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— Fifth Doctor, portrayed by Peter Davidson, from Earthshock, S19E6, Doctor Who (1982) [Writer: Cavan Scott]
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"For some people, small, beautiful events are what life is all about."
— Fifth Doctor, portrayed by Peter Davidson, from Earthshock, S19E6, Doctor Who (1982) [Writer: Cavan Scott]
I...tried to make a meme and got carried away and made A Thing that is like partially unfinished because i spent like 3 hours on it and then got tired.
I think this is mostly scientifically accurate but truth be told, there seems to be relatively little research on succession in regards to lawns specifically (as opposed to like, pastures). I am not exaggerating how bad they are for biodiversity though—recent research has referred to them as "ecological deserts."
Feel free to repost, no need for credit
The Neurodivergent Writer’s Guide to Fun and Productivity
(Even when life beats you down)
Look, I’m a mom, I have ADHD, I’m a spoonie. To say that I don’t have heaps of energy to spare and I struggle with consistency is an understatement. For years, I tried to write consistently, but I couldn’t manage to keep up with habits I built and deadlines I set.
So fuck neurodivergent guides on building habits, fuck “eat the frog first”, fuck “it’s all in the grind”, and fuck “you just need time management”—here is how I manage to write often and a lot.
Focus on having fun, not on the outcome
This was the groundwork I had to lay before I could even start my streak. At an online writing conference, someone said: “If you push yourself and meet your goals, and you publish your book, but you haven’t enjoyed the process… What’s the point?” and hoo boy, that question hit me like a truck.
I was so caught up in the narrative of “You’ve got to show up for what’s important” and “Push through if you really want to get it done”. For a few years, I used to read all these productivity books about grinding your way to success, and along the way I started using the same language as they did. And I notice a lot of you do so, too.
But your brain doesn’t like to grind. No-one’s brain does, and especially no neurodivergent brain. If having to write gives you stress or if you put pressure on yourself for not writing (enough), your brain’s going to say: “Huh. Writing gives us stress, we’re going to try to avoid it in the future.”
So before I could even try to write regularly, I needed to teach my brain once again that writing is fun. I switched from countable goals like words or time to non-countable goals like “fun” and “flow”.
Rewire my brain: writing is fun and I’m good at it
I used everything I knew about neuroscience, psychology, and social sciences. These are some of the things I did before and during a writing session. Usually not all at once, and after a while I didn’t need these strategies anymore, although I sometimes go back to them when necessary.
I journalled all the negative thoughts I had around writing and try to reason them away, using arguments I knew in my heart were true. (The last part is the crux.) Imagine being supportive to a writer friend with crippling insecurities, only the friend is you.
Not setting any goals didn’t work for me—I still nurtured unwanted expectations. So I did set goals, but made them non-countable, like “have fun”, “get in the flow”, or “write”. Did I write? Yes. Success! Your brain doesn’t actually care about how high the goal is, it cares about meeting whatever goal you set.
I didn’t even track how many words I wrote. Not relevant.
I set an alarm for a short time (like 10 minutes) and forbade myself to exceed that time. The idea was that if I write until I run out of mojo, my brain learns that writing drains the mojo. If I write for 10 minutes and have fun, my brain learns that writing is fun and wants to do it again.
Reinforce the fact that writing makes you happy by rewarding your brain immediately afterwards. You know what works best for you: a walk, a golden sticker, chocolate, cuddle your dog, whatever makes you happy.
I conditioned myself to associate writing with specific stimuli: that album, that smell, that tea, that place. Any stimulus can work, so pick one you like. I consciously chose several stimuli so I could switch them up, and the conditioning stays active as long as I don’t muddle it with other associations.
Use a ritual to signal to your brain that Writing Time is about to begin to get into the zone easier and faster. I guess this is a kind of conditioning as well? Meditation, music, lighting a candle… Pick your stimulus and stick with it.
Specifically for rewiring my brain, I started a new WIP that had no emotional connotations attached to it, nor any pressure to get finished or, heaven forbid, meet quality norms. I don’t think these techniques above would have worked as well if I had applied them on writing my novel.
It wasn’t until I could confidently say I enjoyed writing again, that I could start building up a consistent habit. No more pushing myself.
I lowered my definition for success
When I say that nowadays I write every day, that’s literally it. I don’t set out to write 1,000 or 500 or 10 words every day (tried it, failed to keep up with it every time)—the only marker for success when it comes to my streak is to write at least one word, even on the days when my brain goes “naaahhh”. On those days, it suffices to send myself a text with a few keywords or a snippet. It’s not “success on a technicality (derogatory)”, because most of those snippets and ideas get used in actual stories later. And if they don’t, they don’t. It’s still writing. No writing is ever wasted.
A side note on high expectations, imposter syndrome, and perfectionism
Obviously, “Setting a ridiculously low goal” isn’t something I invented. I actually got it from those productivity books, only I never got it to work. I used to tell myself: “It’s okay if I don’t write for an hour, because my goal is to write for 20 minutes and if I happen to keep going for, say, an hour, that’s a bonus.” Right? So I set the goal for 20 minutes, wrote for 35 minutes, and instead of feeling like I exceeded my goal, I felt disappointed because apparently I was still hoping for the bonus scenario to happen. I didn’t know how to set a goal so low and believe it.
I think the trick to making it work this time lies more in the groundwork of training my brain to enjoy writing again than in the fact that my daily goal is ridiculously low. I believe I’m a writer, because I prove it to myself every day. Every success I hit reinforces the idea that I’m a writer. It’s an extra ward against imposter syndrome.
Knowing that I can still come up with a few lines of dialogue on the Really Bad Days—days when I struggle to brush my teeth, the day when I had a panic attack in the supermarket, or the day my kid got hit by a car—teaches me that I can write on the mere Bad-ish Days.
The more I do it, the more I do it
The irony is that setting a ridiculously low goal almost immediately led to writing more and more often. The most difficult step is to start a new habit. After just a few weeks, I noticed that I needed less time and energy to get into the zone. I no longer needed all the strategies I listed above.
Another perk I noticed, was an increased writing speed. After just a few months of writing every day, my average speed went from 600 words per hour to 1,500 wph, regularly exceeding 2,000 wph without any loss of quality.
Talking about quality: I could see myself becoming a better writer with every passing month. Writing better dialogue, interiority, chemistry, humour, descriptions, whatever: they all improved noticeably, and I wasn’t a bad writer to begin with.
The increased speed means I get more done with the same amount of energy spent. I used to write around 2,000-5,000 words per month, some months none at all. Nowadays I effortlessly write 30,000 words per month. I didn’t set out to write more, it’s just a nice perk.
Look, I’m not saying you should write every day if it doesn’t work for you. My point is: the more often you write, the easier it will be.
No pressure
Yes, I’m still working on my novel, but I’m not racing through it. I produce two or three chapters per month, and the rest of my time goes to short stories my brain keeps projecting on the inside of my eyelids when I’m trying to sleep. I might as well write them down, right?
These short stories started out as self-indulgence, and even now that I take them more seriously, they are still just for me. I don’t intend to ever publish them, no-one will ever read them, they can suck if they suck. The unintended consequence was that my short stories are some of my best writing, because there’s no pressure, it’s pure fun.
Does it make sense to spend, say, 90% of my output on stories no-one else will ever read? Wouldn’t it be better to spend all that creative energy and time on my novel? Well, yes. If you find the magic trick, let me know, because I haven’t found it yet. The short stories don’t cannibalize on the novel, because they require different mindsets. If I stopped writing the short stories, I wouldn’t produce more chapters. (I tried. Maybe in the future? Fingers crossed.)
Don’t wait for inspiration to hit
There’s a quote by Picasso: “Inspiration hits, but it has to find you working.” I strongly agree. Writing is not some mystical, muse-y gift, it’s a skill and inspiration does exist, but usually it’s brought on by doing the work. So just get started and inspiration will come to you.
Accountability and community
Having social factors in your toolbox is invaluable. I have an offline writing friend I take long walks with, I host a monthly writing club on Discord, and I have another group on Discord that holds me accountable every day. They all motivate me in different ways and it’s such a nice thing to share my successes with people who truly understand how hard it can be.
The productivity books taught me that if you want to make a big change in your life or attitude, surrounding yourself with people who already embody your ideal or your goal huuuugely helps. The fact that I have these productive people around me who also prioritize writing, makes it easier for me to stick to my own priorities.
Your toolbox
The idea is to have several techniques at your disposal to help you stay consistent. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket by focussing on just one technique. Keep all of them close, and if one stops working or doesn’t inspire you today, pivot and pick another one.
After a while, most “tools” run in the background once they are established. Things like surrounding myself with my writing friends, keeping up with my daily streak, and listening to the album I conditioned myself with don’t require any energy, and they still remain hugely beneficial.
Do you have any other techniques? I’d love to hear about them!
I hope this was useful. Happy writing!
There's a bunch of adhd advice out there that's like "people with adhd tend to work better under deadlines due to the anxiety so here are ways to artificially induce a stress response in order to get you to get work done" and it's like well what if I don't want to be stressed out all the time in order to function
this gold shouldn't stay in the comments
hey loves, I’ve been reading through the comments and loads of people are asking how to not fall into this pattern because that’s all they know. so, here’s some advice from Auntie Pan who’s been in the trenches (stress-caused disabilities and chronic illnesses).
context: grew up in an abusive, controlling home, escaped to uni, had a prolonged mental breakdown, became a teacher and worked in a dysfunctional school with amazing kids and nightmare management for years. I did not realise I have adhd and autism for a long time. (You might even be able to scroll back through this blog to find the time around which I did realise lol.)
ANYWAY, things that have helped me because my body can no longer handle any kind of stress without flaring up:
If you’re doing anything that requires you to do a lot of prep before you begin the actual thing (e.g. cooking, deep cleaning a room, moving house), mise en place. That’s a fancy french way of saying get everything ready before you begin. So if I’m cooking idk spaghetti carbonara, that means fry and chop the bacon, separate the egg yolks from the whites, put water in the kettle, put dry spaghetti into a pan. Once everything’s ready, it reduces the mental load and means I can focus on the actual cooking and any clean up that I can do along the way. H/t to @ms-demeanor for this, you changed my life!
the Might As Well rule. This one works really well for me but you gotta be careful otherwise you’ll get sucked into the Vortex. Basically, let’s imagine you’re in the bathroom, brushing your teeth. You notice that the extra roll of toilet paper has been used. instead of thinking, “I’ll get to that later”, and then forgetting about it until you sit down on the bog (no judgement, we’ve all been there), you think “Might As Well put an extra roll while I’m here!” This tends to help with the little tasks that build up over time. This Does Not Work for big tasks.
Leading on from no.2, Do It Immediately/ASAP really helps me too. My current boss will email me on a Friday and say, ‘don’t reply to this now! Leave it til monday!’ But she and i both know that if i leave it til monday, I will forget and get stressed and this will make me Very Ill. So, instead, the moment i receive the email, I’ll either schedule in replying to it as soon as I’m done with my current thing, OR I’ll reply to it immediately.
Anything that can’t be actioned immediately, i mark as Unread. Anything Unread in my inbox is a future action, and i check those Unread emails/texts/whatevers Every. Day. To make sure whether today is the day i have the info to action it. (This also means i have to stay on top of my inbox. I read all my emails and then mark them accordingly. I’m also brutal with unsubscribing)
The House Always Wins. Both in a literal sense, because i am in a constant battle with keeping my house clean, and i know now that I’ll never get it as clean as i want it. It’s impossible, i no longer have the energy or stamina to vacuum and scrub everything. But also just in a life sense. I’m never going to achieve things to perfection, and perfect is the opposite of done. And getting things done is that much more important when you have limited energy and strength. Accept that you often have to half-arse life in order to Full-Arse the few things that really matter to you.
Have multiples of everything, everywhere. I wear support gloves, so i need to have handcream at every sink and everywhere i sit down in the house. I try to keep it unobtrusive, but it means i don’t have to trek upstairs just to moisturise my hands. Gum, phone chargers, pens and pencils, water bottles, hand sanitizer, whatever you need.
Work with people, even if it’s online. Body doubling actually works. Also I’ve found that if I’m working on assignments, taking myself to a library or study area that isn’t my bedroom helps so much.
Show off! Tell people on here or elsewhere in your life about the fact that you’ve just written 100 words! Or that you’ve cleaned the fridge and that’s a really big deal for you. Celebrate your wins, no matter how small.
Basically, you’re aiming to reduce the mental load as much as possible. Wear the same types of clothes all the time to minimise the amount of laundry. Eat the same three lunches so decision fatigue doesn’t take over.
All of this takes time to implement and it is cumulative, but i hope it helps. Reading the comments on this post, i finally understand why adhd is comorbid with so many other conditions. let’s take care of each other <3
I'm so glad to hear that helped you!
For anybody looking for resources from someone dealing with actual ADHD, I have an incomplete but ever growing list of ADHD tips, tools, and suggestions on my website.
A lot of the pages on that site are adapted from my tumblr posts, for instance I'm adapting this post about car repair projects with ADHD into a guide on project management and completion with ADHD.
(Red links are stuff that I've got planned but haven't published for reasons that are probably clear to anyone looking for ADHD advice online)
Drops
The table dotted
Mountains seen from the ants eyes
Raindrops from the sky
~ Evandrin (2024) London
Once upon a time,
I was done with love.
And then I met you.
A while back I drew this lichen dragon! This little creature rarely exceeds a foot long, and uses moss and lichens for camouflage as she traverses her arboreal habitat in search of tasty insects to eat. Young lichen dragons are often green to help them stay hidden, but as they grow older and amass a suitable collection of species to cover them their skin changes to a deeper gray and brown. It's not known how the dragons manage to keep their garden-pelts alive; their skin could exude chemicals that add nourishment to what these epiphytes are able to collect from the air, or they may have an adhesive property that helps them stay on their moving host. Lichen dragons are frequently found basking in sunny openings in the tree canopy which allow their symbiotic partners to photosynthesize more effectively.
The antlers and rostral horn are Cladonia bellidiflora, the back features the fruiting bodies of Lichenomphalia umbellifera, the sides and flanks have some layers of Parmelia sulcata, and the tip of the tail has a tuft of Usnea longissima.
Micron fineliners and Copic alcohol markers.
The sidewalks in my neighborhood often feature little wandering moss balls. I have noticed them often and wondered about them. In this part of England, there is a lot of moss always, on everything, everywhere; but that’s sedentary moss, unchanging, holding still - practically characterised by its year-round chilling-out-ness. Moss in the pavement cracks, growing along the buildings and front of garden wall; moss in the gardens and the corners between sidewalk and street. but the tumblemosses are not connected to the continuous belts of stay-at-home moss. They are disconnected, tumbleweeds, pilgrim wanderers: appearing suddenly on the pavement and mooching mysteriously on their own journeys. Like aquarium moss balls but without the currents of the water to justify them. They appear in the middle of the sidewalk in the middle of the town.
The children say they are Moss Children who have broken off from their Moss Family. They often pick them up and carry them around, shouting. Occasionally we have had to take them on train journeys (nobody else seems to have Tumblemoss; it seems to be around our neighborhood.) Sometimes the kids want to make terrariums or things, and so we specifically collect the Tumblemoss, since it’s clearly unrooted and not spoiling anything if we take it home(and I’d feel bad for the kids pulling up actual moss.) but the origins of Tumblemoss, or Moss Children, have always been a bit mysterious. They simply appear, like wild land Marimo, enigmatically. An empty sidewalk in the morning suddenly has a perfect round Moss Child in the afternoon.
Today I learned the secret origin of the Tumblemoss. Would you like to guess it?
How do Moss Children appear
Breaking off from established colonies, and setting off on their own.
Kicked off larger clumps by pedestrians and rolled along the pavement
Carried there, falling from the boots of people who have been to the allotment.
Dug up by cats/dogs for their own mysterious ways and dropped in the street.
Dropped by birds from above, for their own mysterious reasons.
Moved by forces of weather, wind and/or water.
The movements of children.
The mysterious forces of fairies/walruses.
Possibly helpful clues:
This is the layout of the road. Moss Children appear on the sidewalks/pavements.
The answer, as many of you guessed, is Bird Activity! Moss Children are created and dropped from above by birds, particularly corvids.
I should have said in the poll - Sometimes you’ll find moss on the ground that slides straight off of roofs, for example in a storm, or because it’s gotten too heavy for the roots to continue sticking to slanted slick roof tiles. These, however, usually don’t form cute little balls. They clearly look like they fell off something. I feel that Moss Children have slightly more mystery about them.
Moss Children are produced differently. Roof gutters especially in climates such as the UK can fill up with moss. Moss often has snacks in it. So small pieces of moss are systematically picked out of roof gutters by corvids. magpies, jackdaws, rooks and crows apparently all do it, creating small bird-beak-sized balls. They are then thrown down to the sidewalk below.
This can be really helpful (in a rainy country you really can’t have blocked gutters) and in some cases really annoying (if you have moss on your roof, corvids will often get carried away and pick at the tiles/felt.) Sometimes you can spot them doing it - other times they try to be sneaky! It took a long time before I finally managed to observe the behavior.
Like many corvid behaviors, it can be localised to specific areas, where they teach each other how to do it. Some neighborhoods will have abundant Moss Children, and other similar ones will never have any at all. However, in neighborhoods that do have them, it seems like many different species of corvids do this - in ours it is both jackdaws and magpies, suggesting that they might learn the behavior by watching each other.
You need several conditions to get Moss Children. A cold wet climate, a densely populated street oriented with their roofs creating their own shade from the sun, with gutters along the front, an educated corvid population, local moss that likes gutters and forms balls when plucked, and so on.
Thanks to all who participated.
Beach
Water, salt, and foam
Brushing sand on shell on sand
Slowly giving way
~ Bh.B. (2024) Bergen aan Zee
You. That is the vibe.
And the vibe is beautiful.
But words? Hard to find.
~ Bh.B. (2023) Wageningen
The feeling of coffee
The warm homely smell,
Roasted beans distilled to drink,
Kind strangers around.
~ Bh.B. (2023) Wageningen
Sweet and red
Sweet red kisses
Marks of your love
While made they tease out hisses
As my soul flies high above
~ Bh.B. (2023) Wageningen
Missing You
Good morning hugs and goodnight kisses.
Starting each day together, joking.
Breakfast, sitting close together,
Listening to others waking up.
Glancing at you through the room full people,
Watching you at the other side of the table.
Hearing your laugh at random moments,
And sharing your excited energy.
Loving touches when walking past you,
Stealing hugs whenever we were together.
And even a kiss while laying in the backseat of the bus.
Now those four days have blown away,
Back again to normal and routine.
Just one thing on my mind, as I wake up alone:
"I miss you".
~ Bh.B. (2022) Wageningen
In Dreams
I miss you, and in my dreams will kiss you.
Your deep blue eyes, glistening as morning dew.
Under starlight, near the sea.
Dancing hand in hand, just we.
My face touched gentle by your hands, so sweet.
Your lips on mine, soft whenever they meet.
~ Bh.B. (2022) Wageningen
HUG
"Yes, we'll go in a minute. But is it okay... if we stay like this... a little longer?
You feel soft, you smell nice, it's safe. Relaxing."
Holding them a little tighter, to make our bodies almost be like one. Feeling their whole body press against mine. Feeling them everywhere.
My head on their shoulder. My nose pressed in their soft, brown hair. Taking their presence in with all senses except my eyes. Which are closed. Making the world smaller, just the surrounding space, just us.
want to get wine drunk and kiss you for a couple hours
"Dat ik gister heelhuids thuis gekomen is een wonder, dubbel dronken. Zowel van de wijn en de muziek, maar eens zoveel van jouw zachte lippen kussend op de mijne. Het gevoel wat mij tot dit moment is bijgebleven."