I look at my Zoom writers’ group in the evening. Five sit at desks, two at their dining room tables. One settles comfortably on a chair with her Kindle.
And I’m stretched out in a recliner, a cup of tea to one side, a bowl of fried rice to the other, my laptop on my knees, my phone balanced precariously on the armrest, my iPad streaming the meeting from its perch on top of a dictionary on the folding table, while All Elite Wrestling Dynamite is on the TV across the room. I wiggle my toes inside my mismatched slippers—one green, one red—as I randomly search facts about knights, check Facebook, and edit a manuscript.
I just don’t get these “normal” writers. Sometimes—rarely—I can have that level of focus, but to do so all the time is absolutely unfathomable to me.
I was 51 when I was diagnosed with ADHD. I immediately contacted several friends, each of whom responded with, “Um, yeah…” as if they were stunned I hadn’t known. But when I was in grade school, I was just the weird kid who lived in her own little world and didn’t always pay attention. Intelligent, always passed tests, but downright weird. I put myself into that alternate reality of mine, pounding out my first stories on a manual typewriter (Mom had the electric one) or scribbling them in the back of my notebooks at school.
By the way, since starting this post twenty minutes ago, I’ve messaged both Gwen and Amy, checked if Christine responded to my text, glanced at the iPad at least a half-dozen times, looked through the headlines on Bing (yes, I use Bing instead of Google), responded to three FB comments, ordered a get-well gift for Patricia, and realized I forgot to check the mail.
I embraced my inner weirdo years ago. After all, it allows me a level of creativity which some others don’t have access to. I’m not tied to my desk; I can write anywhere. And I’m not tied to my laptop—in fact, my sister-in-law became annoyed with me once when she caught me writing a scene for my book on the back of a supermarket receipt. In my defense, it was before cell phones were prolific, and I had a really, really great idea for a scene.
When I’m stuck on a point of plot, I take myself to a diner with a notebook and hand-write the next scene over lunch or dinner. And I’ve dictated many a story into the Notes function on my phone as I’m driving—though there are times that trying to figure out what I said versus what Voice Recognition heard is a real challenge. I’m still trying to interpret the note from November 25, 2022, which reads “Attached with me to Auton obvious a hat would be too obvious not a troll…”
Laura Pope, in her article “How We [Actually] Write: Neurodiversity, Writing Process, and Writing Instruction,” discusses the impact different psychological realities have on the methodology of writing, and on how teaching writing should occur. She contends that writing is in and of itself a neurodiverse process; each writer has their own system that works for them, and the very act of stating this is how it “should be done” does a disservice to the creative process. It’s an absolutely fascinating article—the citation is below, should you wish to read it—and it led me to one major conclusion.
Writers write.
There is no “how you should” write. There is no “best way” to write. There is no “you must do this” to write. A writer is a writer by virtue of the fact that they write.
Recently another person has joined our group. She writes her manuscripts long-hand on looseleaf torn from a notebook, and many times her pages will fall to cover the camera on her phone. When another member asked her about it, she answered, “This is what works for me.”
So… write with whatever methodology works for you. Do not let the “shoulds” and the “ought-tos” get in the way. Let the creative process flow in the manner that it flows for you. That is the very definition of creativity.
A word to the wise, which will be discussed in another post… You can write however and whatever you wish, but if you choose to pursue an agent and traditional publishing, you’ll have to be aware of “The Rules” of your genre and how to get your work to conform to those guidelines.
As I finish this blog post, I look back to my iPad, and I notice it’s down to just me and the long-hand writer. The “traditional” writers have taken themselves off to bed or to TV. But my other slightly-scrambled friend and I… we’re still going strong. Our diversity works to our advantage. What a wonderful gift to have.
Resource:
Pope, Leah. How We [Actually] Write: Neurodiversity, Writing Process, and Writing Instruction. 25 Jan. 2016, dept.writing.wisc.edu/blog/how-we-actually-write-neurodiversity-writing-process-and-writing-instruction/#Diverse%20Writers,%20Diverse%20Writing%20Processes.