A Neurodivergent Writing Guide

a love letter to writers and writing

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A Neurodivergent Writing Guide

This guide is for any writer who feels lost, stuck, trapped, or hopeless about their writing. Whether your looming writing tasks are obligations or desires, if you are feeling that sickly molasses feeling of groping through obscurity with no direction, we have built this together - for us and for you.

Two notes. First, we don't care what your neurotype is. You're allowed to read this. You're allowed to see yourself in it and feel connected to the Nuerodivergent experience. Second, this is A Neurodivergent Writing Guide. It is not THE Neurodivergent Writing Guide. This guide was assembled by dozens of neurodivergent burnouts in a trenchcoat. Though it is possible none of the ideas here will work for you, we think you will at least feel held and loved.

This is a love letter to writers and writing.

How did we get on this Struggle Bus?

Writing is a common struggle for neurodivergent people. Truly, it is a difficult craft for all people, which is why we have culturally revered artisans of the craft. But what separates writing from musical, visual, and physical art forms is its unavoidability. In this age of distributed community and communication, even if we are not artisans, we still must write.

Writing, as a craft, engages several motor, cognitive, and linguistic processes at once. Whether writing with pen, keyboard, or touchscreen, fine motor engagement can be exhausting for a population known to experience congential fine motor difficulties and joint pain. Many neurodivergent children find themselves behind their peers in writing simply because the cumulative strain of manual print interferes with the actual practice of expressing thought.

Neurodivergent people commonly experience differences and difficulties in receptive and expressive communication, which, over time, lead to idiosyncratic strategies for language production that are often at odds with standardized educational materials and expectations. Again, we experience a cumulative effect which disenfranchises us from the craft of writing. For those of us that manage to find enjoyment in writing at a young age, we then struggle against the educational fixation on standards which disparage our imagination in favor of homogenous criteria.

On top of it all, almost all conditions in the neurodivergent umbrella deal with difficulties in executive function, a cognitive domain which governs task management, planning, memory, and reaction to disruptions. And so, to engage in the craft of writing, a neurodivergent person is battling physical exhaustion, mental confusion, and a host of haunting memories from an education poorly matched to their spirits.

All this is to say that if you are the kind of person who struggles to keep up with the necessary tasks of day to day life, such as organizing, hygiene, and eating... it is no surprise and no shame that you sometimes can't make the words go.

Divergent Tools for Divergent Minds in Divergent Times

This document was drafted live by dozens of Neurodivergent Writers during Session 5 of my Neurodivergent Burnout Webinar Series, "Writing with Executive Dysfunction".

In these sessions, I typically open with a short lecture on Executive Function and Metacognition. While many neurodivergent people know about the concept of executive function, defined earlier, fewer have been introduced to Metacognition. Metacognition is sometimes described as "thinking about thinking". I define Metacognition as the explicit strategies and beliefs you use to support yourself through difficult tasks. Based on testimonies and evidence from my research with autistic adults, I have identified four interlocking domains for metacognitive strategies: mental, environmental, embodied, and social.

In this session, I collected common concerns and used these to generate a potential tool for working through writing blocks, called the Fractal Scaffold:

1. Premise - the core of what you want to say

2. Context - historical background, prior work, examples

3. Substantiate - Explain how the context reinforces the premise

4. Acknowledge - Note complicating contexts, limitations, counterarguments, contested facts, controversies, or other sources of conflict and uncertainty

5. Reaffirm - Justify and restate the premise

6. Point the Way - explain what you are going to do or say next

The Fractal Scaffold is a mental metacognitive strategy for structuring thoughts and providing clear prompts that can make it easier to produce written expression and organize that expression at the document, section, and paragraph level. Like a real scaffold, the structure provided is not intended to be permanent, and is often completely dismantled and discarded by the time the final product is finished.

For example, if you watch the recording of Session 5, you will see that we used the Fractal Scaffold to guide our collaborative drafting session, and yet this final document doesn't contain headings that are directly mapped to the scaffold.

In the following section, you will find a list of common struggles and the metacognitive strategies for addressing them. The original outline of this document was created live by attendees, and edited later by me to include further explanation of how the problems and recommendations relate to executive function difficulties and metacognitive strategy domains.

The Metaphysics of Metacognition

When thinking about cognition, whether the implicit cognition of executive function or the explicit metacognition, I have found metaphors from physics to be useful illustrations of the felt phenomena of cognitive struggles. Below I describe 3 metaphors from physics that help illustrate our experiences with Executive Dysfunction in writing.

Inertia

Problems in writing where you feel stuck at the moment of initiation, such as "the blank page" problem, or the "no thoughts, head empty" problem, are a manifestation of a common executive function difficulty - inertia.

In physics, inertia is a body's resistance to changes in momentum. If a body is at rest, there is a certain force required to set it in motion. For neurodivergent people, there are sometimes unseen barriers preventing our force of will from sufficiently setting our thoughts and actions in motion.

In order to overcome inertia, you have to first identify what is diffusing the force of your will. Is it anxiety? Anxiety about what? Is it uncertainty? Is it perfectionism? Is it fear of failure? Is it frustration? Discomfort? Overwhelm? Do you simply hate the thing you are supposed to be writing about? These are all inertia-amplifying problems that require inertia-neutralizing strategies.

Inertia doesn't just interfere with initiating writing, it can also interfere with stopping, or switching. Feeling trapped in a rabbit hole, fighting with the "rightness" of a particular section, or writing past your body's need for food, hygiene, and sleep are also issues of inertia. Feeling unable to stop can feel just as bad as feeling unable to start.

Entropy

In physics, entropy stands for a measure of disorder and uncertainty in a system. Entropy is the collective factor of the unknown, the unpredictable, and the unbearable. In writing, entropy manifests as the ambient distractions that interfere with forming thoughts and directing focus: a chaotic, unstable, or unreliable workspace; a cacophony of sensory irritations; a cluster of competing obligations; or the looming presence of unclear expectations, to name a few.

We can think of inertia as the internal factors that influence our experience of executive dysfunction, while entropy is what influences us from the outside. Like inertia, entropy cannot be ignored. It must be addressed.

Quantum Entanglement

Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon which is popularly misrepresented in science fiction and literary metaphor. I am going to do my very best to use the phenomenon accurately. If you are a physics nerd, I beg of you to bear with me for at least a few more sentences. For those of you paying attention, yes -- this is an example of a rabbit-hole diversion in an article which some may interpret to be about avoiding such things.

Quantum, as a word, is not inherently about time, synchronicity, or the unexplainable, but about measurement, specifically units, more specifically minimum units. Quanta means amount or portion.

Quantum mechanics is (generally) the study and explanation of behavior of sub-atomic particles. You see, explanations (mechanics) of the behavior of sub-atomic particles are unexplainable by classical mechanics -- the kinds of physics that our bodies and our physical senses more or less operate in agreement with.

This mismatch is best demonstrated by the phenomenon of quantum entanglement. Quantum entanglement is when two or more sub-atomic particles become linked in such a way that any time the state of one is observed, the other's state will be instantaneously correlated, no matter how far apart they are. When we say "state" in relation to sub-atomic particles, what we mean is measurable quantities like its position, momentum, and angular momentum.

This diverges from the predictions possible with classical mechanics. In classical mechanics, an object has a single state that is exactly determined by predictable rules and this state is discretely measurable. In quantum mechanics, an object has multiple superimposed states, simultaneously, and the values of its state do not become discrete until they are observed.

The most recognizable story about this kind of probabilistic state only resolvable under observation is the story of Schrödinger's cat. You can't know for certain whether the cat is alive or dead until you open the box, so in the span before the box is open, it is both. Similarly, a particle’s state is unknown until it is measured. So it occupies multiple possibilities at once.

We are almost to the part where I begin to make a point.

Photons are packets of electromagnetic radiation, which we experience as light. But is "light" the photon particle, or the radiation wave? It turns out that it is both, and it depends, literally, on how you look at it. That's right, the tool that you use to measure light determines whether or not you are recording waves or particles. This dependence of measurable, perceivable reality on the tools of measurement shows us another, essential kind of entanglement -- reality is entangled, or dependent, upon our tools of perception (for more on this, refer to the work of Karen Barad).

Okay, now the point.

If you are reading this you have probably been told more than once that your writing does not make sense. That it is scattered, unstructured, fragmented, doesn't "flow", or otherwise "fails" to communicate in a rational, linear way to your audience. (And here, more than half of you are thinking, what audience? I'm just writing. I'm not doing it AT anybody.)

You're not failing. You are simply expressing via a quantum, neurodivergent, rhetoric rather than classical rhetoric. There is nothing inherently wrong with classical rhetoric, just as there is nothing wrong with classical mechanics. But a neurodivergent text being judged against neuronormative expectations is like trying to measure a circle with a ruler instead of a compass.

To "fix" this mismatch between you and whoever is "observing" you, some of you have been told that you have to restructure your rhetoric to be Classical, or to fit a different set of mechanics. Linear. Neuronormative.

Instead, I want you to be free to remain quantum. Remain entangled, hyper-connected, fragmented, echolalic, hebephrenic, irrational, imaginary, radical, unpredictable, improbable. Remain superposed in multiple states.

Remain uncanny, unruly, and ungovernable.

I don't mean that when someone tells you that they don't understand, that you are under no obligation to revise your work. I mean that you are free to choose whether you feel that obligation or not, and whether you want to meet it. And in revision, I want you to be free to choose to kindly provide alternative tools of observation, so that we can collectively practice neurodivergent ways of speaking and listening.

Tending your Troubles with Tenderness

All of the recommendations we shared in our collaborative session were based in a respect for ourselves through tenderness and care. In this section, I have collected the advice from our collaborative writing session under the 4 metacognitive strategy domains. Most of the ideas in the Environmental and Embodied sections will help you with Inertia and Entropy. Strategies in Mental will primarily help you with Quantum Entanglement, or, more specifically, with helping you proudly claim a neurodivergent rhetoric. Strategies in the Social section will very likely help you with all three.

These domains are not mutually exclusive, and often a strategy or suggestion is really crossing multiple domains. For the most part, I have put things in the Mental section if they involve things related to self-talk, or changing your own personal beliefs about what is correct, good, or worthy. I have put things in environmental when they involve intentional curation of space, place, or time. I have put things in Embodied if they relate directly to the physical sensations of having a body and how this relates to being able to produce intentional movement. Finally, if it involves another person, it's in Social.

Mental

A primary source of mental resistance to writing is perfectionism. What I mean by this is that we often prevent ourselves from writing because we have been led to believe, through constant criticism and unspoken expectations, that if something is not perfect it is not worth doing. So if we don't know how to do it "right," we can't begin to do it at all.

Release yourself from perfection.

"Dude, suckin' at somethin' is the first step toward being kinda good at somethin'" - Jake the Dog, Adventure Time

• Write badly, on purpose -- make yourself laugh.

• Start writing from the middle instead of the beginning or end, time isn't real.

• Start by making a powerpoint presentation to explain it in 7 minutes and then realize you accidentally wrote a pretty decent outline.

• Coach yourself through your struggles as if you were your own student or a friend. You wouldn't be mean to your friend, so don't be mean to yourself.

• Use a separate document or notebook that is dedicated to "trash", "drafts", or imperfect writing. Make a space where you are allowed to be messy.

• Leave notes on segments you are unhappy with like "FAST, BAD, WRONG" -- let yourself acknowledge your dissatisfaction without letting it stop the process. You can go back later.

• Use the Fractal Scaffold to guide your thoughts. Once they are down, you can pick at them, rearrange them, and relabel them.

Another source of avoidance in writing comes from your relationship to the topic, the assignment, the expectations, or the person and institutions you feel obligated to deliver the writing to. It is difficult to write if you are experiencing uncertainty, fear, or resentment. Put simply, it is very hard to write if you are not in love.

• Identify the sources of your uncertainty and fear. Maybe you can ask for clarity or reassurance. When you can't get the answers you need, set a boundary to protect yourself. You will do your best with the information and understanding that you have.

• With resentment, there is often not a good solution. Most people try to will their way through something that they loathe. But there is another option -- spite. You can turn a task you resent into a task that galvanizes you if you can imagine how completing that task will cause psychic damage to the object of your resentment.

• Find your own personal connections and interests in the material. How does it connect to something you love? How can you turn a grueling, unpleasant task into one that feels like a gift to someone or something that you care about?

Sometimes we feel disenchanted with our writing because there is something terrible going on in the world, and what we are supposed to be writing about no longer seems important, or seems downright trivial and petty.

• First, it's okay to be unimportant. Give yourself the space to be completely irrelevant for a moment.

• The world is a complicated place, there are many many crisis, large and small, and they are all connected. Trust yourself and your contribution. You do not have to Change The World with every work. What is the beach without each grain of sand?

• Try to, with humility and grace, connect your work to the global struggle for liberation. How can you support and build on the movements of others?

Environmental

Sometimes it is the space around us that is preventing us from feeling ready to write.

• Let the "procrastination cleaning" happen. Preparing your space is a part of writing. Cleaning your fridge may be a necessary step to cleaning your mind.

• Or, thoughtfully consider the urge to clean -- do you feel genuinely obstructed from the act of writing by a messy desk, uncomfortable chair, stale air, etc.? Or do you feel that to write would be to do something for yourself, so your guilt makes you want to clean for someone else's benefit as punishment?

• If you feel that your phone or other device is causing you distraction, leave it in another room. Make a clear environmental boundary between the digital and the physical world.

• If you struggle with sudden inspiration at inopportune times, start carrying a small journal or make a scratch-pad note on your phone so that you can slowly accumulate those flashes of inspiration in one place.

• Make a dedicated writing space in your home so that when you are there, you feel prompted to write and not play or sleep or clean. Some people have done this in very small spaces, where one side of their desk is for writing and the other is for goofing off.

• Travel to a coffee shop, library, or other place where you don't feel obligated to manage or curate the physical space beyond your little table.

The environment is made of space, but also time. Personally, I struggle greatly with curating time or making time-based rules. But it is always worth trying it and seeing what happens.

• Some people find that setting a timer for a small unit of time, like 20 or 30 minutes, is enough to prompt them to focus on the specific act of writing. Even if what they accomplish in that short time is underwhelming, each little moment of focus adds up.

• Make a daily or weekly scheduled commitment to your writing. Some people choose a specific hour of the day, or a chunk of a day of the week, where they feel most productive or the least obligated to other things. Personally, my life is too chaotic to make this work. Though I try often. Sometimes my schedule works for only a short time, but that short time was valuable. It's okay to make a new schedule as chaos occurs.

Embodied

This section is all about working with your body, specifically your senses. A lot of us think of writing as typing. But writing is just the representation of an idea. Our ideas swim around in our minds like ink trails through fluid. You have to pull the ink out of your mind and into the physical world. Sometimes we do that through our fingers on a keyboard. Sometimes we do it through our thumbs on a touch screen. Sometimes we do it with pen and paper. And sometimes we do it with our mouths. And it doesn't have to be letters. It can be shapes, graphs, images, songs, colors. Use your body to create some representation of thought. Then build on that representation until it is in the medium you need it to be. Sometimes that's words. Sometimes it's an image, sound, or object. Embodied strategies are all about externalizing your thoughts, moving from the mental to the tactile, proprioceptive, visual, and aural range.

• Mind mapping - either with an app or post it notes, lets you toss thoughts into small chunks and move those around and make connections between them, making sense out of chaos.

• Ditch the keyboard and see what your hands do with paper.

• Record your word vomit, transcribe it, and edit it. You can use a dictation app for this.

• If your thoughts come out as a drawing, let them. Then try to describe your image. This can get you started on moving from thought to image to words.

• Instead of trying to write text, write questions. Have a conversation with yourself. Invite yourself to info dump.

We talked about curating and controlling your environment in the Environmental section, but your senses are where the environment and your body meet.

• You're allowed to get comfy. Make a writing nest.

• Some people find that playing certain music helps them focus.

• Noise cancelling or limiting headphones might cut out interferring sounds you didn't realize were taking up some of your cognitive cycles.

• We sometimes think of making coffee as "procaffeinating" - procrastinating through coffee. Instead, think of it as a ritual. Use coffee, tea, medication, snacks, or scented candles as a sensory ritual that grounds you and summons your focus. It's okay.

• Take a walk. Sometimes I figure out my block the minute my foot hits the last stair in the building. It's very annoying. My body is a troll.

• It's okay to take a break. If your body or mind is frustrated, it's okay to step away. You can't always push through discomfort or disengagement.

Editing is a common problem for neurodivergent people, and I have found that it is often experienced as one of those tasks that is so tedious, so cognitively overwhelming, that your brain simply nopes out. I think one of the reasons that editing is so hard is because we experience it as trying to do too many things at once. It feels like writing, reading, spelling, correcting grammar, structuring, all at once. Offload some of that cognition into your other senses.

• Use text to speech to have the document read to you. This can help you edit as you go.

• Read the document out loud. Your mouth will notice when something is wrong.

• Print the document out and mark up with pen and paper. This uses different physicality than digital editing.

• Use the comment and markup functions. When you try editing without them, sometimes you get stuck writing new stream of consciousness and new rabbit holes.

• Edit backwards or out of order. You don't have to start at the top. Let yourself edit one chunk or section at a time. Reward yourself with a stretch break or snack or free time.

• Pretend to be someone else reading your paper. This works best if you are a conscious masker and know how to predict normative expectations.

Social

The social strategies are my favorites. We really underestimate how much we can support each other, specifically as neurodivergent companions, even and especially if we are not co-authors on the same document.

• Form a writing buddies group. You can have a group chat to discuss writing goals and blocks.

• You can set up regular body doubling times. These can be in-person or virtual. You'd be amazed at how effective sitting in the same zoom room feels.

• Tell someone your goals, ask them to check in on you.

• Share your work with people you trust. Have specific expectations about whether they are providing feedback on structure, prose, or copy editing.

• Try to describe your idea to your friend. Record that info dump session. This is the fastest way to a draft! You can do this over and over again. Many of us are taught to feel like wording at people is rude or annoying, but when you're in community with other neurodivergent people, you will find that there is someone who is absolutely ecstatic to listen to you go brrrr.

• Set deadlines/goals with a writing/working/parallel play partner for solidarity - even if the goals are different

Most importantly, an affirming neurodivergent circle of companions is the best way to combat the shame and fear at the root of most of our struggles.

"Through loving disabled people, I get to love myself." - Stacey Park Milbern

With Love

This Neurodivergent Writing Guide was written with love, in community, for everyone who struggles to make the words go. It may not work for everyone, and it may not always make sense, but it is here, and I am here, and we are here, for you.

Acknowledgements

I do not have a full list of every person who contributed to the collaborative document, as many were anonymous. You can see the orginal here.

I would like to thank Sean Yeager for fixing my physics.

End Note

If you have appreciated this post, please consider supporting my friend towards her stable housing goal.