I’ve spoken before about being an autistic writer, but perhaps spoke more about it in the past tense, here. The reality is, is that it’s like walking a tightrope all the time. The fall isn’t failure, but more succumbing to the draw of every grasping interest vying for my attention.
I’m a bit like this ball to the left here, propelled hither and yon by the hundreds of things I want to do; represented by the crowd. For most people, they can easily duck into and out of their various interests and stay focused on their primary goal.
For me, though, things are trickier. Currently I want my primary goal to be to write , but to do that I have to properly outline the core draft, research and read about how to outline and what techniques to use, add to my world bible, read to expand my understanding of contemporary speculative fiction in the same genre and also continue my other endeavours with writing being the cherry on top.
Other areas I need to continue learning include understanding the publication process (from editing the first draft, revising, querying for an agent – and the query process as a whole through to submissions to a publication), the writing community, marketing myself as a brand and product and putting more content here. It’s dizzying.
I’ve not even touched upon the map generation, or balancing down time and family time on top of all of the above. Part of me is desperate to just sit down and gorge on reading, another to watch TV and let my batteries refill. But I’m worried that doing so will drag me back into that cosy bubble-wrapped procrastination day-glo land where nothing is wrong and things are easy.
Because writing is hard. Oh the creativity and story is there, but balancing real life and painstakingly building a novel, piece by piece, is something I am now realising is no simple task at all.
But I will persevere, I will wrestle with my neurodivergent obsessions to stay on course and I will forge this beautiful piece of art I see within my soul into a manuscript.
Then the fun really begins.
The Chronicles of Viredia 