My ADHD writing nightmare process that might help you not feel so alone.
Today I wanted to give you a little insight on how I track my work, productivity and how long it actually takes to finish a novel. Guess what? My techniques don’t work for everyone, hell they don’t work for me when I don’t remember to implement them. Only use what is helpful to you as a writer. Even if it’s a “what not to do.”
I have a new book out, Tonight With Me, if you haven’t already, go read it! Several of my constant readers have said it’s their favorite book of mine yet. If you enjoy it, please take the time to leave an honest review on Amazon & Goodreads. If you would prefer a signed copy, you can find those in my author store here.
As an author, two things have greatly increased my productivity: timing writing bursts by using the Pomodoro Technique and keeping a spreadsheet to track my daily word count to stay on track. The Pomodoro Technique is typically setting a timer for 25 minutes and taking a 5 minute break. My ADHD hack is setting the timer for five minutes so it goes off every time my mind starts to wander.
The problem is, like most habits, I forget to use them over time. With the influx of AI books, I do see that writers may need to “show our work” in the future. Tracking daily word count could help with that but it’s also really useful for motivation and staying on task.
I can’t remember the last time I updated my spreadsheet, but I can tell you at the time it was very helpful! I felt so productive because I could actually see my progress. I also want to point out that very few of the novels/stories shown in this screenshot were started in 2020. (For example, on this 2020 spreadsheet, UABS show 101,520 words, because I started writing it almost 10 years prior and … haha … it’s almost finished!). As you’ll see, I’ve gotten much faster at completing projects!
In 2010, a friend and I had the grand idea that we could finish a book in a month! Well, I have done that many times since then, but most of them went into the pile of things I’ve never released. (To clarify, I’ve written books that have taken over 10 years, only a month – I’ve even written a book in a week! My problem is not producing the work, it’s letting it go). Last year I did an accounting of my unreleased work which amounted to 20 novels that I have endlessly tinkered back and forth with for years. This isn’t a chapter here and there situation, it’s entire novels that just need edits and tweaks, but I get overwhelmed, bored or insecure. Or I get a small bit of negative feedback that throws me off completely and I jump over to something easier. And honestly, sometimes I’m glad they’re not finished, because as the years pass, I learn, grow and my writing improves. But really, that could go on forever.
Is it beyond infuriating that I worked so hard all those years and I can now hit a button and have AI complete my stories in five seconds? I mean, yeah, it would hallucinate and it was trained on stolen work, so that fucking sucks, but I could do that. I’d spend forever editing out the garbage and hallucinations, but in theory I could. But I don’t want to. AI could be a helpful tool for folks trapped in an ADHD pit of self doubt, like me, but it’s unethical and bad for the environment. I want to create human work for humans to enjoy. I want to set a good example for young folks to show them that their creative works have value.
People often tell me that my book Atomic Love is their favorite book they’ve ever read and that they can’t stop thinking about it. (Others say it’s Asunder). Some people hate my books, and that’s fine. From now on, my purpose as a writer is to WRITE AND RELEASE someone’s favorite book. I can tinker on it until the end of time, but there’s a reader out there who doesn’t have their favorite book. That’s on me!
Last year, I set a vague goal to go down the list completing these old books to clear them out of the queue. The world just sucks right now, it’s depressing and I couldn’t work on anything new. It all felt really pointless. I tried to focus and get these done, one at a time. This year, there’s a sense of urgency. We’re not going to live forever. Fuck, who knows how much longer we’ll even be able to write the books we want to read? And UGH, AI is everywhere. The “experts” keep saying don’t worry about it, and maybe we shouldn’t worry, but damn, Amazon is filled with AI books. Barnes & Noble and local bookstores are stocked with them. My goal now is to ignore the noise and get this list finished. Even if it sucks, even if no one buys them. If you see me release books more frequently, don’t dare make the assumption that it’s AI (it’s not), it’s just me finishing “almost there” 80k-100k manuscripts that have sat on my laptop for 3-14 years. Trust me, I have more files than you can ever imagine that are named: FinalDraft. FinalDraft 2. FinalDraft2000, ThisIsTheLastFinalDraftEver. ThisIsTheLastFinalDraftEver9999. ISwearToGodThisisIt!
I don’t want to rush these stories in a fit of panic about AI, but I’m getting older. I’m not going to be here forever and I’ll feel really bad if these stories don’t make it out into the world.
Perfectionism, insecurity, and self doubt will be the end of me! Completing work that spans 14 years of tinkering presents a massive amount of problems. My writing has improved and my writing style has changed greatly. References that felt relative fourteen years ago, are now out of date. Many of these stories, I just couldn’t get right—so I’d rewrite them, over and over. UABS (my vampire series) has at least a dozen different manuscripts all written in different styles because I never could quite make it “good enough.” Then, I go back and look at that original 2011 draft and think, some of this isn’t so bad. If I’d just released it then … But I didn’t. Draft 2 will have something I like, draft 10 will have something else. None of the various writing styles I attempted or developed over time flow together, so it’s not as easy and copy/pasting a scene from 2011 to go along with a scene written in 2026. It’s very hard to know what still works and what doesn’t. Moving it around and keeping old things with the new fucks up the plot in both directions. Starting over AGAIN feels like amplifying the endless nightmare I’m already in.
I am sure I have another spreadsheet since this, but I can’t find it. Some of the books – Hear the Rain for example – I wrote over 100,000 words for and every time I run across this spreadsheet, I’m like – Oh, yeah! That story exists! One of my beta readers said she loved it. It’s a serial killer novel but a core portion of the plot deals with racism and the critical voice in my head said, it wasn’t right for me to write at the time and I wanted to handle it in sensitive matter because it’s important. But I do feel a bit more educated now, so I think it’s something I might tackle. (Hopefully, with a sensitivity reader). I really love the detective. What got in my head is that she fell into the “strong Black woman” trope. Well, Black women are strong, but I understand why that trope is negative. One of the errors I caught myself making was that her “strength” kept her distant from her emotions, which prevented her from being a well-rounded character. And that’s basically me just thinking tough people hold in their emotions (why!) without putting enough thought into the why. The vulnerable moments are what make her strong. In the rewrite, I have made it clear that this strong persona is a mask she puts on at work. Which is realistic, most women have to do that in a high stress, male-dominated career field, but it’s even more true for Black women. I do sometimes feel like I’m not the person to write BIPOC characters, at the same time, I’m not going to not have BIPOC in my books. That’s not real life—that’s not my life and it would be horrible if it were. Also, I want my friends who love my books to be able to see themselves in the characters I write. If my books were ever turned into television shows, I want a Black actress to play this part. So, I’m going to have to work hard and write a damned good character!
Here’s the thing too, I know my characters have not all been perfect so far. Even when I know better, I’ll miss that I did the exact thing I am aware is a bad thing until someone else points it out. And even then, I’m probably still going to get in my feelings about it. You don’t always see it in your own work. That’s why we’re all a WORK IN PROGRESS.
And I do care, so I try. And I don’t always have the skills or smarts to pull of the thing I’m trying, but I’ll keep trying. One thing I’ve had to accept recently is that I’m not writing for cool, bad ass feminists on Threads who have it all figured out. As much as I want to reach a wide range of readers, that’s not the case so far. Based on ads and the readers I’ve met, the largest demographic reading my books are primarily white women ages 45-65+. And they are probably almost exclusively reading white authors age 45+. So, yes, I’m going to talk about racism and LGBTQIA+ issues, etc. in my work. It’s important to me, but I also want to make sure my readers are aware.
All that said, I’m never going to get all the things I stress and ponder about perfect. At some point, I’m just going to have to let go and release these damn books. I did finish some of the books in this list. Asunder and Summer Cannibals were both published. I love Asunder but I took down Summer Cannibals to rewrite/edit it. It was meant to show the main character of that series at his worst and motivate me to put the vampire books out there. But it was rushed and I realized that wasn’t the best idea since you haven’t met him at all and I should have done more research. I also plan to move those vampire books to a new pen name to avoid confusion with my Jesie Rose books which mostly focuses on dark thrillers/suspense and literary fiction.
The new version of “UABS” as listed in the spreadsheet is now called Nowhere Cafe and it’s almost complete! It needs a few more rounds of editing and some loose ends tied up. I’d also like to have book two fully plotted out and close to finished so readers won’t have to wait as long. There are like 10 books in this series and connected series. Most of them are “almost there” but none can move forward until Nowhere is released.
So far, as Jessie Rose, I have released: Atomic Love (2019), Least Likely Suspect (2024), Asunder (2024), This is Dark Love (2024) and my latest book, Tonight With Me (2026). There’s no rhyme or reason to those dates. The basis of Atomic Love was something I thought of at sixteen, which is almost thirty years ago. It was originally just titled Rock Star and it changed drastically, thank goodness! Literally, in Paris Hilton’s voice, it was “rock stars are hot!”. But dreaming up a story at 16 and writing it in your thirties, you have an entirely different perspective. Rock stars are hot turned into a deep, dark character dive that explored the horrors of domestic violence against women in the music community. I have an email from 2011 that says “Evan Reed Novel 2005-present work”. I definitely don’t remember typing on it back in 2005, but it was also never meant to be read by anyone ever). Asunder was meant to be a sequel to Armistice which I started writing in 2012. I’m not sure if Armistice will ever be released. It is stuck in the my baby/perfection loop. Y’all are going to be mean to Colton, and I’m not ready for that.
I am, however, determined to clear the goddamn queue of books so I can move on for real.
The funny thing is, Tonight With Me was never on that list of books to complete—because I started it after I made the list! I usually keep two manuscript docs open at the same time (ADHD) and while I’m working on one of my big, heavily emotional projects, I’ll have a “what if” story to keep my brain occupied, otherwise it’s going to chase all the rabbits down all the trails.
The pro to having that second document open is that I can get my words in and in the beginning stages, I’m not as emotionally attached to the characters in the “what if “ story. It gives my critiquing brain a rest and lets my fingers do the typing. Sometimes it’s garbage, and sometimes an okay story comes out of it. I will write more about the process of Tonight With Me once readers have had time to finish it. But at the end of the first draft, I thought this could work! During the rewrites, I totally fell in love with Giselle and Sterling. I didn’t really want to stop writing them because it was so much fun. It was released four days ago and I already see a few things I’m like, damn, I meant to take that out or I wish I’d had more time to develop this side character, that sort of thing. But also, I am just so happy I completed something. That’s the big win I’ve needed for a while. Hopefully it will motivate me to knock more of these stories off my list. The big one I was working on at the same time is Nowhere Cafe, my vampire novel. Fingers crossed it will come out later this year!
Hope you are enjoying my human authored books! Thank you for your support! Please don’t forget to leave reviews for Tonight With Me. It really helps!
Jessie Rose
