Wrong Place, Wrong Time – More fun with ADHD

Since I have a book release in less than four months, I decided to get some help with from Toastmasters. Toastmaster is an international club where people practice speaking and leadership skills.  Or so I’ve been told.  I’ve never actually been to a Toastmaster meeting.  I tried to go to a meeting last night at a nearby community college, but after standing in an empty room for five minutes, I figured I was in the wrong place.

This didn’t surprise me in the slightest.  I spend a lot of time in empty meeting rooms. If I wanted to explain what it’s like to be an ADHD adult to someone who is not an ADHD adult I’d tell them to do this:  Next time you have an important meeting or doctor’s appointment drive to your nearest library and find an empty meeting room in the back of the library.  Stand in the empty meeting room, wondering why no one else has shown up for the meeting. 

When I got home, my husband explained the error of my ways to me.

“You were at the wrong place. It says right here on the website that meetings are held on Tuesdays at 7:00 on the second and fourth week of every month, and Thursdays at noon on the first and third week of every month.”

“Sure,”  I replied.  (“Sure” is what I say when I’m not really listening.)

“This is the first week of the month, which means the meeting is on Thursday at noon. Of course it says here that if the room is in use, meetings will be held in the backroom of the nearest public Library branch, unless it’s the rare fifth Tuesday of the month, in which case…”

Now I knew this was some kind of Nightvale-esque trick, designed to lure me into the backroom of a public library to stand alone in a time vortex.  There are no meetings held in the back room of public libraries.  

It just doesn’t happen.

And so I picked a fight with my husband.  I had to.  Of course, it wasn’t his fault that there are forty-five local chapters of Toastmasters, all holding meeting on alternate Tuesdays and Thursdays except for the second Wednesday of each month when we all meet under the bridge at a time TBD, and posted on the website not more than fifteen minutes prior to meeting time. He doesn’t make the Toastmaster rules.

But I do think the time to explain the fanciful and baroque meeting structure to me is before I leave for the meeting.  

I will, of course, attempt to attend another Toastmaster’s meeting.  I still have to do a book launch and reading which means I have four months to master public speaking and leadership skills.  I figure that in four months, I will probably find at least one meeting.  Probably accidentally.  When I'm on my way to a dentist appointment and I'm running late.

A year of living tediously – The life of a debut Author

Truman Capote once famously said “Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.”

Um, no.  I have children and it’s not even close. 

But there are similarities.  In both cases you become enormously tedious to people are not actively involved in writing a novel or raising a child.

When I first had a baby I walked around dirty and dazed and a little surprised to find myself out in the sunlight. On one of these outings I ran into a friend and we talked about music and bands and people we both knew.

“So what are you up to these days?” She asked.

“This thing,”  I said, pointing at my two week old baby.  Obviously.

“No, I meant creatively,”  she said.  And she laughed a little like I’d misunderstood the question and it was a bit funny.  How could you mistake a baby for a fun project?

This is very similar to the conversation I have had with almost everyone over the last year about my upcoming novel debut.

Random Friend:  When is your novel coming out?

Me:  December.

Random Friend:  Wow, that’s a long time from now.  Why does it take so long?

Me:  I have no idea.  

Random Friend:  Can't you speed it up?

Me:  No.  It doesn’t have anything to do with me.  

Random Friend: (yawning) Oh.  So what are you doing now?

Me: Waiting around for stuff to happen.

After a while having a debut novel starts to feel like a conversational dead end.  It’s as though someone asked you what you were doing in January and you answered “painting my living room” and they asked you again in July and you said “painting my living room.”  Any logical person would ask “Is your living room the Taj Mahal?  Are you painting it with a toothbrush?”

And just like painting a living room everyone knows how to do it.  They're pretty sure they could paint your living room over the course of a weekend, with a whole hell of a lot less personal drama and hand wringing.

There is no way to explain to the layperson how exciting, and fraught with existential terror the debut novelist experience is.  But I think I’ve come up with a conversational gambit that while not strictly truthful, captures the feeling of being a debut novelist perfectly:

Random Friend: So what's up with you?

Me:  I’ve liquidated my life savings and I’m planning to take all my money to Vegas to play Blackjack.

Random Friend:  What??  When is this happening.

Me:  December.

Random Friend:  But that’s so soon.  Are you sure you know what you’re doing?

Me:  Well, I have spent the past four years huddled over my computer evenings and weekends learning the rules of blackjack.  I think I’m prepared.

Random Friend:  But it’s still gambling. You could lose everything.  You could become famous as that person who lost their life’s savings at the black jack table.

Me:  Good.  I want to be famous.

Random Friend:  Really?  But you’re so shy.  You want to be famous?  You want to speak in public about your experiences at the tables?

Me:  No, not really.  Maybe?  I’m not sure…

Random Friend:  This plan seems half-baked.  I’m worried about you.

Me:  Yeah, I’m pretty stressed about it myself. But it’s my life's dream. I don't think I'd be happy if I didn't at least try.

Random Friend:  Well, maybe you'll get rich. There's a lot of money in gambling, right?

Me:  Not really. I mean if you're J.K. Rowling sure. But that's not the point.  I'd be happy to break even.  But it's really about the experience.

Random Friend: I don't understand.

Me:  I'm not sure I do either. 

I have to disagree with Truman Capote. Finishing a novel is not like shooting your child, not even close.  It’s a much smaller experience akin to mortgaging your house and risking your saving and your sense of self-worth on a combination of gambling skill and good luck at the casinos.  

In December.  December 26th, to be exact.

Setting things on fire to pass the time

I’m waiting for my editor to read pages of my new novel and to get back to me.  She is a thoughtful and incisive editor, and whether she wants my novel or not, she will have nice things to say about it.  I’m not worried about what she will say, but I’m having a hard time focusing on my work while I wait for her to read.  Waiting around for editorial notes makes me think I want a different career.  Something steady and craft based, like blacksmithing.

I hate to wait for anything.  Pretty sure this is an ADHD thing. Having to wait for anything makes me want to set stuff on fire, metaphorically speaking. 

 Okay, I have literally set stuff on fire, but it has been a while. There was that one time when I was waiting for my first EGB (evil genius boyfriend) to finish an odious and protracted point during a dinner table discussion. In a fit of impatience,  I waved my napkin through the candle until it caught fire.  Because my napkin was a paper napkin, it burst immediately into showy, oversized flames. This was certainly not my intention. To avoid being burned, I dropped the flaming napkin on the nearest thing, which happened to be a pile of paper napkins. The whole table turned into a bonfire.

In my defense, the EGB had just quoted Nietzsche, and he knew how I felt about Nietzsche. I was never quiet about this. I’m not in any way condoning lighting stuff on fire to make a philosophical point about nihilism, but I do think if you are the kind of guy to quote Nietzsche at the dinner table you should probably expect flames.  I’m just saying.

But back to my metaphorical fire.  Generally, if I want to set something on fire, it’s by doing something else, when I should be working on writing. 

This morning my husband got up hours before me, made coffee and binge-watched Mountain Men.  I stumbled into the room where my husband was watching TV, and he presented me with a a cup of coffee. Nice. 

Most of Mountain Men was about guys chasing down bobcats with a pack of dogs.  My sympathy was definitely with the bobcats.  I couldn’t even feel bad for the cameraman who was attacked by one of the bobcats. I have a cat, and I know that when a dog barks, the nearest person turns into a tree—a tall climbable object.  The bobcat's attack of the cameraman wasn't personal. He simply was the nearest tree.

Not all of the Mountain Men were making a dubious living hectoring glorified house cats. One was living in Arkansas, making knives to order on the internet using a homemade blacksmith forge. What a perfect mix of old and new technology!  While the Mountain Man pounded and shaped and quenched the metal in a pan of oil, his wife hand-crafted a leather handle for the knife. They were perfectly happy and in agreement.  They drank speckled tin cups full of coffee heated over an open flame, and compared their respective handiwork.  I turned to my husband.

“You know, we could set up a forge in the backyard.  We could make knives on the internet.” I said.

My husband was not convinced.

“I'm pretty sure that by the time we learn blacksmithing, your editorial notes will be back.”

Very true.  MY husband is a genius of patience. But not evil, which is the best sort of husband.

The Internet is my Friend

The Internet is my friend.

The internet tells me fascinating stories about a Celtic warrior queen name Boudica, and a dead man on a beach named Taman Shud.  

The internet shows me pictures of The Voynich manuscript and the Bayeux Tapestry over coffee while we discuss how the seeds of our current fascination with all thing apocalyptic have deeper roots in history and culture. The internet reassures me that the world is not coming to an end. 

Or maybe it is. The internet doesn’t know for sure. 

The internet tells me that there are many out there who are ADHD like me. Together we’ve read many fascination article about the co-morbidity of Dyslexia and ADHD.  We've studied brain scans of the ASD, and the ADHD, and together we’ve marveled at the complexity and diversity of the human mind.

The internet wonders if I have Lupus.  Not Lupus exactly, but something like Lupus with the same symptoms and maybe even worse than Lupus, if such a thing is possible.  The internet doesn’t want me to freak out or anything, but it thinks maybe I should get that rash checked out.  Not that doctors know anything.  The internet can put me in touch with a dozen people who have exactly the same mystery disease that I have. We can talk at four in the morning when we can't sleep about our mystery disease and how doctors have routinely misdiagnosed us. Insomnia is a symptom of our mystery disease.

When I try to work, the internet rings a little bell to let me know that someone is thinking about me.  Sometimes it’s a text, sometimes it’s an e-mail or a mention on twitter.  And it makes me happy.  I try to work, but I have many charming and clever friends I’ve never actually met, and if I ignore the little bell, I could miss something one of them has said.  I am Pavlov’s little dog, waiting for the bell to ring so I get my fix of happiness.

The internet is not always the best friend.  Sometimes it laughs at me.  Like last, week, when I posted a picture of a huge life event on my Facebook pages and no one liked it, and I was convinced that I had zero friends for about three hours and I was super sad, until I realized I hadn’t actually posted the picture on my public feed.

“Dumb ass!”  The internet said.  “Always check your settings.”

Then I had to go online and post on other people’s Facebook and twitter feeds just to make sure I still existed.  And I ended up feeling better, but by then I had burned a day, and I got no work done on my novel.

Sometimes the internet is like a kid who comes into your room first thing in the morning when you’re asleep and asks: “Are you sleeping?”

 And when you answer “Yes”, the internet says: 

“But you’re talking, so you must be awake , and as long as you’re awake you could check your e-mails and —ooh, here’s an interesting article about the lake Nyos disaster, and how lake overturn could happen again in lake Kivu and millions would be at risk.  Someone should writer a novel about that.”

It does no good to tell the internet that you are a contemporary YA author, and this is out of your bailiwick.  The internet is full of good ideas for starting new novels. Not so much for finishing old ones.

I love the internet, but I think we’re spending too much time together.  I need to see other people. I think I will invite the internet back on Friday.  But not before. I need to get something done.

Marshmallows, Jellybeans, and ADHD

As I am an ADHD person, I am familiar with ADDITUDE Magazine.  More than familiar, I surf it weekly, looking for new research and arcana about all things ADHD.  This week there's an article comparing and contrasting ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder.  Fascinating. 

So I'm extra thrilled to have been asked to guest blog for them! 

ADHD – when Hyperfocus fails

In every super hero comic book or movie, there’s always a bleak moment when the hero loses their power. The arc reactor on Iron Man’s suit runs out of paladium or vibranium or magic, and he plummets to the earth.  Which by all reasons should turn him into a Tony Stark flavored goo, because—physics.  

For Superman it was simpler.  Undefeatable, godlike powers unless shiny green rock nearby.  Kryptonite— the inverse deus ex machina of all plot devices.   The original WonderWoman, well—nigh invulnerable had a weakness for bondage. All you had to do was tie her wrists together. Okay, eww.  I’m really hoping the movie steers clears of that.  

Personally, I relate to Batman. Batman has no powers.  All he has are his brains and a bunch of really stupid toys that shouldn’t work, and probably don’t.  Again—physics.  But he’s smart and when he’s focused, he’s really focused. Hyper-focused. It’s when he loses his focus that things fall apart.  Batman’s arch-nemesis isn’t the Joker, it’s the Really Bad Mood. Batman versus the Cosmic Indifference.  Batman versus Why Am I Doing This Again? Batman versus Trivia Night.

For a time, while I was working on my novel I retired to my Bat Cave with my blinking supercomputer and the damp mustiness of eternal night.  Alfred would bring me all my meals on a silver tea tray covered with a white linen napkin.  He would silently return hours later to remove my uneaten lunch, because I hadn’t looked up from my attempts to piece together a puzzle filled with false trails and extraneous details to form a coherent whole.  It was glorious, and it was unsustainable.

 As with all things, Hyper-focus ends.  Now I’m back in Stately Wayne Manor making desultory searches through arcana, indulging a diffuse curiosity about local Art Moderne houses, one act playwriting competitions, alternative high schools. French dialects.  Does this all add up to a novel?  Maybe.  I’ll never know unless I just keeping plodding along, writing a bit everyday, but its hard to maintain a straight line when my restless brain wants to roam in fifteen different directions. 

I wonder if anyone ever told Batman to trust the process?

Writer’s block and ADHD

Writer's block.

I’ve been in a bit of a writing slump lately.  It started a few months ago with my trip to Connecticut and a gorgeous late winter snowfall.  

I spent hours sledding with Kristin and Will and their two adorable toddlers Dee-dee and Buddy.

I’d like to say I had a gigantic disastrous accident that I landed in a ditch, wrenched my knee and tore my ACL or something like that, because then you’d feel sorry for me.  But none of this happened.

No, I had a great time sledding, all the while ignoring a creeping pain in my knee, which wasn’t a great knee to begin with. 

By the time I got back to Texas, my knee was pretty messed up.  I tried to rest my knee, but then SXSW started and there were bands I wanted to see, and I was tired of maintaining my horizontal position andwhy should I have to miss out on anything anyway?

I’m not good at being still.  Ever.

Plus, SXSW = Free music = Fun = Ignoring my knee.

Only my knee was not on board with this plan.  Two days into SXSW, my knee quit in protest. I was forced into bed.

 At first, I thought that there was something appealingly southern gothic about retiring to my bed to write.  I would have nothing to do besides write. My family to supplied me with a constant stream of ice packs and charming beverages. I settled in, expecting new ideas to flow like water.

Nothing happened.  

I read books and watched movies, I caught up on E-mails, I took an online course on self-promotion.  I sent texts to friends complaining about my procrastination problem and asking for advice.  I tried all the techniques to get the flow of ideas started. Nothing worked.

 At night I dreamed restless dreams of running after trains, traveling on treacherous mountain roads in overfilled buses. Boats on troubled waters. I dreamed of moving through the world at a breakneck pace even as I remained still. And still, no new words came.

My husband left town for the weekend.  Three hours later Wolf the cat informed me that there was no wet food in the house.  Wolf found my argument that I was in too much pain to grocery shop underwhelming.  

So I got my cane andI headed to the grocery store. As I limped behind the shopping cart, ideas formed.  I pushed ideas aside, struggling to remember the few things I needed.  It didn’t work.  I forgot milk for my coffee. I barely got out of there with cat food.

Ideas rolled at a shopping cart pace, limped sideways through my head, unbidden. All it took to break my writer's block was motion.

I don’t write sitting at a computer, I write while I move.  I walk the neighborhood, I pace my house and the words come. This should have been painfully obvious to me since I have long academic history of blanking out the moment an essay test hit the desk in front of me.  But for some reason, I thought my brain would grow up and behave differently.

No. I can’t think sitting still.  My brain is a self-winding watch on a short spring. I get fifteen good minutes before I have to move my arms and legs to power it back up.

 But I have a cane.  My neighborhood is beautiful and lush. The weather is perfect.  Today I walk. Today, I write.