I’ve had problems working on one thing at a time for my entire life. Call it a kind of creative ADHD. I’ll sit down to write a story, get bored or confused or frustrated, then decide to work on something else. With as many ideas as I have, this happens all the time. I’ll swap ideas out the minute something doesn’t work.
The trick is, you have to keep sitting with the work when it’s boring or confusing or frustrating. You have to push through these feeling to get to the good stuff.
Somewhere along the way, I developed the bad habit of avoiding discomfort at all costs, much like picking up my phone to stave off being bored. But the best stuff happens when we’re bored, when we’re uncomfortable. We’re forced to be more creative. We’re forced to engage.
And that’s when the miracles show up.
joshua chamberlain 