I’ve been working on a book series for five years. By working on, I mean “thinking about.” I’ve never felt any motivation to type any of it. It was mostly formless in my mind. I had a concept. A question. I teach AP Seminar and Research, so it was like what my students have to start with. I’ve seen issues in the world, and I had a big “What if…”
Every night as I fell asleep I would visualize and fantasize a world that answered my big question. I looked forward to it because it’s delightful to think about. Yet it never progressed into anything. The way I think about problems, I mostly came up with obstacles and more questions instead of answers. And I certainly didn’t come up with plot. Or characters. The hobgoblin of fiction would whisper, “But what about… And that won’t work because… And what if…”
Then last year, my coworker finished and self-published the novel he’s been talking about writing for ten years. Was I happy for him?
Hell, no.
I was envious. Resentful. I’m a petty bitch.
I once asked him how he found time to write, being a full-time teacher and a parent of many children.
“Honestly? My wife.”
No shit. But I don’t have a wife. As Judy Brady Syfers famously asked in Ms. Magazine in 1972, “Who wouldn’t want a wife?” See also my post about my fantasy personal assistant. What couldn’t we do if we all had a Trad Wife? It’s the equivalent of a celebrity’s personal assistant except you don’t have to pay her. Of course he could write a novel. He didn’t have to cook, clean, do the taxes, take the kids to and from school or parties or playdates or orthodontist and doctor appointments. He didn’t have to take the car in to be serviced. He didn’t have to regulate the emotions of a husband and two teen daughters.
And then I started psychoanalysis with a highly-trained and talented practitioner. After about a year, I had to admit the problem wasn’t not having a “wife,” the problem is me. I don’t like to work hard. I’m lazy. It’s okay that I’m lazy-a lot of people are lazy. It doesn’t make me a bad person. It makes me a person who doesn’t have a novel written.
A few months ago I was watching a You Tube video after work and I took out one of the long, skinny notebooks with a rigid backing that my journalism students use for reporting. They’re easy to hold and write on while you’re standing up with no surface to write on. They’re designed for it. I grabbed my favorite pen (Pilot Dr. Grip Gel, if you’re curious) and wrote some thoughts and insights in cursive.
I love writing in cursive. I rarely have the chance. My students can’t read it, so I have to mark their essays in careful, time-consuming printing. My cursive is elegant, neat, and beautiful. I can write almost as quickly as I think the words. When I started putting thoughts down about my novel series, I was under a spell.
A magic cursive spell! The Muse was in my pen. I must have covered 20 of those long skinny pages with notes, questions, details, information from the YouTube videos I was watching for research. And you know what? I didn’t stop. It happened the next day. And the next. And it’s happened ever since. I’m writing every day and loving it. I’m building an entire world from scratch and solving logistical problems that used to nag me and kill my inspiration. Plot ideas have emerged. Characters are slow to come because that’s a weakness of mine. It requires an introspection I like to avoid. A vulnerability to inhabit a person I made myself. And then I have to put that person through Hell. Creating characters hurts me. I’m excited though, because about a week ago, I started hearing their voices and their opinions and they’re starting to creep into my notes.
My wise sister suggested that the creative part of my brain is connected to my hand and to my cursive writing. Do you ever hear someone say something like that, just an off-hand observation and it hits so hard you stop in your proverbial tracks? That was this comment for me. Yes! My story was locked up behind my distaste for typing. It was stuck in the ether and in my imagination, and my hand holding a pen is the conduit. Cursive is the grease that makes the ideas flow.
Is it convenient that all of the dozens of pages of ideas are written out in cursive? Nope. But it’s hardly insurmountable. Besides, I haven’t started writing any plot yet. I’m planning. I’m world-building. And, Constant Reader, it is SO satisfying. I’m in love with doing it.
I hope some of you will come along on the journey with me. At some point I will publish. I don’t know in what format. Sometimes I think a serialization where I put out chapters at a time. Other times, I just have no idea, but I know I’ll figure it out because I want to. I’m aching to. I’m hungry to!
I used to give up on writing before I ever started. Old voices from my childhood teased me that I’d never get published, that I’d never make any money, that EVERYONE wants to be a writer and what makes YOU so special? Even hard-working talented people never “make it.” But my intention and my desire is to write and to be read. That’s it. I just want to be read. And I believe that will happen, so I’m going to write my book series.
If you’re curious about Judy Brady Syfers piece from 1972, it’s amazing. https://www.thecut.com/2017/11/i-want-a-wife-by-judy-brady-syfers-new-york-mag-1971.html
Consider supporting me on Patreon. https://patreon.com/TheFriendlyPedant?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
The Friendly Pedant by Mrs. Odie 
My So-Called ADHD Life
I don’t know if I have ADHD, but it’s a convenient short hand for me to describe how I move in the world. It’s the self-diagnosis of the year, so if I say “That’s just my ADHD” brain, everyone understands and it saves time. I no longer have to say:
“Look. I don’t know why I do what I do. Yes, I told you I’d look at your essay for your college application later today, but then that conversation was zapped from my memory Men in Black style. I just forgot it happened. I didn’t want to forget, I even wrote myself a little Post-it and stuck it on my computer. And my brain just integrated that Post-it note into “what my computer looks like now” and I didn’t see it as anything of note (haha, get it? Of NOTE!). That reminds me of a story…”
Instead, I can say Yes, I will look at it but text me at 5 if I haven’t done it yet because I have ADHD and as soon as I have a new conversation with someone today, I will forget I ever talked to you until you remind me.
The popularity of DSM-V (are we on V? Is it IV? or VI?) goes back to the 1980s. Maybe earlier, but I was born in the 70s, so I can’t be expected to remember anything before that. In the early 90s every headline was about Depression. It may seem unimaginable now, but no one said “I think I have Depression” before the 90s. It’s probably because there were no anti-depressant SSRIs to publicize, so no one needed to Search Engine Optimize a diagnostic term. We only had the adjective “depressed.” Which was like “sad” only more sophisticated.
About ten years ago, everyone went crazy for Sociopaths. You thought they were only in your horror movies and nightmares? No! They’re in CEO boardrooms and surgical theaters. Suddenly there were “Sociopath Tests” and books about “Snakes in Suits.” The protagonists of popular TV dramas became sociopaths you root for like Walter White, Joe Goldberg, Tony Soprano, and Dr. House, leading us to question, “Can I change him?”
Move over, Sociopath, it’s time for Narcissist. It’s like a Sociopath but sexier. Everyone on a Reality Show is a Narcissist, but only one or two are Sociopaths. We call them “The number one guy in the group.” Therefore it’s far more sticky a topic for social media. Those popular books from the Sociopath Era taught us that many former presidents were probably Sociopaths, but ALL of them are Narcissists. I mean, come on. You have to be a Narcissist to think about the most powerful job in the world and think, “That should definitely be me.”
Plus, for those who love to classify and divide, there are a bunch of types of Narcissist: overt, covert, antagonistic, communal, malignant, Tom Sandoval…
And suddenly we are all psychiatrists who can diagnose strangers and make a whole YouTube channel about it! And it’s great fun. It feeds the parts of our psyches that seek to understand other people and their motives because we’re designed to do that for our own social survival. Which is actual survival because we’re social animals.
Welcome to 2025, the year of ADHD and AuADHD (for those lucky stiffs who are also autistic).
No doctor has diagnosed me, and I don’t really see the point because I’m not going to do anything different with “an official diagnosis.” I’m not going to go on medication for it, no matter how much it would help –I just can’t take another damn pill, pen, patch or cream. I just use “ADHD” as a shorthand to help those I interact with to keep their expectations realistic.
Take my blog (please. And support me on Patreon). It’s embarrassing how many times I’ve promised to blog more often or get back to blogging and then just never do it. Maybe you imagine me trying and failing to write. Sitting at my computer attempting drafts then- finding them wanting- not publishing them?
Naw, son. I just forget my blog exists. Out of sight, out of mind. Poof. Gone.
Another thing my brain does is see connections and themes across media and everything else. It’s great for my job as an English teacher and it made Comparative Literature the perfect major for me. I think it would make me an excellent FBI agent, but I’d probably forget that is my job and totally boof it.
I don’t know why The Goddess in her infinite jest wisdom created me to remember nearly everything I’ve ever read, watched, or thought about TV shows, books, and movies then made me an amnesiac in my actual life such that I forget I’m supposed to make dinner, but here we are.
It’s also terrible for my job as an English teacher because as soon as I see one of those connections my lesson plan goes out the window and I chase that rabbit down that hole, delightedly info-dumping my insight on my students until I forget what the original lesson plan was even about.
Lesson plan. OMG, who are we kidding. I have ADHD. I plan my lessons in the car on the way to school.
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