Keep in mind it doesn’t have to look like this at all, sometimes I just jot down a paragraph on what I want a chapter to feel like, sometimes I end up writing half a page detailing the entire chapter beat by beat. Depends entirely on what my brain is up to that day.

Once that’s written down I am no way bound by the blurb. If I start writing and that scene between A & B is completely forgotten or I realize I want that in a different chapter/sorry altogether, that’s okay!

The point of the blurb is to just get words on the page. It’s a warm up to get your mind limbered up for writing. It’s not a rigid outline you have to follow. You can ignore the blurb completly once it’s done or use it to glance over to get you back on track.

Hope this helps someone!

travelandwriting:

Questions I like to ask before starting a new writing project

that I hope I will actually finish.

I have always wanted to publish a novel, but I never have. The closest thing I have published was very short nonfiction as well as erotic fiction on Amazon Kindle. That was cool, and all, but every time my grandparents asked if I have published anything I had to say ‘no’.

Or worse: I once accidentally let it slip that I had self-published, and they kept asking me to see it and I just kept evading their questions.

ANYWAYS

I have been struggling writing lately.

Partly because I am a full-time student constantly stressing about my finances.

Partly because I have a chronic illness that makes everything ten times harder.

And partly because I don’t get out or do anything else, so naturally the creative juices stop flowing and I just get stuck (both in projects, and life, tbh). (The reason I started this blog was to also talk about trying to find a balance with writing projects and going out and doing…stuff).

Anyway, to make it simple on me, I decided to write down a list of questions to answer before I start writing the first (or any) chapter of a project.

Feel free to add on questions, please! Collaboration makes things so much better :)

1. What genre am I writing? Who is this geared to?

Examples: Action/Adventure, Modern Fantasy, Science-Fiction, psychological thriller, horror fiction.

Also: Young adult, New Adult, Adult, Children’s.

2. What theme am I looking for? What lessons do I want to explore?

Examples: The importance of truth/honesty; Never judge a book by it’s cover; Good vs Evil.

3. What POV do I want? Why?

Examples:

First person POV (non-alternating between characters). The story can be told in just a single character’s POV. May focus a lot on inner monologue and how it changes throughout the story. Deals with a lot of psychology within one major character.

4. Why am I writing this book?

Examples:

I want to have something published. I feel like once I have my first book out, I have set the groundwork for myself and can understand my process of how to write a novel; To start my career.

I want readers to see that Good vs. Evil is not always black and white, but often in the gray zone.

5. What do I want to happen? What are some scenes that I want to have in this book that I can’t seem to let go of?

I keep picturing a scene with my characters being held hostage in a bank.

Or, I weirdly want scenes of character A and character B gradually falling in love with each other.

6. Who is my character?

College student. Con artist. Psychic. The list goes on.

7. What do they want? [SEE QUESTION 10!!]

Graduate high school/college. To date character B. To get into their dream college. To save a missing kid.

8. How can I prevent them from having it?

MC finds it difficult to maintain/get friends (and they need to in order to achieve a goal).

MC has PTSD.

Another character hates MC with a passion and does everything in their power to ruin MC.

9. How can I raise the stakes?

If MC doesn’t achieve x, then y happens.

If MC doesn’t achieve x, then MC’s reputation is ruined.

10. What does my character THINK they need or want in order to be fulfilled or more fulfilled in life?

To get their dream college. To have a “perfect life” by having x, y, z.

11. What does my character ACTUALLY need in order to be fulfilled or more fulfilled?

To be able to find happiness and confidence during the darkest of times.

To go to community college and live with their parents a little longer instead of leaving the state for college.

12. What are some settings that I want in the story, and why? (This one sometimes just comes naturally, and sometimes does not need to be answered right away IMHO)

A school; An abandoned post-apocalyptic city; A cult.

13. What time do I want the story to take place? Why?

A dystopian future. A historically accurate past. An alternative present.

Why? To emphasize what is to come if we stay on track doing xyz; Because I simply want to (we don’t always need a reason).

bookishdiplodocus:

x-write-z:

Writing Tip

Keep a COULDA-SHOULDA-WOULDA List while writing your First Draft of the ideas you have for edits and changes in your Second Draft.

As they say, a short pencil is better than a long memory.

I keep a document titled “Ideas to a Remember” for every Work In Progress. I use it for four major things.

1. Things I need to include in scenes I haven’t written yet
2. Details like what month the story takes place in or minor place names that I need to keep track of
3. “Action Needed” items for things I HAVE to fix in scenes I’ve already written
4. “Second Draft Considerations” for possible changes to the story I need to rethink before starting the Second Draft

It always ends up being a pretty messy document but it has always helped me manage my drafting process. I also organize and tag the ideas by what chapter they are for to help me navigate the process a little better.

I have a “Things to do in/before the next draft” document.