Hello, Dream-Makers!
Today I talk a little about how my ADHD affects my writing process.
at the kitchen sink
dreaming surreal poetry
dreading life of toil
I’ve only known I have ADHD for about two years. I only discovered I had ADHD at this late point because all of my excellent coping mechanisms and workarounds broke down during the pandemic.
I’m one of those lucky few who have both an anxiety disorder and ADHD. I’ve always known that my brain worked differently than other people, but now I understand the sources of those differences.
I tend to go on writing streaks. I will write lots of haiku on the same few subjects for weeks and weeks, and then lose interest in those subjects and move on to something else. Sometimes I go back to these hyperfixations, and sometimes I don’t.
I keep track of all of my poems in an Excel spreadsheet. I keep data about when I wrote the poem, the form of the poem, and the subject matter. In the entry for this haiku, I see that I wrote it on October 21, 2020, it’s a haiku, and for the subject, I put down “Secret Society of House Husbands” and “Fantastical Escape”. 1
Around this time I wrote a series of haiku I called, “Secret Society of House Husbands”. I wrote more than 30 haiku on this topic over about three weeks. I got the name for this series from a 2019 documentary called Dads, directed by Bryce Dallas Howard. In that documentary, a stay-at-home father from Japan explains he has a group of friends that are all “house husbands”. They call their group The Secret Society of House Husbands because the best way to get people interested in what you’re doing is to pretend it’s a secret.2
In November, I moved on from these poems and became fixated on poems I called “The Art of Nothing”.
I don’t remember the specifics of writing this poem, but I do remember that period of fixation. Early on in the pandemic, and very early on in my poetry comic experiments, I was obsessed with the idea of Fantastical Escapes (you don’t need to be a psychiatrist to see where that idea came from). I must have felt that this poem belonged in both camps.
I used to hate how I moved through different interests so quickly. I felt lazy and incapable of discipline. The truth is that my hyperfixations are a superpower. My problems came from trying to force myself to live and work in a way that my brain is not wired to operate. In the past couple of years, I’ve been able to get more done and be more consistent by simply allowing myself to be myself. I have learned to trust myself.
I’ve finally found a way to make use of all these different haiku series I’ve created over the years. In the coming months, I’m going to be launching an experimental haiku comic/zine called Weirdoku. I am still working out the exact details, but it will be a monthly publication where each month is a different theme. Each issue will feature 30-35 haiku comics.
Between my upcoming book, A Totally Inadequate Guide to Adulting, and Weirdoku, I am going to be publishing more poetry comics than ever before. But the core of my work will always be this daily newsletter. Thank you for reading, liking, and sharing these daily posts.
Tomorrow I will have a poetry comic that’s not a haiku—and I will have a couple of gifts for you!
Be the weird you want to see in the world!
Cheers,
Jason
P.S.
Here’s the trailer for that Dads documentary:
I mostly love doing the dishes. It’s a great time to think and to work out lines I will use later.
I strongly related to the joy this dad took in his role and the domestic skills he displayed. He was not hapless, he was good at what he did. That’s how I feel about my role as a work-from-home dad. I’m a good cook, I know how to shop for our groceries, and I have quite a few tricks up my sleeve when it comes to cleaning. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about care work and how toxic our culture’s attitude is toward women hurts all of us and contributes to economic instability and inequality—but that’s for a different day.
I love getting insight about your work process and how processing your own stuff relates to your poetry. Thanks for the post. Also, great haiku comic!
Loving your newsletter and am looking forward to seeing your work!!!