Creating With Whatever Brain You Have (Part 1)

Okay, today I am wildly deviating from the normal focus of this newsletter. I am going to talk about the brain and creative work. Specifically, my brain and my creative work. While it pertains to game design, in truth, it pertains to lots of things. Maybe everything. It's also going to be a little bit more personal than I usually get.

I am not, as the kids say, neurotypical. I take meds for anxiety and depression, and most likely suffer from ADHD and DSPD. I say "most likely" since those latter two are not official diagnoses, but I'd call myself fairly high-functioning because I'm 53 years old and I've made it this far by just thinking I'm "a little weird" and a major "night owl." I have worked very hard to build a life where I can pretty easily manage these things without a lot of additional stress. And I’ve done that because I’ve never even considered that these conditions were particularly abnormal.

This piece is about the impact that my neurodivergence has on my writing, game design, and creativity in general. But let's get this out of the way right away: I am not a doctor. This post isn't about diagnoses or therapy or treatment. This is just me thinking out loud and sharing how it all works for me.

My partner Shanna and I talk a lot about "deep work." People with ADHD often talk about "hyperfocus." Some people call it "flow" or "the zone." Whatever you call it, this is when you get so into something you're doing that you lose all sense of time. You become entirely engrossed in something like creative work, a video game, reading Wikipedia articles, watching YouTube videos, reading your social media feed, or whatever else you enjoy that you focus on to the exclusion of all else for an extended period. Obviously, some of these are far more productive and rewarding (and healthy) than others. This behavior can be seen as obsessive or compulsive, particularly from the outside. Your partner or friends or kids might feel neglected or even forgotten because you've been at your desk for the last five hours and you haven't even gotten up to use the bathroom, let alone to talk to someone. It's not about ignoring everything or everyone else though, it's about really focusing.

The so-called "zone" might not be something that everyone can reach or necessarily needs to in order to accomplish things. This state, however, is very important to me. I first noticed this behavior in myself as a teenager when I would run an RPG session; the game would last eight to ten hours, and I would literally have no idea where that time would go. When the session was over, it was like waking from a dream and suddenly being filled with anxiety—what did I miss? What obligations did I neglect? It's not that I was catatonic or befuddled, in fact, it's really the opposite—I was hyperfocused on what was going on.

While usually the answer to those questions about what I missed was "nothing," sometimes it was "I was supposed to call my girlfriend," or "I was supposed to study for a test." To manage, I learned, not to let myself get into the zone with impending obligations hanging over me. No matter how much my college friends would beg me to run a game ("just for a couple hours"), if I had an upcoming school assignment, I'd say no. Because a couple of hours could become ten, and I wouldn't even realize it.

Personally, I refer to this as a sort of Pavlovian dopamine cycle. That is to say, do a thing, get a treat. Do another thing, get another treat. The "thing" might be "come up with a cool idea" if I'm in a true deep work headspace. And the dopamine comes from achieving something. It's the chemical that your brain releases to say, "good job," keep doing that thing. It's a good sensation. 

So from the point of view of my job, which obviously involves long stretches of creative time as well as the need for a lot of research, the state of deep work is fantastic. It's practically a superpower. I get into the zone and 8,000 or 10,000 words later, I come out of it. Sure, six hours have passed, but I just got a lot of work done. And work done in the zone is usually better as well, as it's tight and flows together nicely.

Deep work also serves as a temporary respite for both anxiety and depression. When you're in the zone you forget to be anxious, and the dopamine is flowing freely so you can stave off depression. Of course, you have to overcome anxiety and depression long enough to reach the deep work state, and that takes time and focus unto itself. They make it harder, in other words, but the payoff is worth the effort if you can manage it.

Because this hyperfocus is Pavlovian—"do a thing, get a treat"—it can also be dangerous. I have fallen down some research rabbit holes, where the "thing" is "click a link."  When it comes to things that aren't work, this flow state can be disastrous. If I'm playing a video game, the "thing" will be "finish one more level.” I can compulsively start playing a game on my phone or a fantastic game on my Xbox (looking at you Skyrim or Fallout 4, among others) and easily lose a whole day of work. And of course, thanks to DSPD, that really means a night of work.

The thing that makes me quite prolific and productive despite even those dangers is that deadlines are a huge motivator for my brain. And frankly, that motivation is in turn driven by guilt and a desire not to adversely affect other people. I know full well that if I don't get my work done on time, someone else (usually my editor) is going to pay the price and have their own timecrunched. I refer to this as trying to maintain a low social footprint in the same way that people talk about maintaining a low carbon footprint. I desperately don't want to inconvenience or negatively impact others by my own actions or inactions. This is enough motivation to keep me going, even as my personality type is one that gets easily distracted and bored, though it also presents a separate set of challenges.

To illustrate, have you ever read something written by someone who was bored of what they were writing? Would it surprise you to learn that it was... boring? I think it wouldn't. But when you have voices in your brain that urge you to do anything new rather than what you are supposed to be working on, it can grow very difficult to continue working, and even if you succeed at pushing through, it's probably not going to be very good work.

The trick, of course, is to pack the project with new ideas, keeping it fresh not only for the player, but also for you. And that's just the start. But we'll get to my techniques, tricks, and solutions in Part 2.