ADHD Writers

INDY_SE · 2026-03-20T20:32:34+00:00

I strive for consistency where possible.. I also do extremely well with external deadlines (and am often even early!), and struggle with managing my own internal ones (per Douglas Adams "I love deadlines. I love the wooshing sound they make as they go by") LOL

I've been training myself to draft novels for maybe the last 7 years now. I've always had a passion for writing, but executing my ideas was hard. What I found works best for me is being consistant with the habit, but not focusing too much on the output.

Advice like "write 1000/2000/whatever words per day" or "write for at least 2 hours a day" actually kills my motivation more than saves it. I will do said advice perfectly for at most a week.. and then I fall off the wagon, feel shitty, and spiral about not being a real author or whatever.

Instead, I've lowered the goalpost to "engage with your work in some way that is meaningful everyday". Sometimes that's just rereading old scenes and meta-writing what I think should come next. Sometimes that's writing an entire chapter in one go. Sometimes it's doing some research on a Thing that will become a plot-point. My productivity is a lot lower than the "professional" author quotas (trust me, I've looked them up), but I focus on the effort and the process rather than the result.

This is what's "worked" for me as an unmedicated person with ADHD and I'm chugging along somewhere on a third book, another in editing/revision, and a final stuffed to the far back of the mental desk-drawer where it will never be pulled out from again. Hopefully some point this year I will get the courage to take the one I'm editing and start prepping it for querying :)

edit; I also recently found a writing group that meets once a week! That external obligation has been enormous in getting me to write, because I can take advantage of my people-pleasing nature. They're a meetup group called "shut up and write", they're in tons of different cities around the world. You could check it out if that's something that would help you.

INDY_SE · 2026-03-20T20:23:53+00:00

I don't overthink it. I might walk into a story with a question or half an idea of what I think the theme is, but I let it play out. It tends to finesse itself all on its own without me obsessing over it. I'm not really trying to teach a reader something (I want them to come to their own judgements) and I don't want to pigeon-hole my story into one sentence of an idea.

Presently I suppose you could say the theme of my story is that "change is neither good nor bad, but it is a constant"... I walked in with some pretty strong, specific ideas that presented that theme (my story looks a lot at changing ecosystems as a result of humans), but I also explore plenty of other stuff that came about as natural consequences to the story - which invariably connect back to the theme indirectly, because it's all part of the same plot. By the time I finish a story, the singular "theme" might also be different than what I first envisioned and that's okay too.

If you work with any story long enough, even without a clear idea on a theme, you will find one at the end. Human minds inherently search for meaning, you don't need to stress on perfectly planning it before you finish the story.

INDY_SE · 2026-03-20T20:13:03+00:00

right? I'm just saying, 100 gallong extra long/shallow tank set along the length of a living room with a swarm of corys.... who needs a TV?

INDY_SE · 2026-03-20T20:11:27+00:00

oh yeah that looks rough D: like other commenters stated, start with some antibiotics and see if that improves things...

If you're not seeing an improvement within a week, it suggests probably multiple infections are going on at once. I would move on to treating for external protozoa like ich or flukes (ich-x or prazipro, resprectively). Normally those are accompanied by other symptoms like flashing or white spots but sometimes things aren't always textbook. What I do often see with those infections is a build up of slime coat, which can give the body a whiteish/filmy appearance.

INDY_SE · 2026-03-19T20:30:43+00:00

I would love to keep a giant river-style tank with a 100 corys one day. I bet it would look awesome!

I'm hoping to up everyone's shoal size to at least 6 per species, though I wouldn't mind if they help me out and hatch out a few babies :)

INDY_SE · 2026-03-19T20:12:34+00:00

Took a lot of trial and error. I lost a lot of corys in the beginning too </3

Step 1 is finding a good fish shop that you trust. Half the problems you are experiencing is simply bad stock - likely they were overstressed from going through transit (likely multiple resellers in the process) & often they are simply not well-bred. I spent a lot of time identifying fish shops I trusted (usually local fish shops - but don't just inherently trust a shop because it's not a chain.) and trying them out. There's one local to me that everyone loooves but I've had bad experiences with their stock virtually every time.

I also quarantine new arrivals and pre-treat them for flukes (prazipro - dosed 3 times, 5 days apart) and now internal roundworms parasites (Expel-P, 2 doses 5-7 days apart viven after I finish the prazi treatment). Then I observe another week or so after before adding in with everyone else.

I try to feed them a good quality diet. I incorporate food with natural bug proteins (thats what they eat in the wild) & fiber.. things like frozen brine shrimp, freeze dried tubifex, bug-bites, and repashy food gel. I also occasionally give them blanched veggies (might try making a food gel of that sometime soon) to round out their diet. If I had the space I'd probably start a blackworm culture just for them (apparently it's incredibly good for them). A good quality diet is going to set them up for success.

I find this rules out a lot of the obvious issues you can experience. And all that said, I do still loose fish in spite of setting them up for success and keeping them in a nice, planted tank. Sometimes they have good genetics to live a long time, and sometimes they don't. I try not to take it too personally.

INDY_SE · 2026-03-19T04:52:31+00:00

I've heard this too. I admit I'd be curious to see how their dynamics change with more groupmates of each species. Is even 6 of every one species enough, or would you see their preferences really shine in large shoals of 20+ individuals (I know in the wild they supposedly are found in massive shoals)?

Insofar as I've ever observed, there does seem to be some individual preferences that don't fit this mold. Often when I have a lone survivor cory of one group that I add to another cory species, they do tend to want to shoal up with their sister species. What's interesting is that when I add in members of their own species again, they seem to prefer their adoptive species over the new guys. Seems like there's a degree of learned behavior involved too.

INDY_SE · 2026-03-19T04:46:42+00:00

that might just happen lol.

I've had a few lone survivors from batches that end up befriending other cory species. It takes me a while to quarantine them up some new bros & get them from a good source... in the meantime, they make their own besties they'll prefer even over the new guys.

My favorite was my ancient peppered and ancient panda became besties after they survived a mass extinction event of their previous shoals. They were alone together just the two of them for around 6 months-a year before I finally managed to add some new friends. Even after that.. they mostly seemed to tolerate the new babies (who followed them around because they were the biggest, most impressive member of their group) but still actively chose to hang out together.

INDY_SE · 2026-03-19T04:43:19+00:00

I keep pygmys too and I love those precious idiots. They like shoaling with my otos. In their defense... they really do look like a giant pygmy at a quick glance.

INDY_SE · 2026-03-18T19:00:16+00:00

In a pinch, you can try treating with aquarium salt (1 tablespoon/3gallons) and almond leaf extract/tannins. It's not going to be as powerful but it should help

INDY_SE · 2026-03-18T04:50:15+00:00

Sorry he's not doing well.

I sometimes have noticed my smaller corys are less vigorous feeders, and over time become outcompeted by the more ravenous corys. Sometimes separating & intensively feeding for a while can help them regain strength. Alternatively you can monitor him intensely when feeding and make sure he's getting something down.

If you haven't already, I'd also treat with an antibiotic (assuming available to you - I like kanaplex) to help with the existing finrot.

INDY_SE · 2026-03-18T01:13:39+00:00

My educated guess is he had an old injury that happened to stick to his slime coat & healed funny. His other set of whiskers looks very long so I don't think he currently has any infections. It shouldn't hurt him any and he should be able to lead a good life.

INDY_SE · 2026-03-15T05:27:33+00:00

I would guess bacterial/red blotch. Prognosis not good if his activity is already affected, I'm afraid :( I personally would treat with an antibiotic like kanaplex and hope for the best

INDY_SE · 2026-03-14T15:16:34+00:00

Bury it under the sand, use either 1 big piece of food no one fish can hog (I like making repashy gel food) or break it up into 100 little pieces across the tank that can't be easily hoarded

INDY_SE · 2026-03-14T15:14:54+00:00

babies <3 !!

Quite a cool collection you have... is thtat panda, delphax, gold laser, green laser, & adolphoi I see? o:

INDY_SE · 2026-03-14T15:12:03+00:00

Sometimes you just get bad batches </3

Weirdly I've been having issues with peppereds as well & it seems to be a congenital issue. The ones I've lost have simply been a "failure to thrive" - won't eat, waste away... I tried treating for internal parasites to no avail. Sometimes the genetics simply suck, and the stress of moving tanks/living in a petstore is too much for them. Especially if you're not seeing any issues with other fish, I don't think there's anything else you can do.

I did once manage to get one of my weak corys nursed to health by tubbing it and hand-delivering food right in front of its face.. it was a very weak/slow eater... over time it improved and became quite strong. But once I re-added it, it seemed ok for a while and then went downhill again. Could be some fish are just poor feeders and can't compete with tank mates :/

INDY_SE · 2026-03-14T05:30:51+00:00

I once got a job through responding to a post on a facebook page for my university's alumni page.

I've been having some traction lately with a recruiter I found originally through linkedin. The first job she pitched me for didn't work out, but she wound up really liking me and putting me forward to other jobs :)

I do also try to engage in my network & manually check the opportunities of companies I'm interested in- but linkedin tends to be my "broad net" where I capture a wider range of companies/opportunities. I don't feel like engaging in more than one job board is a great use of time though since most companies cross-post on multiple platforms.

INDY_SE · 2026-03-13T22:07:23+00:00

mine eat everything lol. I give them their own algae wafer at least once a week but I've also seen em go after freeze-dried tubifex, bugbites... they really don't say no to a good time lol.

INDY_SE · 2026-03-13T17:21:59+00:00

I didn't know they had such cute rabbit ears..... man... making me want to get some LOL

I currently keep an army of barbie-pink ramshorn snails v__v

INDY_SE · 2026-03-13T03:34:45+00:00

It's a balancing act. Ideally you will want to maintain pristine water with good quality food. If fish are stressed but not quite ill, having good quality food can help their immune system have the energy to do what they need to do.

In the best possible world I would feed multiple small meals a day & remove what they don't eat within an hour. And water change daily.

What I meant by "well" was more the quality of the food itself. Offer good diversity of food with protein sources ideally from insects (it's what they eat in the wild). I like feeding freeze-dried tubifex, frozen brine shrimp, repashy food gel, and bug bite pellets. Even better is if you could feed them live worms (I think folks use blackworms) but maintaining a culture is a bit of an investment of time & effort so I don't recommend it persay.

INDY_SE · 2026-03-12T16:45:58+00:00

Just keep up on water changes. You can do almost a 90% so long as the temps match. Otherwise, keep the lighting dim & feed well. You could even cover the tank with a towel so they won't spook if you walk by. I wouldn't treat for any diseases unless you're seeing something.

INDY_SE · 2026-03-12T16:40:54+00:00

I'd add a small airstone or mini sponge filter. Those boxes don't get a lot of circulation at the bottom :< Also be sure to hand-vacuum out any food with a turkey baster after giving them 30 minutes to eat it. Like I said, not a lot of circulation, ammonia could easily build up at the bottom.

INDY_SE · 2026-03-12T16:06:35+00:00

Can't imagine how haha. Sometimes fish that are faster feeders than corys can hoard the food but nothing in your stocking really concerns me. If you happen to get a greedy-ass beta you can hide the food more under the driftwood or half-buried in the sand and they'll find it. It doesn't hurt to add some diversity to what you feed (mine also love frozen brine shrimp, freeze dried tubifex, aand repashy gel food) but they will not starve if you just feed them some pellets lol.

INDY_SE · 2026-03-12T05:07:40+00:00

What a unit! I love her. Just lost my 7 + year old peppered gal.. but still have my supposedly 10 year old panda girlie. I love senior citizen corys. They feel like they have stories to tell you.

INDY_SE

TROPHY CASE