In February of 2020, I had a brilliant idea for a novel — how a three-storey house in London kickstarted the revolutionary movement for Indian independence. Everything felt kickass. What could go wrong?
The pandemic straightaway messed things up, of course. And then I found out I was pregnant the day before lockdown was announced. So I wrote 40,000 words in a few months, and then got too big to sit comfortably and write anymore. I took a break for several months, and then started writing again when my baby was 6 months old.
It was hard to get back to a writing schedule that, in the best of times, had been iffy and stressful. Now with WFH and a baby, it was next to impossible. But I persisted.
I realized over Thanksgiving 2021 that I had everything wrong, and needed to rejig everything. I seriously replotted my book over December and January, added all the new research I’d found that was making things awkward in its previous form, and horror of horrors, decided to follow a beat sheet so my novel actually feels like a novel and not a recounting of events that took place.
I seriously began rewriting in March 2021. By April 2021, I had 35,000 words rewritten in a new draft. Very thrilling.
But then I was beset by a string of family issues and had to go away for six weeks, infant in tow. While we all assumed having family around would make childcare much easier and I would be able to write thousands of words everyday, it didn’t work like that. My daughter was at the peak of separation anxiety, and couldn’t tolerate me being out of sight for one second. With difficulty, I added 10,000 words to my draft by June 1. Another 20 days, and I added barely 5000 more words.
Now it’s June 22, and my draft sits at 55,000 words.
I need to add another 45,000 by hook or crook. I’m tired of constantly changing goalposts. My draft is supposed to be finished “in 30 days” everyday, and it never happens. This is exhausting and frustrating and all I’d like is to just finish writing this and move on to my next project (which is a very exciting sequel that takes place in the San Francisco Bay Area and involves Indians teaming up with the Germans to kick the British out of India).
While these difficulties are normal for any novelist, I have an additional challenge — I have ADHD.
Well, not really ADHD. I’m told it’s called SCT — Sluggish Cognitive Tempo. My brain apparently works just a little slower than everyone else’s. I didn’t know about it until about six years ago, and prior to that I just assumed I was messed up for reasons unknown. Knowing it was called SCT just helped me stop hating myself and focus on the way forward.
Which wasn’t much TBH. I tried a lot of productivity stuff and therapy, and a few other things, and none of it really made much of a lasting difference.
But then, I came across this book called Scattered by Gabor Mate, and suddenly it felt like my ADHD made infinite sense given my background. This coincided with the time I went to visit family, and it became very clear to me that several family members have ADHD (but they coped and managed really well) and it was no surprise I had a ton of bad coping techniques ingrained in me as well.
As I try to unravel it all and become better, I realize I keep making the same mistakes again and again. My progress needs to be in one place so I can continue to move forward instead of taking so many steps backward each time.
So. This pub will be looking at my writing progress everyday with the lens of my mental health.
Be kind. Here goes nothing.