Looking for advice (or maybe just a pat on the head).

I recently read 'delivered from distraction' on the advice of my pshrink. I found lots of great bits in there (mostly "OHIO") and would recommend it to anyone looking for some empathy. The author has some good ideas.

In any event the issue that's really under my skin of late is my inability to finish a creative project. I have 2 chapters each of several books. I have the music to 10-20 songs and the lyrics to an additional dozen. I have half-symphonies, parts of chamber music pieces, plays, musicals, etc etc. Ive even gone so far as to record tracks to half a dozen pieces.. and I can't seem to get any of them finished! Its making me insane. All around me I see people starting after me, finishing before me and going on to do the v things that I want to be doing. I thought I was beyond jealousy but its eating me up these days.

Is this just 'writers block'? I don't think so. Getting the initial 'seed' to a work isn't tough. Its getting traction to the final product that seems so elusive. One bit from DFD is "don't obsess by what you can't do." It seems like finishing a creative work falls into that category. I'd be willing to concede that it may just never happen except that envy is starting to really eat at me. Im getting to the point where I can't even appreciate what my wife and kids are accomplishing Im so jealous / mad at myself.

Goofy as it may sound the only thing that seems to help is to blame this whole life on karma. My lesson is to learn humility. And I'll keep living this until I can let my own ambition go. Crazy? Maybe. Im not a 'spiritual' person by nature. It just seems to fit though. If I can laugh about it then maybe Im not so far gone.

I guess this falls into the 'pat on the head' category. Im done whining now.

get an editor or writing partner or mentor?

Get his second better 2005 book, "Delivered from Distraction." It's the solution book...lot's of info. Not being able to complete tasks, close, follow through, tend to all the details, etc., and having many open (interesting)projects are hallmarks of ADD.

Realize it's tough to put a winning game plan together for each unique ADDer. You're like a starting pitcher who needs a decent middle reliever and an awesome closer. David Neeleman, CEO of jetBlue & a creative genius, admits he can't close without his assistant & helpers: keeping him on track, on schedule, sending out letters for him, bills, etc.

QueensU Girl is on the right track. "What's gonna work? ... Team-work!!" [The Wonder Pets.] Now go get your first strike-out! :cool:

P.S. See: http://www.addforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=563024#post563024

ethr,

You could try being kinder to yourself. Don't think of it as 'writer's block' think of it more as a ‘creative pause’ and see if that helps. lol

Do you think that you might be a perfectionist as well as ADD? I know I am and that's one of the reasons I have a very hard time finishing some projects. It's the "what if I finish and it doesn't meet my standards" panic. Sometimes procrastination and frustration at what might be, are easier to deal with than disappointment in what is. Certain confirmed failure seems so much more crushing than just the possibility of failure.

You might think "What if you finish the projects and suddenly realize they are no good?" Or "They are great but you have lost all creativity and drive and are never inspired again for anything...ever" Both very unlikely but sometimes internal dialogue doesn't make a lot of sense. Fear creates many illogical ideas and worries that when said out loud or to another person just seem ludicrous. I'm sure your motivation is out there somewhere. When you finally finish your projects the world will still be spinning and they will be everything you wanted them to be.

I realize that I have probably stopped making sense myself or am about to so I'll wrap it up. I have no clue if this is even close to something that might be going on for you but just thought I'd throw another possibility out there.

Big time perfectionist-procrastinator-ADHD-OCD. Yes, I know exactly how you feel, but your answer lies in your last post.

You just did your best posting in real time. You didn't fret about it or procrastinate. You knew it wasn't perfect yet put it out. It was great. You got your point across. The rest is fluff which can be honed for a premiere performance.

Now go and do the same with your work. 20% of effort usually yields 80% of the intended results.

Also, you are depriving your work of an essential tool without which your work never will be perfect or well-received: Failure. It's human nature to fail, and failure will imbue your remaining work with soul, true spirit, authenticity etc.

"Perfect" Creation vs. Creation from Failure. It's like comparing the "perfection" of easy listening music to, say, Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody or John Lennon's Imagine.

Just go and soar, oh so high, my Phoenix. :cool:

Looking for advice (or maybe just a pat on the head).

I recently read 'delivered from distraction' on the advice of my pshrink. I found lots of great bits in there (mostly "OHIO") and would recommend it to anyone looking for some empathy. The author has some good ideas.

In any event the issue that's really under my skin of late is my inability to finish a creative project. I have 2 chapters each of several books. I have the music to 10-20 songs and the lyrics to an additional dozen. I have half-symphonies, parts of chamber music pieces, plays, musicals, etc etc. Ive even gone so far as to record tracks to half a dozen pieces.. and I can't seem to get any of them finished! Its making me insane. All around me I see people starting after me, finishing before me and going on to do the v things that I want to be doing. I thought I was beyond jealousy but its eating me up these days.

Is this just 'writers block'? I don't think so. Getting the initial 'seed' to a work isn't tough. Its getting traction to the final product that seems so elusive. One bit from DFD is "don't obsess by what you can't do." It seems like finishing a creative work falls into that category. I'd be willing to concede that it may just never happen except that envy is starting to really eat at me. Im getting to the point where I can't even appreciate what my wife and kids are accomplishing Im so jealous / mad at myself.

Goofy as it may sound the only thing that seems to help is to blame this whole life on karma. My lesson is to learn humility. And I'll keep living this until I can let my own ambition go. Crazy? Maybe. Im not a 'spiritual' person by nature. It just seems to fit though. If I can laugh about it then maybe Im not so far gone.

I guess this falls into the 'pat on the head' category. Im done whining now.
First off, welcome to our wonderfull family here. and second I dont call it whining as much as I call it venting or getting things off of our shoulders. I think we all go thru this, I know I do. It is very frustrating I know. remeber that you are you and you can not duplicate nor can you acheive what others around you are doing, as I said in another post, we need just to be us.

Looking for advice (or maybe just a pat on the head).

In any event the issue that's really under my skin of late is my inability to finish a creative project. I have 2 chapters each of several books. I have the music to 10-20 songs and the lyrics to an additional dozen. I have half-symphonies, parts of chamber music pieces, plays, musicals, etc etc. Ive even gone so far as to record tracks to half a dozen pieces.. and I can't seem to get any of them finished! Its making me insane. All around me I see people starting after me, finishing before me and going on to do the v things that I want to be doing. I thought I was beyond jealousy but its eating me up these days.

I know EXACTLY what you're talking about. One day you spend hours hyperfocused on a new project--it's all you can think about, and you think finally perhaps you've had a breakthrough. Then something else requires your attention (sleep, day job, whatever), and when you come back to it, you just can't muster any enthusiasm or interest in the project. Lack of interest = lack of ideas = lots of staring at the page thinking, "Now what?"

I have about a dozen published pieces vs. at least a couple reams of dead ends over the past few years. And what I do finish lacks depth, imo, because I can't hang in there long enough to get to the really interesting stuff. Right now I have two short stories and two poems in progress that have been open in Word for several days, because I'm afraid I'll forget I was working on them if I close the files.

I've run through all the usual suspects with therapists and mentors--perfectionism, writer's block, etc.--to no avail. It's a big part of why I've been on Concerta for a month, and also why I'm thinking about trying other meds.

Also, there's a book I'm thinking about cracking again. The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. It's a 12-week course in recovering one's creativity, which sounds hokey as hell, but I found the couple weeks I managed to work through previously quite helpful. And it came up in conversation recently with a guy whose name I can't drop because he's famous. The minute he mentioned the book I started laughing my *** off, because I suddenly felt a whole lot less stupid for being a sensitive soul in need of creative recovery.

Oh, and my ex just got a book deal, so yeah, green monster. :D

Wish I had more than empathy to offer, but good luck!

Also, a sympathy poem. When I wrote this about a year ago, I didn't know I was writing about writing with ADHD, but it fits.

Dud Helix (fragment)

As in unborn.
As in misfire. As in some god had a .357
and the safety
got stuck full metal languor
in the chamber. As in
the word still lodged between glistening folds of
a massive right
lung. As in Speak! As in fist under
the ribs
just like in the diagram and pull and pull and
nothing

FWIW one book that has always 'spoken' to me is 'The War of Art'. I keep it by the bed side and can find a pearl on almost every page. Its easy to pick it up at any point and just read. It's more about distraction ('resistance' is the term the author uses) as a palpable entity though.

Scattered - yeah I hear you. The 'well I liked this *yesterday*' feeling hits hard. Having the follow-through to pick up the work again is tough indeed. But then I ask myself - if it doesn't move me later is it worth pursuing? Therein lies the frustration.

I think the message I need to keep in mind is that 'its about the journey - not the destination'.

But then I ask myself - if it doesn't move me later is it worth pursuing?

Ethr, one strategy is to decide in advance that you're not going to answer that question when it comes up. Dismiss it as the ADHD talking and commit to spending a certain percentage of your creative time on things you've already started. Yes, journey not destination. Learning to follow through--creating a kind of muscle memory for it--is well worth the time spent, even if the piece you're working on is ultimately for the recycling bin.

I've been trying to do that myself, and your post reminds me that I need to redouble my efforts in that direction.

One thing that has really helped me feel better about taking that leap of faith is editing. Good writing is the exception, not the rule, and even well-established authors write and submit some dreadful work. Editors expect that, because no one ever stops writing badly sometimes. And most writers are notoriously poor critics of their own work. It's not just the inability to see their own mistakes, but an inability to see when they've succeeded too. That's why they let editors sort it out for them.

One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post was writing groups. *smacking own forehead* If you're not already involved in one, try searching online for a group in your area that meets regularly to share and discuss work. Having an audience for work-in-progress can be a great motivator because the weekly or monthly meetings are like deadlines, and you can lean on other people's enthusiasm for a piece when you're not feeling it yourself.

My inability to finish my own personal projects is what drove me to finally get diagnosed and get on some medication for my ADD. I began my professional career as a 3D modeler working in the gaming industry. I really enjoy that particular specialty of my profession, and all I wanted to do was model and eventually get into an art director role. Several things caused my career to derail, ADD being just one of the problems, economic forces being another. More and more, following the need to have paying work, I wound up more of a graphic artist and illustrator, something that I do enjoy doing, but it isn't my passion, it's more of a means to an end. After having been a freelance graphic design contractor for 3 years, I decided enough was enough about a year ago, and that i would get myself back into being a 3D modeler, where I had the greatest job satisfaction.

I've always been able to mask my ADD in a work environment using various complicated coping schemes that I had developed over the years. I found that I performed well in an office environment because I never had complete control over a project, as an employee I was always a cog in the machine, responsible for only one part of the whole, and answered to only limited authority. Getting work done was exhausting but possible, and any problems that would come up were easily deflected to loss of efficiency in the production chain.

Deciding to get back on track with my career meant having to develop a new portfolio of work to demonstrate my skills to any prospective employer. Here is where I really ran into trouble. Developing my own work from start to finish was something I hadn't done in years, and I just couldn't get started, and what I started would always looked bad to me, wrong, and I would never complete anything I started. It was complete and total "writers block". It's not like I suffered from lack of ideas, or that I was unskilled, or even that work was bad, it wasn't. Logically, my new portfolio didn't need to look a work of genius, it didn't need to set the world on fire, or reinvent the wheel. It just needed to competently explain what my abilities are, but no matter what I started I couldn't get beyond the insecurity of feeling that the work that I was doing wasn't good enough, even though i knew that it wasn't true. After months of this with nothing to show (and losing income because I needed to make time to do this) I finally had enough and went to see my doctor.

So, now, being on medication has squelched that internal negative dialog that told me I was always on the wrong track. I can pay attention to my logical mind and keep projects organised in a linear manner, and best of all complete them.

Probably the most important change has been the reinforcement of the "keep it simple" concept. What I always knew, but why did I always stray from it? (well, the ADD of course):
- Not every project I work on is going to be perfect, or reflect all of my abilities.
- Perfection is irrelevant due to it being impossible to achieve.
- Each project only needs to reflect one aspect of skill. One project may show great modeling ability, another may be textured (painted) well, yet another may be good only for the way light has been used, etc...

Very rarely a project may come together in such a way that almost everything is done well. That's a bonus and I'll take them as they come, but in the mean time it's more important to continue to concentrate on getting just one thing right at a time, because without that, the times when everything comes together into a complete whole never happen.