(Or at least try)
Imagine walking into an old electronics store from the 1950s. There’s a wall of bulky, humming television sets stacked floor to ceiling. Each one is playing a different story — loud, chaotic, vivid. Some are in black and white, others in screaming Technicolor. Romance, monsters, worldbuilding, internal arguments, trauma flashbacks, “what ifs,” and tomorrow’s grocery list — playing simultaneously.
Welcome to my brain.
Especially at night, when I’m supposed to sleep.
As someone with ADHD and a brain wired like a mythological hydra in a Red Bull factory, falling asleep is less of a gentle drift and more like trying to shut down a screaming newsroom full of caffeinated storytellers. So, I built a trick. A visual ritual. A weird little spell that lets me rest.
I picture that wall of TVs — and one by one, I mute them.
Then I turn them off.
Click. Click. Click.
The stories go quiet. The screen fades to black. My mind slowly follows.
And sometimes… just before sleep hits, one of those TVs flickers back on. A story begins to play — not one I made up, but one I dream. And that’s okay. That’s the safe kind of story. That’s the kind that can carry me into sleep like a boat on a strange river.
🛠During the day? Same setup. But I’m rarely able to turn off more than a handful. At best, five scream louder than the others. At worst, the whole wall is full volume and I’m just standing there, trying to function while my brain is DJ-ing chaos from 72 different universes.
Here’s the twist though:
Even when I can tell which stories are worth my time — the juicy ones, the meaningful ones, the ones begging to be written — they’re still playing at the same time. No queue. No patience. No polite “after you.”
And here’s where the chaos hits a new level.
Some TVs? They don’t do reruns.
Nope. One-time showings only. Exclusive premieres. No scheduled programming.
So if I don’t drop everything and grab a pen, a phone, a napkin, a cursed sock — I lose it. The episode ends. The channel vanishes. The story slips through my fingers like fog.
Which makes writing regularly… complicated.
I’m not struggling for ideas. I’m struggling because I have too many, and they all want my attention now. I’m trying to write one book, while three others are yelling “PICK ME, PICK ME” in the background, and another one just started playing a scene so compelling I want to cry because I know I don’t have time to catch it all before it disappears.
I’m not a writer with a blank page.
I’m a writer with a traffic jam at the gates of imagination, and every car is honking at once.
But I’m learning. Slowly. Messily. I’m learning to:
Carry notebooks everywhere. Digital or paper. Yes, even in the bathroom. Especially in the bathroom.
Jot down the gist. Not perfection. Just enough to remember the tone, the character, the twist.
Accept that I might not catch every episode. And that’s okay. Another one will come.
Forgive myself for “jumping projects,” because this is how I work — not how I fail.
And I’m learning to love the wall of TVs.
Because yeah, it’s noisy. But it’s also mine. And every now and then, one of those flickering screens gives me something magical.