Friday Done List November 28

Thanksgiving Week Edition: Well, I made cranberry sauce from scratch this week, which was fantastic. Also, the gluten free salted chocolate chip cookie sandwiches I made for the first time were so good, they may become my holiday dessert.

But for work:

Goal 1. Write and Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor

Started a totally new humor piece that was not in my bullet journal for this week.

Checked out a lit journal and added it to my spreadsheet. May submit to it next week.

Goal 4. Play with the 19th Century Novel Idea, Which Does Have a Title, But is Mainly a Fun Think Piece

Okay, this is a strange one. I was with an eight-year-old family member who was working on his movie script. I asked him if he knew about making story boards. I got a confusing answer. But while he was working on his project, I drew a few little sketches of scenes for the 19th century novel for mine. Maybe I should be thinking about doing something with this.

Friday Done List November 19

 Goal 1. Write and Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor

• The essay version of Where Are the ADHD Characters in Adult Fiction was published at Books Are Our Superpower. 
• Registered for an Off Campus Writers' Workshop workshop.
• Spent a little time on a short story revision. I was pleased with the work and frustrated because I couldn't do more.
• Got another rejection a few hours ago. All these rejections suggests I'm working a lot harder than I think I am. At least on making submissions.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Promoted the above essay on Facebook and BlueSky
• Registered to take part in an Off Campus Writers' Workshop on-line sale for members. Of which I am one. This involves Saving the Planet & Stuff and is the first thing I've done for that book in quite some time. I don't expect to make any sales, but I'd enjoy having a little more of an identity with OCWW.
• One new Original Content post that is not a Friday Done List.

Goal 4. Play with the 19th Century Novel Idea, Which Does Have a Title, But is Mainly a Fun Think Piece

• I came up with a reason for the crime involved and a murderer! A new character. This happened while I was on the treadmill.
• Joined a Facebook group that deals with history related to this book.

A Story Behind the Story with My Search for Adult ADHD Characters

Heber Galindo @ Unsplash

 As writers often do, I repurposed some material. My two blog posts on the lack of ADHD characters in adult fiction became one essay on the subject, which was published today at Books Are Our Superpower. 

What I find fascinating about the three pieces I've published on adult ADHD characters in fiction...and promoted here and there...is that no one has responded with "Why, Gail, you are so very wrong about this. There are so many adult books with adult ADHD characters. Read this and this and this."

I would actually enjoy being told I was wrong and be referred to the kinds of books I've been looking for. But so far, nope. Nothing.

Friday Done List November 14

Here is the big, big news from this week: I have an eight-year-old family member who attends a movie club after school one day a week. After his day of third grade. As a result, he now knows what Freytag's Pyramid is. You know, the pyramid that describes plot structure? Movie club covered that.

This is a writing thing

He had a chart he'd drawn himself, which was better than this one I made, because it had more labels. I can't recall if he used the terms "rising action" and "resolution," but he sure knew what they were.

Just to be sure you're clear on what I'm talking about, he is eight-years-old and in third grade. I didn't learn about Freytag's Pyramid in college, even though I took at least four writing classes. Don't try to tell me it didn't exist when I was in college. Gustav Freytag was a nineteenth century writer. Of course, it existed when I was in college.

I didn't learn about Freytag's Pyramid until after I'd had at least a couple of books published by a traditional publisher. 

Now, there is a positive way to look at this and a negative way to look at this. 

• The positive way is that children are getting a really good education these days, aren't they? At least in movie club. 
• The negative way is that I had a really lame-ass writing education, and it is a freaking miracle that I got as far as I did.

And now on to the rest of my writing week.

Goal 1. Write and Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor

• Finished reworking the ADHD reading posts into an essay.
• Submitted the ADHD essay.
• I've been working on revising a humor piece into a short story. I kicked that up a notch this week, hoping to have it done for a themed submission.
• Received a rejection on a humor piece. That piece is somewhat essay-like, which means it can't be submitted to just any humor site. Some of them won't accept anything they perceive as an essay. Decided to send that to the lit journal that's made a call for humor pieces, instead of the one I mentioned before. Yes, I am making thinking and decision-making part of my done list.
• Submitted that rejected humor piece just this morning.
• Oh, yeah. I received another rejection. Gotta file that somewhere. 

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Attended an Author's Guild zoom talk on copyright. Not sure that that is an objective toward this particular goal, but I want credit, so I've got to put it somewhere.
• Came up with a new blog post idea. I haven't written it. Hope I don't forget it.

Friday Done List November 7

Yes, I am a day late with this. But it was a week of family visits, appointments, and I had to buy a snow blower, okay? And I still don't have the thing! Oh, also, I had to renew my library card.

It was not a highly productive week, but the point is to produce something toward your work goals. Done Lists reflect that.

Goal 1. Write and Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor

• Got the short story market research spreadsheet functioning. 
• Read for short story market research.
• Did a lot of work on the revision of my two ADHD posts into an essay, which I will then submit to a Medium publication.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Finished reading a book for a Native American Heritage Month post I'm planning to write for this blog.
• Got my library card renewed so I could get another book for Native American Heritage Month. So, yeah, getting that library card renewed was professional work. Damn straight.

Friday Done List October 31

This week involved mornings lost to a doctor's appointment, buying and taking care of groceries (which I try to do only twice a month in my desperate attempt to save time), and a telephone call appointment, which, of course, involved preparing for the call and post-call activity. All this came out of work time. 

I mention my loss of work time to my fascinating personal life, because it points out, once again, the value of a Done List. I hustled this afternoon to make a submission and get an essay started so I could put both items on my Done List. My week would have been far less productive without having knocked those tasks off.

Sadly, the letters I wrote to friends and relatives to include with Halloween cards do not count toward writing. Wait. Unless I can use something in one of those letters in an upcoming piece. Gasp! Also, I've started keeping a nature journal! I wrote a little bit in that last night. Could that turn into something some day? 

Goal 1. Write and Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor

• Received two rejections. Huzzah! That means I'm working!
• Resubmitted one of the rejected pieces.
• Found a publication I can submit a short story to if it is rejected by the publication that is considering it now. That is not negative thinking. That is planning.
• Tried to save and start using the short-form marketing spreadsheet Computer Guy made for me. Yeah, we need to do some work on that.
• Started an essay revision of my two ADHD adult character blog posts. By which I mean I have copied the blog posts into a Word document. Important first step before the cutting begins.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Wrote two blog posts on ADHD adult characters for ADHD Awareness Month. This took quite a bit of my available writing time this week, but I was very interested in the subject so there you go.
• Promoted both posts on Facebook and BlueSky. ADHD Awareness Month doesn't seem to have received much attention at either place.
• Spent a little time looking for short story writers on BlueSky.
• Did a Facebook post promoting some local book events coming up next month. That got more attention than ADHD Awareness Month.

ADHD Awareness Month: Still Looking for Adult ADHD Characters in Adult Books

With adult fiction dealing with ADHD characters there are two issues to consider: 1. Characters who are not intentionally created as being ADHD, readers see it in them. 2. Characters who are intentionally created as being ADHD. In my limited experience, there may be more of the first than the second.

Unintentional ADHD Characters

This is a matter of readers perceiving a character as ADHD whether or not the character is clearly identified as ADHD or whether or not the author intended to be writing an ADHD character. 

This Book Riot article, for instance, argues that Jane in Dread Nation and Ayoola in My Sister, the Serial Killer both have ADHD characteristics. I've read both books but before I became what I might call ADHD sensitive. Thus, I can neither support nor refute their characters' ADHDness. Certainly, these books were written in a time period when ADHD is recognized as ADHD and authors could be interested in creating ADHD-like characters, even if it wasn't discussed as such in the story.

But I've also found articles about characters in books from periods when the disorder must have existed and was even recognized within the medical world. But how much the general public and reading public knew about it is another thing. Were the authors modeling characters on people they knew with what we'd now recognize as ADHD characteristics? Were they intentionally creating ADHD characters, though they wouldn't have known that designation? 

Characters from older books who are sometimes believed to be ADHD-like include Sherlock Holmes and Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables. But the character from an older book that I frequently saw listed as having ADHD qualities is Emma from Jane Austen's Emma. 

Unlike the Sherlock Holmes stories and Anne of Green Gables, I don't believe I've ever read Emma. I made an attempt this past month, but the characters in that thing talk a lot. They talk about the neighbors, primarily. I used to have to finish reading a book once I'd started it, but not anymore.  

However, I did get through, I believe, 18 chapters and found some of the material sited by readers who find Emma to be an ADHD character. 

• She has been meaning to read more since she was 12, has made lists, but another character says he has given up expecting her to do any reading. 
• When her mother died, a character says, Emma lost the only person who could cope with her.
• Emma describes having been interested in painting portraits a few years before but had given it up in disgust and not one painting had been completed.
• At one point, Emma herself describes how little she's able to maintain attention.

I find Emma to be incredibly elitist and overall unpleasant, which has nothing to do with these ADHD type characteristics. I'm not at all sure what Austen was going for here.

Authors With ADHD: More Unintentional ADHD Characters?

Adult authors with ADHD include Rebecca Makkai and Mary Robinette Kowal, both of whom were diagnosed as adults, after they were established in their careers. Kowal has a marvelous short video on ADHD and writing.  In a conversation with Mindy McGinnis (The Female of the Species) Kowal says "I think I'm writing all of my characters as ADHD characters, but if I were trying to write a character who is explicitly ADHD, I wouldn't actually know how, because that's just the way my brain works all the time."

Now I had read the first of Kowal's Lady Astronaut books a few years ago, before ADHD was something I was what you might say sensitive to. I have no recollection of seeing anything ADHD-like in it. But for this ADHD Awareness Month project I read her book Ghost Talkers.

Kowal writes alternative history, and Ghost Talkers involves an alternative World War I-era world in which the British government employes mediums to work with recently deceased soldiers who are trained to report back to them immediately after being killed in order to pass on information about what is actually happening during battles. On the very first page the main character describes having to try to struggle to maintain control during a work session.  "She tried to hold the awareness at bay, along with the dozens of other spirit circles working for the British Army." "...if she weren't careful that would pull her back into her body." There are references throughout the book to her being in danger of coming unmoored, in danger of losing her grip, and dealing with thousands of memories at once. At another point, one of the ghosts has to struggle to focus.

Was Kowal using ADHD characteristics to create characters and even plot? Is this something other ADHD authors may do? Or is this just a reader finding what she's looking for in a text? 

Intentional ADHD Characters in Romance

I've read, more than once, that romance writers have embraced ADHD characters. In fact, you can find ADHD romance lists. I found Portrait of a Scotsman, a historical romance by Evie Dunmore, on a couple of ADHD romance lists. 

Right away in the first chapter the main (wealthy, of course) character is concerned that she has gone to the wrong address. "Or perhaps she had done it again...She squinted at the address, then back at the house number with full attention." She struggles with impulse control in a gallery. "...she shouldn't touch it. She really should not." When caught touching something she shouldn't have, she says, "I had not meant to touch it." She later describes how she had failed to get her mail that morning and thus didn't know about a cancellation. In a discussion with the male lead, she says, "...there's the matter of my attention...It is either scattered or directed with an unnatural focus. I lose track of time when I paint, for example."

She, and her family, are aware of her ADHD, even if they don't have a word for it.

She is also clearly dyslexic, however. The two conditions do sometimes occur together. Having seen  doctors about her inability to write without spelling errors or keep numbers in the correct order, her family is finally told that it's not her eyes causing the problem, but a sort of "word blindness." This leads her father to fear there is something wrong with her brain. Her brain is considered odd within the family, though the male lead in the story recognizes early on her superior visual memory.

We don't see a great deal about her conditions over the course of the story, but I think what we do see is mainly related to dyslexia. Dyslexia is like the autism I wrote about earlier. Neurotypical readers feel they know what it is and can recognize it. That would make it easier to show in fiction than ADHD.

My short study of ADHD adult fiction has been as interesting as it's been disappointing. I'll definitely be looking for ADHD in my adult fiction reading in the future.

ADHD Awareness Month: Where Are the ADHD Characters in Adult Fiction?

I have reached the end of my reading for the Heritage Months that were recognized by the U.S. government prior to 2025.  The State Department only recognizes Black History month now. The former history months can be found at an archived web page.  

That left me free this month to read for ADHD Awareness Month. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting how the brain works. People with the condition sometimes identify as neurodivergent, because they think differently than what is considered typical or neurotypical. (Remember that. I'm going to use the terms  later and needed to squeeze them in early, sort of like foreshadowing but different.) ADHD has become an interest for me, because we have a family member with the condition. Thus, I have a dog in this race, so to speak.

These days, adult books are also an interest for me. This month I was interested in finding adult fiction relating to ADHD. I came up really short on that. 

In children's fiction, there have been ADHD characters for years. Since back in the day when it was called just ADD, in fact, if not earlier. Why can't I find much in the way of adult fiction dealing with them?

You've probably guessed I have a theory.

Theory Part 1. Children's Gatekeepers Love a Fictional Problem

Problem books are a definite thing in children's fiction. This may be connected to the belief that children's books should be instructive, something that goes back to the nineteenth century, anyway. If a problem is addressed in a book, child readers can learn about it. Huzzah!

I also used to see a theory that problem books are easier to teach than, say, anything else, meaning problem books would have a good chance in the educational market. And then the school library market. And the parent and grandparent market. All the markets that buy children's books so kids can learn something.

Now there are excellent reasons for including ADHD characters in children's books, whether or not the book is specifically a problem book. Representation for ADHD readers is one of them. Opportunities for readers without ADHD to gain more understanding of the condition is another. I am going to argue that ADHD characters can also have something unique and interesting to add to a work of fiction, something new I haven't seen over and over again because I've been reading so very, very long.

But those reasons for including ADHD characters also exist for adult fiction. So why have I found it so difficult to find ADHD characters in adult works of fiction?

Theory Part 2. Adults Are Our Own Gatekeepers 

We adults have a great deal more flexibility in choosing our own free reading than children do. No one is assigning us meaningful books to read or insisting we read from an approved list of improving titles. Fiction around conditions as conditions doesn't appeal to us that much. If we have a condition or disorder we want to learn more about, our first thought isn't a novel, but nonfiction written by a professional of some sort. 

There is a great deal of ADHD nonfiction for adults.  A great deal. So many nonfiction lists.

But the lack of representation in fiction is fascinating. Perhaps if adult readers wanted to see ADHD characters, they would appear?  A market would be born! But my guess is that after having spent their youths seeing treatment of ADHD in children's literature as a problem to cope with, neither those with ADHD or those without it are wildly enthusiastic about having to read more.  

Theory Part 2, Subsection A. Writers Don't Know How to Write ADHD.

But why aren't there characters with ADHD in books that are not specifically about ADHD? After all, other neurodivergent characters, and I'm thinking autistic ones here, appear in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and The Maid. (Both mysteries for what that's worth.) I've recently finished watching the wonderful French TV series Astrid et Raphaelle, a clever, even witty, buddy cop story in which one of the cops is autistic. So neurodivergent characters can be successful in fictional worlds.

I'm going to do some speculating here and throw out a guess that neurotypical audiences and gatekeepers believe they know the common characteristics of some types of autism--lack of eye contact and stimming, for instance, and sensitivity to sound. These happen to be characteristics that are relatively easy to show. 

Though knowledge of ADHD behaviors goes back at least to the beginning of the twentieth century, it became far more known among the neurotypical public around the 1980s. At that time, it was generally thought of as involving struggles to pay attention in school and impulsive behavior. Those general issues are harder to quickly use in a piece of fiction for adults than the issues general readers and writers associate with autism. In an adult book the results of having had trouble in school, something that happened in the past, or the results of being impulsive would probably be easier to work into a story than the real time school problems and impulsive behavior.

ADHD was also associated with children at that point in the late twentieth century. It appears to have taken the literary world a while to recognize that ADHD children grow up to become ADHD adults.

Or that ADHD can go undiagnosed until adulthood.

Perception of ADHD in the Twenty-first Century

These days a great deal more is known about what ADHD involves, things we so called neurotypicals had never heard of a few decades ago. In addition to the famous difficulty focusing attention and impulsive behavior we now know about:

• Hyperfocus--The ability to stay fixated on a subject or project for lengthy periods of time, which, yes, seems unexpected since superficially ADHD is seen as the inability to maintain attention. I've witnessed this.
• Sensory processing issues--This can involve any of the senses, including taste and smell. Connected to the eating problems in some people with ADHD? I've witnessed this, too. Though there are other reasons ADHD can be accompanied by eating problems.  
• ADHD paralysis--Sensory overload or overload from having too many options or tasks to complete, so the individual just shuts down. Maybe collapses on the couch. Yes, I've witnessed this.
• Anxiety--Anxiety is common in people with ADHD. I have witnessed this, too.
• Hypersensitivity to rejection/criticism--Or maybe even perceived rejection/criticism? Yes, yes, you've guessed it. I've witnessed this.

Those are just aspects of ADHD that my shallow knowledge of the subject has turned up. They could definitely be used to create unique, well-rounded characters.

In another post I'll cover some books I read in my attempt to find ADHD adult fiction, including older books ADHD readers look to to find themselves, a genre that is supposed to be taking the lead in including ADHD characters, and a little bit about some ADHD writers.  

Friday Done List October 23

I missed two days of work today to attend a family event--a pleasant one, not a funeral. I still have some cleaning up for that, because I don't travel lightly. And I have a lot of life things to do that I didn't do while I wasn't here.

What I'm getting at is that this is the kind of week when a Done List is really important. You can reassure yourself that you did something, no matter how small. Also, as the day for the Done List draws closer, you'll find yourself hustling to get a few more things done to add to it. An example? For goal one I resubmitted a story I might have wait until next week for but I wanted to look good on my Done List.

Goal 1. Write and Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor

• Submitted the humor piece I talked about for three weeks. Now four, because I'm talking about it now.
• Received rejection on that humor piece.
• Resubmitted that rejected humor piece to another site, one that I have never submitted to before.
• Believe I worked a bit on the book chapter being revised into a short story.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Did some promotion for an essay published the end of last week.
• Did quite a bit of work on a blog post I hope to publish soon.
• Came up with another blog post idea! One that can become an essay to submit!
• Came up with still another blog post idea!

Goal 3. Submit Book-length Work to Agents and Editors 

• Am considering a new agent to submit one of my books to. This came about within hours of me telling my cousin I wasn't doing that anymore, unless a name dropped into my lap. And that's sort of what happened.

Goal 4. Play with the 19th Century Novel Idea, Which Does Have a Title, But is Mainly a Fun Think Piece

• Made some notes on this. 

Friday Done List October October 17

Not my best week, but a Done List certainly makes clear that it could have been a lot worse. As it probably will be next week when I'm going away for an overnight.

Goal 1. Write and Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor

• Worked some more on revising a book chapter into a short story. You remember...I mentioned it last week?
• Also last week I told you that I'd nearly finished a second draft of a humor piece that I'd mentioned the week before. Three weeks. I think it's ready to submit, but I need to go make some bread, so I'm going to wait until tomorrow, because I don't like to rush these things. Three weeks!
• Finished the essay revision of two blog posts about Hispanic American literature.
• Submitted the above essay to Books Are Our Superpower.
• Oh, and look! It has been accepted. Well, that's gratifying.
• Did research for the short-form market project. One publication. I looked at one publication. It accepts flash shorter than I write now. But maybe I'll submit something in the future, because I did like what I had time to read there.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Wrote and posted a humor study blog post.
• Promoted the humor study blog post on Facebook, BlueSky, and Goodreads
• Found an article on building up a BlueSky following. For what that's worth.
• Have just barely begun a new blog post.