How to Write Through Your A.D.D. (Yes, It Can be Done!)

By: Ebonye Gussine Wilkins

I’ve known that I have A.D.D. for over a decade now. It’s just something that I had and I spent years struggling to figure out how to how to function effectively through it. I’ve always managed to get a bunch of things done, and on schedule, but it was never easy. Until about two weeks ago, I had no idea the extent that ADD influenced the way I handled a lot of things, including my writing.

Courtesy of a friend, I came across this article from LifeHack that finally made me realize how much A.D.D. was influencing everything, including and especially my writing. Here are the key points (related to writing) I came away with:

• They have an active mind.
• They concentrate too intensely.
• They have difficulty stopping a task when they are in the zone.
• They are deeply intuitive.
• They think out the box.
• They need space to pace.
• They have many tasks going on at the same time.
• They are passionate about everything they do.

It certainly explains my writing style, my writing approach, and my writing schedule. It was after reading this article that I started realizing why I did things the way I did. And that will only help my writing, because I now know that it is okay for me to operate this way, because I’m working with my brain rather than against it. In an article, Carol Tice’s guest blogger talks about how she writes through her A.D.D., and it is really eye-opening. It reaffirms why free-writing works so well for me.

Are you a writer with A.D.D.? How does it affect your writing? Do you find you get more or less work done?