Constance Brewer

One Neat Trick

Constance April 19, 2025 April 19, 2025 Essay

I’ve been busy writing lately, working on outlining a novel while doing another comb through of one I thought was done. Writing new poems and editing older ones that sat a while to cool off. Submitting things looms on the horizon, but I’m quite happy just creating at the moment. Along with knitting, spinning yarn, and doing some printmaking. And baking, lots of baking. The usual ADHD life. I stumbled across an interesting video on YouTube that validated Doing All Things, as opposed to those that command ‘stick to one thing and one thing only’. What a dull life that would be. All my interests feed each other to some degree. I also found on YouTube a plethora of writing and art advice, which all seems to be titled with words and phrases like

Don’t! Bad! Worst! Forget about that! Stop Doing This! How to Draft/Edit/Write the Correct Way. The Only Whatever You’ll Ever Need. This One Thing Will Solve All Your Problems… etc.

No wonder writers are neurotic. They buy into the idea if you just watch the video, read the article, do all the things, your writing will miraculously become a best seller. Not that there isn’t some good advice sprinkled throughout. I know the titles are to grab attention and make you watch/read but boy can they make you feel called out. Am I doing this? Am I not doing that? Why did I ever decide to write in the first place? So I’ve become picky about which videos I watch, and fill my feed with art, fiber crafts, Corgi videos, and cooking videos, and pared down the writing ones to people I think offer good information without all the hype. Ones that say, You Can Do It!

Can you do it?

Maybe it has to do with all the negativity the country is going through. It’s much easier to be negative than positive it seems. It’s why I backed away from social media, it’s a cesspool of negativity. Making art, spinning/knitting/weaving, baking, feeding squirrels—all make me feel positive. Doing everything helps the positivity bleed over into my writing. It helps me adapt the mindset of “Hey, I like this. Let’s do more.” Heck it’s good for overall positivity also.

Then again, so is squirrel watching. Be more like the squirrels. Search through the dinner pan for your favorite nut. Call out to your friends that lunch is served. Tell off the dog from the top of a chain link fence. Scatter doves left and right as you race toward the food bowl. Above all, don’t let anyone tell you to stop being you. You’ll get where you are going, in your own way and in your own time. My ‘One Neat Trick’.

Links to More of My Essays on Writing

Is Writing Time Absolute?

Writing in Dual POVs (or more)

A Meditation on Walking and Writing

Using Weaving for Bursts of Writing Creativity

Figuring it Out as You Go

ADHD-ing My Way to Writing Success

Constance October 21, 2024 April 19, 2025 Essay / Writing

Working with the ADHD Brain

I have a blank space in my brain between the trip to London in the spring and OMG kids (not mine) are going back to school. I think it’s called summer-oh no-what happened-it’s-fall. It’s been hotter than ever in my corner of the U.S., highest temp on the back porch was 111—in the shade. Daily it was 90 to 100 with the 90s hitting about 9 a.m. Needless to say I didn’t get much done outside the house except scanning the horizon for wildfires. Now it’s almost November and I’m still wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Still scanning for wildfires.

Inside, however, is another story. Lots of writing going on. My ADHD brain decided to juggle the sequel to one contemporary fantasy novel, a second epic fantasy novel, and poems all at the same time. I’m holding multiple characters in my head, and you know what? It’s working. Such is the superpower of ADHD. Compartmentalizing and switching tracks on a moment’s notice. I wish I had seen it as a superpower long ago instead of a detriment as I was told.

It also holds the ability to hyper-focus, allowing me to actually do one paragraph and more outlines of chapters. Me, outlining more than a sentence. (Checks outside for flying pigs. Who would be crispy bacon in the heat.) It’s helped lock in that compartmentalizing part of my brain. If I got stuck on one story, I hopped to the other. Or poetry. Or some artwork. (Housecleaning, not so much.) Rinse, repeat.

I used Scrivener to do the outlining because I really like the corkboard function. It’s probably what trolled me over to the dark side. (Outlining). Then I slowly came around to other methods of outlining after a nifty fiction writers meeting. They helped explain what each part of the outlining method was supposed to do. And I understood it! Finally! I think combining the showing part of the presentation, examples, and hearing it aloud helped tremendously. I’But never fear, I still pants some of my chapters when the outline isn’t quite loosey goosey enough. So the best of both worlds, really.

I haven’t quite adapted to using Scrivener for the actual writing part. (Or Auto Crit) I think too many years of using Word makes it the more comfortable option. Technology—including air conditioning—has made this a season—or two seasons rather—to get serious writing done. I usually look forward to winter for writing, trapped in the house is prime time to let the percolating thoughts loose. But right now it falls to fall to be my vizualization time. The cool mornings, hot afternoons, and cool to cold nights fit my fickle brain perfectly. So I’ll stay in my bubble and crank out more words. Then we’ll see how ADHD brain handles editing this time around. Despite the flip-flopping thought process, perfectionism is still a thing. How do you multitask? Does perfectionism get in the way of your writing?

Outside Links

Why people with ADHD make great writers

Writers with ADHD

Links to More of My Essays on Writing

Is Writing Time Absolute?

Writing in Dual POVs (or more)

A Meditation on Walking and Writing

Using Weaving for Bursts of Writing Creativity

Figuring it Out as You Go

Find More Essays on My Non-Fiction Tab

Resetting My Writing Brain via London

Constance May 18, 2024 May 18, 2024 Essay

We took a fun excursion to London recently, and I didn’t think about writing once. I wanted a reset. No poems, no notebook, no scribbled ideas on my latest novel. Just the day-to-day joy of being in the moment. I didn’t even take as many pictures as I normally do, wanting to experience everything without a filter between my eye and the subjects.

We mostly toured museums, our passion for the past driving us. The British Museum in particular, where I could see all the mummies, statues, pottery, tools, chessmen, and hieroglyphs my heart desired. Things I’d studied in history and art history classes. Of course, to complete the art history trifecta, we hit the National Gallery and Tate Modern museums. Admiring paintings in person made my brain happy. There’s nothing like seeing the swirls of paint in a Van Gogh for yourself.

Horse head from Parthenon, British Museum

Lewis Chessmen, King, Bishop, Berserker — Lewis Chessmen – King, Bishop, Berserker
British Museum

Four Philosophers — The bane of studying for my Philosophy degree.
Ancient Philosophers.

Now that the trip is a couple of weeks in the past, my mind turns to exploring the sights and sounds of having been in London, looking for patterns and turning phrases around and around. Poems lurk on the periphery, waiting to be coaxed into life. I use the feelings of being a stranger in another country in my novel, guiding the character through missteps. We didn’t make that many—I think—because we read and videoed up on the place before we went.

Prime meridian — Prime Meridian, Greenwich Observatory

Clock Tower — Big Ben from one of our walk abouts

It was the small things. Standing to the right on escalators to let the impatient people go by. Waiting for others to get off the train before we got on. Saying good morning to our barista. (Who got to know us well.) Remembering politeness, something that seems to be dropping by the wayside as the century goes on. We found Londoners to be generally polite people. I was always offered a seat on the subway by random males. Perhaps due to the silver streaks in my hair? But it was appreciated. Especially after six hours walking in museums and the time spent walking from the Underground (and its numerous stairs) to the latest location.

This is not the Army’s hiking

That was another thing I enjoyed (mostly) The walking to get places. My current hometown is very car-centric, so being able to use public transportation and pop out close to my destination was a relief. I’m sure you folks in big cities know the feeling. Of course, being on vacation, there was no real rush to get places. We arrived when we arrived. We could enjoy the streets and scenery. Twice we took random walks, once in the Paddington neighborhood we stayed in, where we found a fabulous Italian restaurant, and the second time when we blew off another museum and just walked around Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. It was beautiful, we enjoyed watching the dogs frolic on the expanses of green grass, got rained on, saw Guards on horses practicing for a parade, and generally just reveled in the pretty (long) walk.

Our home base for excursions was Paddington Station, and it’s funny how having a ‘center’ at the beginning and end of the day really helped. Not to mention the coffee shops in the station. Got to get our fix coming and going. The hustle and bustle in the station was a nice contrast to the slow pace of my rural hometown. My brain embraced the contrast, and now that I’ve had time to digest it all, I feel words stirring. The urge to jump back into writing and explore relationships between people and places. I’m ready.

What do you do to reset your writing brain?

Some of the Places We Went

British Museum

The National Gallery

Tate Modern

Royal Observatory Greenwich

Hyde Park

The Cleveland Arms Pub

Briciole

Harry Potter Studio Tour

More Essays

Five Poems That Pulled Me Into Poetry

Backwards This Language Is

Sketching Out a New Year

How Cats Help You Write

More Lessons From Printmaking

A Meditation on Walking and Writing

For more essays, search the Non-Fiction Links

Recent Printmaking

Constance January 26, 2024 January 26, 2024 Art

The last quarter of the year I was busy with different types of printmaking, including two prints for Baren printmaking exchanges. They usually have themes, which is fun and frustrating at the same time. Frustrating when I can’t come up with an idea, but luckily for the two exchanges I did I had ideas right away.

Our first exchange was themed “When It’s Hot, It’s Hot”. My mind immediately went to the plight of polar bears in the Arctic. After watching many nature programs on the bears lately, I could picture what’s been happening. Lack of ice. So my print developed into a polar bear stranded on a rocky coast, no sea ice in sight.

Process

Here’s a quick walk through the 4 color reduction prints I did, at a size of 10 x 15 inches. The reduction print is also known as a ‘Suicide Print”. Once you carve each layer, there’s no going back. The first layer carved leaves what you want white, and the color you overlay is the lightest color.

Then you carve away everything you want to stay that light color. That’s why it’s a suicide print. There’s no going correcting once you carve away the light color. After that, you print with a darker color, finish, and carve away that darker color, leaving the darkest color last to be printed. At least for a 4 layer color print. You can have as many layers of color as you want.

Polar Bear Print Final Layer — Color Layer 4

Right after the polar bear print, I did another exchange print, which was themed Holiday Season/Loved Ones. Continuing on with my current events interest, I titled this one “What Yellowstone Tourists See”, with an image of a bison decked out to look innocent and Holiday-ish. I’m always mystified by the continual urge for tourists to pet the fuzzy cows. And get gored.

And here’s what my lino block looked like after I finished carving everything away. Just the red holiday lights are left from the full image on the block. (The green is from a previous layer)

Want to see more prints and how other artists handled the themes? Click for the Baren Printmaking Exchange forum

I was having so much fun with the reduction prints, I did one on my own, no exchange. This was an owl, where I played with darker colors and making the inks more transparent on certain layers. The line marks around the owl are known as “chatter”, where the paper dips down into the carved out area and picks up some ink. If it bothered me, I’d mask out the owl but I kind of like chatter on a print.

While all that was going on, I worked on my Whiteline Printmaking. This is a technique where you only use one block, carve around each image to generate white lines, then hand-paint each image with watercolors. So you are painting the watercolor on the sections between the whiteline cutouts. It eliminates the need for carving separate blocks or making multiple reduction prints. Each image can come out slightly different. I like House 5 the best, out of the 12 prints I’ve done so far. Carving is tedious, printing goes faster. See house examples below. (Excuse the craptastic photography. Light out in studio.)

One more Whiteline print experimentation – Hurricane print.

Click for Whiteline Woodcut Examples

Lastly, I started experimenting with Gel Printing, a monoprint technique where you use a soft silicone plate to transfer the paint/ink to the paper. No printing press required. Just paint and/or stencil on the plate and rub with your hand. Each image is unique (monoprint) and you can make collages or embellish afterwards. It’s less fussy than regular printmaking. Unless you want to be fussy. Which occasionally I do. Something is soothing about repetition. You may notice I do like more graphic images, rather than realistic.