Hello everyone! Denise here!
Ornery Owl (Cie), the winner of the December Challenge Narcissus, won with her:
Cheeky History With Ornery Owl: Sympathy for Narcissus.
Her tagline: Greetings, Class. Fasten your seat belts! Professor Ornery Owl has a history lesson and a proposal for you.
As our judge, Nick Wilford said: "A bit of everything here. Poetry, a history lesson and great satire. Really fun read."
Today Cie is talking about learning to live with ADHD and so much more. So take it away, Cie!
WORKING WITH MY UNCONVENTIONAL BRAIN
I will be 57 years old on February 15 of this year and I am
still learning how to work with my unconventional brain. I only realized a few
years ago that I have ADHD, a condition that is still misunderstood these days
and was certainly misunderstood when I was a child if it was acknowledged at
all.
I’ve heard all my life how I do everything wrong. I’ve heard
that I’m lazy, flaky, spacy, selfish. I was branded borderline retarded when I
was in the sixth grade because of my difficulty performing a pattern
recognition I.Q. test. Through all these things the one thing I believed was
that I had a modicum of talent as a writer, but that too came into question
when I heard time and again how if I couldn’t write a cohesive novel, I wasn’t
a real writer.
The problem is my mind loves to form subplots. Try as I
might, I couldn’t stop it from doing so. Writing was no longer enjoyable when I
couldn’t let the subplots fly. I realized that I would either need to stop
writing or allow myself to write the way I wanted to, regardless of whether
anyone else liked it or not.
In the introduction to my still-unpublished novel, The
Wizard’s Key, I stated that the book could either be read as a novel or as a
series of interrelated stories. I recently learned that the term for such a
book is a fix-up novel. Thus, I write fix-up novels rather than novels with a
laser-focused plot. It’s similar to what the Tenth Doctor said about time.
Rather than being linear, it’s more like a bunch of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.
In David Bowie’s video for the song Lazarus, David is
sitting at a desk attempting to write his thoughts on a long scroll of paper.
He realizes that he will never be able to get them all written down before it
is time for him to depart the world and he finds this distressing. I feel
similarly about all the stories in my head and the new ones forming every day.
If I lived for a thousand years, I’d probably never get them all written.
One of the things I started doing this year to become more
organized when it comes to creating stories for submission to anthologies or
other publications is to create a comprehensive quarterly list. I find
publications seeking stories at Literarium.com and arrange them in order of the
deadline date. If you’d like to download a copy of my first quarter list it is
available in PDF format from this link.
https://odysee.com/@naughtynetherworldpress:d/Publications-Seeking-Submissions-1st-Quarter-2022:7
Keep in mind that I only listed publications that I felt
would be a good fit for me. You’ll want to visit Literarium.com yourself.
For years I felt like I wasn’t a good writer because I
couldn't stick to word count guidelines like “you have to write at least 2000
words a day.” I generally average 500-1000 words a day on any story I’m
focusing on. One thing I’ve learned is that someone else’s guidelines may not
work for me and that’s fine.
My advice is don’t try to be someone else. I’ve spent a
lifetime learning that I can only be who I am and trying to accept myself as a
weird rhomboid peg that can never fit into a round hole no matter how hard I
try.
Ornery Owl
Visit Ornery Owl at her blog,
http://poetryofthenetherworld.blogspot.com/
~~***~~
Thank you so much for your guest post, Cie. How about you, readers? How do you feel about your writing challenges? It has been said that readers can tell when you are not honest in your writing. Do you consider yourself honest, open, free?
We'd love for you to tweet this post or share it to Facebook or your favorite social media site.
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#WEP NARCISSUS #WEPwinner #CHEEKYHISTORYLESSON…. #guestpost https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2022/01/wep-december-challenge-winners.html @DeniseCCovey, @YolandaRenee, @LGKeltner, @OlgaGodim @jemifraser #amwriting #writingchallenge
#WEP NARCISSUS #WEPwinner #guestpost #unconventionalbrain https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2022/01/wep-december-challenge-winners.html @DeniseCCovey, @YolandaRenee, @LGKeltner, @OlgaGodim @jemifraser #amwriting #writingchallenge
~~***~~
Our next challenge will be here before we know it! We hope many of you will consider joining us for our February challenge, All You Need is Love! The first of our Year of Music challenges.
All same shape, same size pegs are beyond boring. I for one like my pegs different, holes available for all, no issue. The single most important tip is the one about writing to please a readership of one (self). Thank you for the reminder!
ReplyDeleteHi Cie - what an excellent post ... I don't understand ADHD - but I have a better understanding of it in recent years ... which needs to be processed and accepted by me - as it's something I came across and spent a year in a family who had it ... but who, like you have done, could never address it per se.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your writing and adaption to it - if your stories are down, then in the years to come they can be found ... hopefully when you're still here - but if not anon.
Thanks for highlighting more about your ADHD - it gives me a greater understanding.
As Nila says - write for yourself ... your passion for writing shines through - all the best Hilary
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share this and thanks always for the ideas for future stories. I wish everyone happiness in their writing.
ReplyDeleteFabulous post, Cie! I wish we better understood the power of the brain in all of its various forms. As a teacher, I've seen the beauty of ADHD brains in action. I'm glad you've found a way to get your words down and celebrate your brain's style!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you are able to see things that way! With me, I was simply dismissed as stupid and a wool-gatherer. My son had a teacher who wanted him medicated, and when I refused to do so, she and the principal had him barred from returning to the school the next year.
DeleteThat's horrid!! It makes me very sad to hear that. I hope your son finds teachers in his life who support him!
DeleteI raised two sons with ADHD and getting them through school was a process I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I'm speaking about dealing with teachers and admin who had no understanding and couldn't be bothered to learn. I can only pray that things are changing but know from experience it will be a long hard haul for all. Thank you for writing about your journey, it will be a blessing for so many!
ReplyDeleteMy son doesn't learn from textbooks at all. He's very much a hands-on learner. I think it would be helpful to people with different learning styles if schools moved away from textbook learning to a more multi-faceted approach.
DeleteHooray for honesty, which so often includes some painful truths. And thank you so much for this piece - which I am sure is the tiny tip of a humungous iceberg.
ReplyDeleteThank you. It's a Titanic-sinking iceberg!
DeleteFirst, congratulations Cie on the win. Second, I may suffer from a different health issue, but I can relate to what you explain here. I admire your dedication to writing what feels best for you. I just wish all m ideas for stories, subplots, novels, etc., weren't gathering dust somewhere as I lack the courage to submit/finish what I started. Perhaps I didn't deal with rejection as a teenager in such an inspiring/encouraging way as you have done.
ReplyDeleteThank you for prodding me - and for the Doctor Who analogy. Keep on being you.
Thank you. I don't deal well with rejection at all. I prefer to self-publish, but I've been submitting to anthologies in recent months as well.
DeleteCongratulations on winning the challenge, Cie! ADHD must be difficult to live with, and I applaud you for your honesty. Everyone has their unique style and method when it comes to writing. It's great that you can express yourself without fitting into a mould. Three cheers for self-acceptance!
ReplyDeleteIt was more difficult when I didn't know what was going on and my butthead inner critic reinforced labels like flaky, lazy, and stupid. I'm far less self-accepting than the above post might make me appear.
DeleteGreat post, Cie. Many of us have issues or live with mental problems, and like you said, not everybody understands or accepts those who are different. But I believe that our struggles to understand and accept ourselves, to live our lives to the fullest despite being different make us stronger.
ReplyDeleteI was misdiagnosed as having type 2 bipolar disorder, which I believed I had until I ran out of Lithium and didn't have the money to buy more. When I had no supposed hypomanic states for six months, I realized that I didn't have bipolar disorder. The "bipolar" symptoms were part ADHD and part anxiety. It was my son who helped me realize that I had ADHD.
DeleteCie, a question. Is it Literarium.com or Literarium.net?
ReplyDeleteLiterarium.net
DeleteSorry about that!
Hey Cie, I love your guest post. It makes me think and that's always a good thing. I love how you've come to accept yourself as you're made and not trying to fit into anyone's idea of what you should be as a writer. As far as those daily word counts go, some days I write nothing, some days I write 1,000 words, some days 10,000 words. All depending on inspiration, perspiration and loving the story unfolding. Word counts shouldn't be bandied about as some goal (unless you are planning to write 10 books a year!)
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to seeing what you come up with in February!
Thank you! The self-acceptance bit varies, often in accordance with how severe my money problems are. I was raised to believe that if I wasn't wealthy I was a failure, and I'm living on disability income.
DeleteGreat post, Cie. Working with the mind you have seems like the only way to go. Which is something I might want to read over and think about, because some of my struggles with the current WIP are about not wanting to write too close to the bone.
ReplyDeleteWord counts, and anything anyone says you "must do to be a writer" are to be ignored entirely.
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ReplyDelete