Editing Techniques for Writers with ADHD

Let’s pretend you live and breathe writing: Your blog is a labor of love, you’re passionate about the YA novel you’ve been writing for months, and you enjoy writing articles for your clients. But also imagine this: You’re easily distracted by random thoughts, overlook important directions, and miss crucial details you were supposed to include. 

Both scenarios are the reality for professional writers with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). 

ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that restricts a person’s ability to concentrate and control impulses. It’s not a simple childhood disorder; among adult cases, 41.3% are deemed severe, according to the CDC. 

It can seem impossible to edit long-form writing like a feature article, an educational e-book, or even a novel with ADHD. You have to have the commitment, patience, and detailed precision to make your draft as clean and reader-friendly as possible, especially if you don’t have an editor or proofreader. However, you don’t have to let ADHD control your editing time. There are ways to mitigate your symptoms so that you can edit your long-form document no matter how close to the deadline it is.

How To Write the Perfect Introduction

Picture this: You have an incredible idea. You think it has beautiful promise, and as you eagerly open your word document, already imagining what the finished product will look like, you run into one little problem. 

You’re stuck on the first paragraph. You can’t even get past the third sentence without backspacing every imprecise word because it sounds horrible.

Well, you’re not alone. Writing an introductory paragraph might be the most challenging task for any writer. The first sentence has to be sharp and witty; an attention-grabbing line to accompany an intriguing headline, but one that can assure the reader that you’re still discussing the topic at hand. The paragraph has to be short yet long enough to present the arguments that will be addressed. It requires creativity and intimate knowledge of what the audience wants.

Forget Quantity or Quality: Why You Need to Be a Consistent Writer

To write every day is a useful but predictable piece of advice for aspiring writers.

From Jodi Picoult to Haruki Murakami, authors often associate a successful writing career with daily writing. It’s a useful tip because it’s practical, conventional, and easy enough to understand.

This advice, however, teaches you to value only the quantity of your writing—to measure only how many blog posts you can publish in a week, or how many articles you can submit in a month.

5 Writing Exercises You Can Do on Your Lunch Break

If you ever tackled a creative writing project, then you know that writing is a labor akin to moving a boulder up a hill. If you’re a writer, then it’s a labor of love––it takes time, work, and dedication that you wouldn’t trade for the world. But if you’re one of many Americans working more than 40 hours a week, it can leave you mentally exhausted from doing your job and finding time to write. I know it was not too long ago when I worked full time at a demanding job. To say the least, it didn’t leave me much time to write.

Or so I thought.