Introducing new associate Amanda Marples
The Writers Workshop is continually seeking new associates who have something new and interesting to share with the writers of Sheffield and beyond. This month, we’re delighted to introduce Amanda Marples of Reconcile Creative, which supports writers who identify as neurodivergent. We asked Amanda to tell us about herself and what she’ll be contributing to the Workshop programme.
Tell us about Amanda the writer!
I write anything and everything. I need to write every day or I feel off-kilter, and I’m in the habit of journaling every morning. I’ve written a lot of short stories, that’s my favourite form I think, but I’ve dabbled in flash, and I have three novels in various stages of completeness, all with a magical realism flavour. I also do some freelancing and creative non-fiction.
My short stories are often about human drama and touch especially on themes of grief, loss, trauma and identity. I like to get into the detail of what motivates us to act in the ways we do; I want to understand where our seemingly bizarre actions come from. I’m a social worker and, as such, I am inexhaustibly interested in people. We are a fascinating species. I truly believe that all behaviour is functional, no matter how bizarre it appears on the surface. My motivation in my writing is to find that function and pick it apart.
You have a special interest in neurodiversity and writing. Where does this come from?
It comes from being neurodivergent (ND) myself. All my life I have struggled to organise myself. I lose and forget things constantly and am prone to accidents. I’ve also had motor and vocal tics as far back as I can remember. I have battled anxiety, temporary obsessions, and addictions over the years. Up until a couple of years ago, I put all that down to being a flaky, neurotic Gemini. I truly internalised the idea that I was just useless, stupid, ridiculous. All of that, along with the very real organisational problems I had, affected my ability to write. This stuff kept me from the page, even though I knew in my bones I was supposed to be a writer.
It was only after my son was diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome and I started to learn more about neurodivergence through doing social work that I started to put the pieces together. I was diagnosed at the ripe old age of 44 with Tourette’s Syndrome and ADHD. Now it all makes sense. I am pretty sure I am on the autistic spectrum as well. That’s when I started to see that my difficulties with writing were nothing to do with my moral fibre and everything to do with the way my brain is wired in the context of a culture set up by and for neurotypical people.
My professional background was a springboard for me to start exploring about strategies to get around those barriers, and it wasn’t long before I started to get results and to see that what I had learned could benefit other writers. Because I know they are out there! Women in particular are under-diagnosed, despite the current attitude in some quarters that we are diagnosing everyone inappropriately. It’s just not true.
There seem to be a lot of neurodiverse people (diagnosed and undiagnosed) in the writing community. Why do you think this is?
I think – and I have no scientific data in particular to back this up – that ND folk are incredibly creative. Our brains are uniquely wired (that I do have evidence for), and I think that alone gives rise to incredible problem solving and connectivity skills that enable us to see stories and solutions to those questions out of which stories are born: why is that person sleeping on a bench? Why did she leave a happy marriage? Who wrote that cryptic message in the book? Our brains might not be wired to cope with crowds or work schedules, but they are absolutely wired for stories.
It’s also a solitary habit for the most part, and many ND people really struggle with the sensory overwhelm and burnout that can come from “too much peopling”, as a student of mine puts it. We are prone to daydreams and fantasy, and what better example is there of something viewed as problematic being put to good use? I’m all for harnessing our incredible minds and not trying to expunge parts of ourselves. Writing is the perfect way for us to escape into worlds of our own making and, in my own experience, a way to calm the whirlwinds that our minds can be. When I get into a writing flow (if I can get past paralysis, distraction and time-blindness), my mind goes into a rare state of peace, which gives me a complete rest from my inner chaos.
What kind of difficulties do you observe when you work with neurodiverse writers?
There are so many barriers. Poor executive function can cause problems with self-organisation and memory – we lose a lot of brilliant creative ideas because we don’t get them down quickly enough. Difficulties with distraction and poor time management feature heavily amongst my students. How often does time we had ringfenced to work on the novel turn into folding the laundry and then nipping out to the shops and then maybe checking our emails … by then, it’s 5:00pm and far too late to start anything. It’s such a common picture.
The ND writer also tends to have an incredibly loud inner critic, which often translates into difficulties with procrastination and perfectionism, both of which are thieves of creativity and time.
Dopamine depletion means that we can struggle to motivate ourselves to do anything at all, and regular periods of burnout also take us away from the page. If that wasn’t enough, being ND puts us at much higher risk of poor mental health than our neurotypical siblings, including mood and anxiety disorders, all of which can affect our ability to write if we don’t have the right support.
What can people expect from the workshops that you're setting up?
A shared experience, the knowledge that you aren’t alone, and hope for finding better ways to manage: these are the underpinning values in this series of workshops. Things can get better. There are strategies that will help you improve your approach to writing and improve the writing itself.
The first thing we need to understand is why. Why are we like this? What causes these difficulties? My hope is not that people will try to change their fundamental nature or deny what is true for them, or adopt neurotypical ways of being and writing, but to learn where the buttons and levers are in our brains so that we can work with, not against, ourselves. Each week will focus on a different topic. There will be some teaching, lots of space for discussion, questions and answers, and a writing exercise each week based on the topic.
Do people have to be diagnosed in order to attend or can writers self-select?
If as a writer you identify with any of the traits of ADHD or Autistic Spectrum Condition, the workshops will be helpful for you. Self-diagnosis is completely valid in my book. My website has a page that can help you work out whether the areas I deal with ring any bells, and if attending my classes is for you.