Week One: Course introduction and quick start strategies

You will:

• Meet your cohort of fellow ADHD Writers

• Join the Happily Ever Author Club, and gain access to the first 2 modules of the Story Path course.

• Select a pilot project you want to use to test the strategies in this course. Example: Do you want to finish your first draft, start a new story, or complete draft number five?

• Begin building a framework for creating solutions, including identifying your true writing challenges rather than focusing on compensating for a label of being disordered.

• Start creating an action plan that will keep you focused and writing long after this course is finished.

• Learn a simple, three-step process to evaluate, modify, and break free of “writing experts’” rules and never again get stuck trying to figure out what the heck you should do next.

We’ll also introduce those specific daily writing prompts.

And you’ll get an individual one-hour consultation call with Rachelle where she can help you solidify your choice of the writing project you will use to test your new knowledge throughout the course, and discuss any story structure concerns or mindset challenges that might be getting in your way.

Week Two: ADHD productivity, procrastination, and prioritizing

We’ll talk about the myths of procrastination and willpower for the ADHD writer and what’s actually true for us.

You’ll learn how to:

• Write on a regular basis

• Move routine writing decisions to autopilot

• Use distractions to increase your writing productivity, efficiency, and consistency.

• Gain momentum in your writing projects.

• Prioritize writing actions

• Honor your resistance to rules, structure, and the confines of schedules while building your routines and sense of control.

• Immediately change your experience of procrastination with three different strategies.

PLUS we’ll cover 12 different strategies for initiating writing sessions and getting that butt in the chair. You can later shuffle these like a deck of cards and choose one to try when you get stuck.

And you’ll meet individually with Sue to discuss your current goals and any mindset challenges you may face in your daily writing.

Week Three: ADHD time management and meeting goals

You’ll learn how to:

• Make time visual and get better at estimating time.

• Determine which writing tasks to initiate first and when.

• Gamify the actions you need to take to finish your book.

• Accomplish well-intended writing goals instead of just setting them.

• Implement strengths-based strategies that account, or even compensate, for the areas where you struggle in your writing life.

• See larger gains in your writing practice.

You’ll meet individually with Rachelle to help solve any writing challenges you might face.

Week Four: Reduce distractions and gain focus

We’ll look at the process of managing your attention.

And what it means to identify and implement any accommodations you might need to make your writing life easier.

We’ll share some practical strategies to identify and clear the clutter from your life and make more room for writing, including some scripts for setting boundaries with others and saying “no” without guilt.

Here’s where you’ll get a number of tools for directly addressing your writing environment, mindset, and the situational accommodations you can use immediately to transform your writing life.

In week four, you’ll meet individually with Sue to discuss your current goals and any mindset challenges you may face in your daily writing.

Week Five: Improve your memory and get organized.

Since ADHD writers tend to get overwhelmed when organizing writing projects, we’re going to look at improving your memory (an internal process) and greatly expanding your memory and capacity for storing information (an external process). We’ll examine three different systems you can choose from as you learn how to:

• keep your writing tasks and plans in the forefront of your mind.

• clear your mind clutter so that you can use your brain to maximum efficiency.

• think outside your brain by creating and organizing a digital brain for yourself.

In week five, you’ll meet individually with Rachelle.

Week Six: Reduce overwhelm and avoid burnout.

You’ll learn how to:

• Increase the energy and resilience you need for writing, editing, and marketing your stories.

• Deal with the high levels of emotions that writing with ADHD brings to your life, including how to reduce rejection sensitivity.

• Implement real self-care that doesn’t include things like diet cleanses, bubble baths, to-do lists, or feeling guilty.

• Write anyway, even when you feel like you’re drowning.

• Manifest the Lucky Writer Syndrome, not just by thinking differently, but with specific actions and strategies you can implement.

In week six, you’ll meet individually with Sue to discuss your current goals and any mindset challenges you may face in your daily writing.

Week Seven: ADHD hyperfocus and creative flow

You’ll learn:

• Why there is a time and a place for both hyperfocus and flow, the difference between the two, and their respective uses.

You’ll learn how to:

• Fully engage in writing

• Switch between hyperfocus and flow.

• Get into the flow state of seemingly effortless writing and editing.

• Use ADHD hyperfocus to your advantage while preventing the possible disadvantages.

• And Shift your attention from one project to another, such as from story to story.

In week seven, you’ll meet individually with Rachelle.

Week Eight: Gain the confidence to share your work with readers, agents, and publishers.

You will:

• Continue to build resilience

• Drop perfectionism for good.

• Gain strategies for reducing negative self-talk

• Review what you’ve accomplished in the course

• Complete your customized blueprint for your ongoing writing action plan so you can take those strategies to your next project, and your next, and your next.

Week Nine

Attend your final consultation with Rachelle to help determine your next steps as you complete the course