The Life of an ADHD Author

As a fantasy author who struggles daily with my ADHD, I often find myself questioning all of the decisions that I make about my characters, the world that I created, and even the plot that I outlined. Most obstacles thrown at me are easily overcome, which thankfully prevents me from falling into a depressive episode and spiraling into my own self-doubt.

Sometimes, however, my neurodivergent brains throws me off. The most recent way that it’s done this was so strange that I could do nothing except laugh. I forgot what I decided would be the character motivation for my shapeshifter antagonist in my work-in-progress, “The Siren’s Storm”, which will be the second installment in the “Songs and Storms” series.

That’s right. I FORGOT the motivation that is supposed to be driving one of the most IMPORTANT characters in my novel. Actually, in ANY novel. The antagonist is essential to any story, and I forgot why mine acts the way that they do – the reason that they have for even being the antagonist. HOW does someone forget something like that?

So, I am now re-reading everything that I have written of this story in an attempt to rediscover what drives my character. Or, at the very least, to get some new, and hopefully improved, idea for their motivation.

Does anyone else struggle with their neurodivergency causing them to forget important information? What do you all do to either prevent this or work around it?

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