This post has been transcribed from handwritten. 

It’s not writer’s block. It’s ADHD. It’s hormone deficiency. It’s perimenopause. It’s my brain either exhausted or wired, sludge at one time of the month, then running at full speed for a few days somewhere in the middle.

EXCEPT-EXCEPT-EXCEPT-by the time I grasp that my mind is actually functioning and catch up with enough (chores, errands, responsibilities) to feel like I might be able to write with out all of those things nagging at the back of my mind, weaving in and out of the story I’m trying to tell—it’s on the downswing again.

As I write this, the back of my brain is literally chanting, “I bought this green pen at a dollar store in the mountains.”

Maybe I should try to write with music, find some lofi wordless hum, but then I worry that my ADHD brain would want to [stares off into space for a full minute] spend a bunch of time picking out the ‘perfect’ music to write to {my perimenopausal brain keeps wanting to spell ‘write’ as ‘right’ and it’s pissing me off}.

I love that I have an answer for the reason I lose interest in writing projects and interrupt people and [stares off into space again] have to put my keys and wallet in my purse and always hang my purse here {mental picture of the black hook on the coat closet door} or I’ll lose it.

I hate that there was a slim to none chance of me being diagnosed sooner.

I despise that I cannot tell my mom this diagnosis because she’ll say ‘no you don’t/it doesn’t exist/you were just a weird kid/I hope you’re not taking those stimulants.’

I loathe that all the stories I started and never finished were probably because my brain was done getting dopamine from them. {Here’s looking at you, all the Nanowrimos I ‘won’ by getting to the 50k word deadline, only to quit writing, mid-story somewhere between 50,000 and 51,000.

–I’m using synonyms to work on by brain power—

I’m scared I’ll never write again because there is no deadline/deadlines I give myself aren’t good enough to make the brain go/I can’t get someone else to give me a deadline (publisher agent professional0 without proving first I’m good enough to deserve a deadline.

I know all my short stories are novels waiting to happen.

Should I write more short stories? Should I rewrite my goblin novel and make it more horror? Should I just keep writing it as-is, even though it doesn’t feel write (goddamnit) right to me, tone-wise? {I love the concept}. Should I just give up and lay down and say I wrote a bunch of short stories and a first draft of a novel and got published a few times and just give up?!

I DON’T WANT TO GIVE UP.

 What I want is for some semi-successful writer I admire—someone I would feel beholden to through sheer admiration—to magically appear and give me a deadline and a minimum word count and agree to read a chapter if I make it all the way through writing a whole novel.

I want to not have ADHD.

But, if I didn’t have ADHD, would my brain make the what-ifs that have allowed me to tell so many wonderful stories {if only mostly to myself}.

[stares off into space, then back at the notebook, then—you get it]

I slept from eleven-thirty last night until six-thirty am, and then took a nap from eight forty-five a.m. to ten a.m. and then drank coffee and cola and it’s close to eight in the evening now and I’m tired. So tired.

If stimulants allow me to focus and write, I don’t care if there is an evening crash. My brain already has them anyway.

{This—being ADHD—explains the late nights I spent most of my life having [Hey did you know I taught myself to tell stories in my head and/or listen to the background music in my skull—Radio JMFM—rather than my racing throught in order to fall asleep at a decent time?]}

I hate when I get the words wrong now. It feels like time is ticking down to when perimenopause/menopause or dementia or old age are going to steal my prized words [mental picture of Gollum in the cave with the ring].

Precious, not prized. My precious words.

I write this like my brain thinks.

I wonder if anyone would want to read it/if I should transcribe it.

The act of physically writing + listening to the cat’s drinking fountain has kept my brain busy {calm?} enough to focus.

I wonder how long after I stop until the music kicks back in—

–ope, there she goes [strains of “My Name is Jonas” by Weezer play from the backrooms of JM’s skull].

FIN