Distraction Free Writing
I was recently made an author advocate for Astrohaus' Freewrite device. Which I have used to write my book and will be doing for all future novels. If you are following my blog, and are a writer both seriously or casually, I implore you to check out the Freewrite line. If you are, like me, someone who suffers from adult ADHD, then as a doctor I EMPLORE you to check out the Freewrite line of devices. Trust me, it will change you life.
As someone who has struggled with debilitating ADHD from childhood to adulthood, pursuing my dream of writing book seemed like an impossibility. After seeking medical treatment as a young adult in college, I was able to complete my first milestone achievement of first graduating college, then obtaining my master degree, and finally my doctorate. It was one of the hardest things I had done up to that point. Not for the obvious reasons, graduate school is a daunting challenge for anyone to tackle. It was the hardest thing I had endured because of the bombarding digital age we live in. Becoming distracted by the 'rabbit hole' of digital exploration when being plugged into the internet is treated as a part of the social zeitgeist at this point. What most people don't understand, is that for those with ADHD, this becomes a crippling psychological nightmare. Even on scheduled medication, trying to stay on task when there are links, ads, videos, social media it just gets overwhelming. With persistence and help from my wonderful wife, I was able to graduate and walk with my both my masters and PhD. After writing and defending a doctoral dissertation, which ended up being hundreds of pages long, I truly believed that my dream of becoming a fiction writer was truly tangible. So, I took the leap and rolled the dice. For those of you that do not know, writing a novel takes years of work. Especially if you are not classically trained in literature or journalism writing. I had experience with academic research publications, but this did little help to prepare me for the hardships of putting together a coherent narrative all within a fantasy universe I had to create from scratch.
I cobbled together my story and persevered. But one product truly changed my life as a writer, and that was when my wife gifted me a type writer. Yes, you heard me correctly, a type writer. Old school, ink ribbons clickety clackety typewriter. I wrote my first draft of my novel the Coroner on a Royal Epoch. All 650 pages of it. The amount of work I could get done once I removed the distractions was staggering. As much as the type writer was liberating, it just did not work in our digital age. There is no editing, no spell check, no formatting, and no emailing. Just wet ink on white pages. I heard of the Freewrite digital typewriter first from a friend. They had mentioned it in passing when I told them of the old epoch I had in the office. So naturally I researched it when I got home. Now I know they do not market it as a electronic typewriter, but they should. It looks, feels, and acts like a typewriter. for a fraction of the weight. I love it. It was easy to set up, the post box website is super straight forward. Just plug it in and start writing. Making the transition was easy as pie and I saw my writing take off in a way that I had never seen before.
Currently I am writing my latest novel project for the NaNoWriMo event on the Freewrite and I have easily put out over 30k words in less than 20 days. Which you can see from my NaNoWriMo account if you do not believe me.
Again, if you need anymore convincing then do the research. You will see the facts. It just works. This is Dr. Fitch signing off. This time and for the first time saying, #WriteOn
