(no subject)

[alexseanchai]

REQUESTING ANSWERS FROM: autistic and/or ADHD artists, especially novelists and other writers of book-length projects

DISALLOWING ANSWERS FROM: neurotypicals

QUERY: How does one stay on task for enough months to complete a large project? A novel draft, for instance?

Comments

[darthneko]

ADHD, and the only thing I’m finding that works is to have two projects going at once. Diametrically opposed projects. So that I can work on one for a few days or however long the hyperfocus lasts, and when I fall off the bus with that one then the other one is different enough that I migrate over to it and re-engage. Wash, rinse, repeat. Takes twice as long to write, but I’m at least continuously writing instead of falling completely off the wagon and losing several days/a week/a month obsessively focused on doing something that isn’t writing at all.

(By diametrically opposed, I mean, for instance, that my two current projects are slow-burn romance on one side, and torture angst politics on the other. Entirely different flavors of words, so picking the other up when I burn out on one feels like a completely different thing.)

[alexseanchai]

—hm. Phalēron and Stagecraft are similar novel projects in a lot of ways, but so very different in so many others—this is definitely worth a try, thank you lots!