I had another post written up and ready to go for my self imposed blog schedule, but then I started second guessing it. And then I missed my internal deadline. And then time ticked from my well intentioned weekly updates to maybe every week and a half, no one will notice to every fortnight still counts as engagement, right?
Part of why I was hesitant to pursue the whole author thing was because of things like this. Sure I’m entirely convinced my writing is subpar and no one will read these posts, let alone my book, but a large fear is my complete lack of consistency.
Any budding creative online will have read about how important consistency is. About how you’re meant to make x amount of posts a week, y tweets to achieve z level of engagement. You have to fight the layers of algorithms, each different for every platform, to be heard and to reach an audience beyond your circle of friends and family.
Which is all fine and good, I can generate heaps of content, usually in a small frame of time. But I can’t do it consistently. I have so many ideas, often too many to keep up with, but my brain doesn’t always cooperate.
The thing about executive dysfunction is that I know I need to get something done. I know how to do it, I have the ability to do it, but there’s a wall between me and getting that thing done. I wrote my blog post, I read and tweaked it, I was even mostly happy with it. But because there was a twinge of self doubt, I couldn’t post it straight away. And then it got later and later after my set deadline and my brain was coming up with all the excuses; “can’t do it now, have to plan for time zone differences”, “now it’s getting too late in the week, wait until the weekend”, “nope, too late now, leave it until the next scheduled update day”. It’s literally as easy as pressing a button, but my brain has decided that it isn’t going to happen.
For many years I thought my inability to do things, my executive dysfunction, was a result of laziness or a lack of self discipline. Knowing now that I have ADHD and autism, I can see it for what it is. Being kind on myself for it is still proving to be a steep learning curve, but I am trying.
So instead of my previously planned post, you’re getting this. I know it doesn’t add much in terms of my writing or marketing my debut-in-the-works, but it’s who I am.
Bronwen Write 