I feel you, Shannon, and as a writer with ADHD who adores her creative projects but struggles to complete them — I’ll tell you that it is an act of faith to keep going and work past times like this.

One thing that’s helped me (and I know you may have a different ADHD type than I do, so I hope I don’t sound patronizing) is to rethink the way I structure novels from the outset.

You are learning about intuitive eating, and this is a lot like that but for your creative brain instead of your food intake — my brain naturally “flits” from thing to thing, so I let it flit. I write any and every scene I have ever found popping into my head and I save it with a long-ass descriptive document title. Sounds chaotic but over time you’ll find scenes “matching up” like a puzzle and you can begin to align them into a story.

I also feel that it’s vital for women like us to accept that it’s just going to take longer to write books, and that’s okay. Frustrating, but okay, and it’s more a matter of giving yourself space and time to experiment over and over rather than plugging away at your book(s) linearly. I’ll probably write about this soon because I have a ton of thoughts and experiences regarding writing books when you have ADHD, but I hope this little mini post helps someone (especially you, dear author)!