In the past, I would be a regular little word dynamo, punching away at warp speed to get one out every 6-8 weeks. Now, however, four months since the last entry, Eight, was published, and that is no longer the case. And to your credit, those few of you who do reach out to me have not been impatiently banging on my proverbial door, for which I thank you.
So what has changed? Well, over a year ago, I was diagnosed with Inattentive ADHD. The Inattentive type of ADHD isn’t what most people. People with this type tend to fly under the proverbial radar, are usually less disruptive and active than those who have the predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type.
Symptoms of inattentive type include:
*missing details and becoming distracted easily
*trouble focusing on the task at hand
*becoming bored quickly
*difficulty learning or organizing new information
*trouble completing work or losing items needed to stay on task
*becoming confused easily or daydreaming frequently
*seeming not to listen when spoken to directly
*difficulty following instructions
*processing information more slowly and with more mistakes than peers
As I have spent quite a few months being supervised with the titration of the controlled medication they had prescribed me, trying to find the right balance that could help me without causing (too many) physical side effects, I have also had to face a psychological assessment, of how I deal with this diagnosis.
I have had this for most of my life, without being recognised. My introverted, antisocial, passive nature, either a symptom of the ADHD or a manifestation of it, has directed the course of my long and eventful life: dropping out of college, managing only a short term of service in the US Air Force, and then a long series of short-term jobs in the US and UK, all ending, some even by my own choice, while also diving into a marriage I was not equipped to manage. How different would my life have been if I had been identified and diagnosed decades ago?
ADHD, in its inattentive as well as its hyperactive types, is not a new thing. It was always there, but labelled other things: Troublemaker, Dreamer, Eccentric, Lazy, Bookworm, Oddball. And people who had it but didn't know what it was found ways of coping, of self-medicating through alcohol, smoking, drugs.
I wrote. I immersed myself in stories since I was a child, long before the birth and evolution of the Internet. My characters were my friends, the stories and worlds I created and controlled my sanctuary. No matter where I lived, what I did, that escape and command was my comfort, my drug of choice. An addiction, with frequent projects, most long forgotten.
Until eight years ago, when the Surefoot Universe was born. And I was immensely proud of how well it blossomed, and how readers identified and empathised with Esek, Kami, Sasha and the others, and my only regret was that I could not profit from it monetarily.
Occasionally through those eight years, however, some of you know that there were periods when I was submerging myself too much into it, to the detriment of my life away from the writing. But I would regulate and try again.
So what's happened? The aforementioned medication. It was never a panacea, sorting out all my issues, but it has helped me focus, regulate, devote my energies to where they need to be, and let me get more done in my real life, as both a worker and a partner/carer. But as a result, the drive to write has lessened. I'm mentally and physically tired at the end of the day; I want to chill and unwind, and writing feels more like a chore than a joy now. The current Surefoot Work in Progress has moved along in a few words every couple of weeks, and I'm certainly not motivated the way I used to be.
It probably hasn't helped that in my ambition I've pushed the Surefootiverse into a story arc involving a new location, new faces and ships, and literally dozens of new characters both good and evil. Which is fine if this was a full time, paying job.
And on top of everything else, the world seems to have slipped into the Mirror Universe, where the nation of my birth has seemingly demonstrated that they would sooner have a financially inept, morally corrupt, incompetent rapist as their Supreme Commander, so long as he isn't a black woman.
I genuinely fear for the innocents, for women, for people of colour, for everyone within the LGBTQIA community, for the undocumented families and the educators...
(And if you purport to be a fan of my work, of Star Trek in general, with our message of tolerance and inclusion and equality and compassion, but are also a supporter of the ideals of the Orange Man... reconsider one or the other, because both are unsustainable)
And I am fighting my lifelong instinct to put my proverbial head down, stay silent and take my White Male Privilege Cloak and assume that they won't come for me. Except that it doesn't matter if they aren't coming for me. They're coming for people who don't deserve it. They don't need a meek little kitten hiding behind the sofa.
They need a lion...
I am not stopping writing Surefoot. At some point, I will return to it; I can't help it. I might continue with this overconvulated storyline, or I might not. If I don't, and I don't give you the closure for certain characters or storylines that you deserve, I'm sorry. Those few of you in the wide, wide world who have taken the time to read and follow and comment have been ineffably wonderful to me, and I thank you.
Sometimes, the Universe Has Other Plans,,,
