Sometimes, I have a lot of trouble trying to think of what to write about in this blog if I haven’t got a quote, a finished book, an exciting new project, or a RoW80 update. My mind bounced around a few topics to potentially discuss, the foremost of them being a rumination on the types of things I write compared to the types of things I read, with a few musings on character profiles thrown in. But as I thought about some of these things, I considered all the projects I usually do and how I’d like to pick up my horror story again, and that got me to thinking about my WADD.
That’s right, folks. This probably won’t come as a surprise to many of you, but I have WADD–Writer Attention Deficit Disorder.
Whenever another writer tells me about his or her ability to just sit their butts down and work on one project to completion, I am left in shock. I’m reading some craft books that talk about setting aside specific times just for writing, and I’m flabbergasted. I have managed to park in front of a computer and write for half an hour strait before, but at the end of it, I’m just about ready to leap out of my chair and do something else.
Now, this doesn’t mean I don’t ever get things done. I just have to get other things done in the meantime. Read a little bit of a book, write a few paragraphs, then clean the kitchen a little, clean up a drawing, lather, rinse, repeat. I typically have at least three different writing projects going at once, I’m reading no less than five books right now, and there’s countless other things that I bounce back and forth between. There’s a system in place, at least, making it almost a little bit of a WOCD–Writer Obsessive Compulsive Disorder–but it works for me, I think. I may not get things done quickly, but they come along nicely.
Are you one of those writers who have the ability to sit and work faithfully for a string of time, or are you, like me, afflicted with WADD? If you’re one of the chosen few with an attention span, what advice might you have to share with a WADD author who wants to be more focuses? If you’re a WADD writer yourself, what tricks or tools have you found to help you work more effectively? I’m interested to see how this completely-made up disorder might affect the lives of others.
(See? These are the kinds of posts you get when I don’t know what else to write about….)
L.S. Engler 
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