Pro writers with adhd what are your tips to get to work
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Hi there, I have started a career as a pro writer a few years ago. I am lucky, it worked well, I got published, won a prize, I occasionally play...

I think this is the best place to post this, but I was going through my saved posts before deleting my Reddit account and thought that a lot of writers on Lemmy/Fediverse might be able to enjoy this one.

There’s some great tips in these comments but this archive snapshot will make sure that information isn’t lost.

Feel free to add your own tips here in the Fediverse as well!

  • Nanokindled@beehaw.org
    1·
    1 year ago

    Thanks for posting this!

    My 2 cents is that as you get more used to ADHD symptoms, you can learn to ride the waves a little bit. The intensity of your interests can be powerful, and you’ll find ways to partly channel it. A few tips:

    • Practice being kind to yourself. Accept that you’ll get derailed, and learn to get back into it.
    • Get used to your patterns. It takes ~20 minutes to get into a task and ~2 minutes to lose focus (less for us, lol), so remember that there is always a 20-minute wall of effort every time you need to get going. That’s the barrier you’ll get better at pushing through as you practice.
    • Build your environment to suit: get rid of clutter (if that bothers you), close doors or wear noise-cancelling headphones if you need quiet (I’ll always love rainymood), you close other apps, leave your phone far away, and turn on self control.
    • Consider multiple media. When I’m stuck it can help to switch from typing to writing, diagramming, or going for a walk and talking aloud, using speech-to-text on my phone.

    Note: I’m a content writer rather than a fiction writer, but there are a lot of overlaps (research, ideation, drafting, revision…). I was diagnosed with ADHD in college ~12 years ago, was on meds for 8, and have been off them for the last 4, which is also roughly the period in which I’ve built a freelance career. My relationship to ADHD has changed dramatically over that time, per the above.