Although I don't think most great writers have had ADHD (face it it's hard to write something long as a book and not stay focused right? LOL), but they certainly are born not made. I think training may hone the skill but you have to be one to begin with.
Look at a lot of the greats - take kurt vonnegut for example - and you can see the signs of someone that probably is living with some brain disorder. Back in the great days of literature too you always see that they were depressed, alcoholic, committing suicide. All the signs of a brain dysfunction are there in one form or another.
Good thing for us ADDers to ponder though.
[QUOTE=GlenW]
Although I don't think most great writers have had ADHD (face it it's hard to write something long as a book and not stay focused right? LOL), but they certainly are born not made. I think training may hone the skill but you have to be one to begin with.
Look at a lot of the greats - take kurt vonnegut for example - and you can see the signs of someone that probably is living with some brain disorder. Back in the great days of literature too you always see that they were depressed, alcoholic, committing suicide. All the signs of a brain dysfunction are there in one form or another.
Good thing for us ADDers to ponder though.
[/QUOTE]
are great writer's somehow not the same as "non-adhers" (what the heck to call them...not them)
what in their brain chemistry or make up allows them to receive the flow of brilliance that eventually ends up as great literature?
"In 1902, when British pediatrician George Still published an account of 20 children in his practice who were "passionate," defiant, spiteful and lacking "inhibitory volition." Still made the then radical suggestion that bad parenting was not to blame; instead he suspected a subtle brain injury."
I KNEW I WAS RIGHT!! ITS A BRAIN PROBLEM, CALL IT WHAT YOU LIKE!
"What researchers do say with great certainty is that the condition is inherited. External factors such as birth injuries and maternal alcohol or tobacco consumption may play a role in less than 10% of cases. Suspicions that a diet high in sugar might cause hyperactivity have been discounted. But the influence of genes is unmistakable. Barkley estimates that 40% of ADHD kids have a parent who has the trait and 35% have a sibling with the problem; if the sibling is an identical twin, the chances rise to between 80% and 92%. "
TIME mag (old) Did Prozac Make Him Do It?
hat's why this interests me, I've read quite a few writer's
biographies, lived with two writers and been a book person all my life so
even just that flow of information they get, I mean, we have that too. Not
brilliant stuff (not me anyway) like a Tolstoy or Stendhal but it is
still a flow from somewhere. I used to crack jokes about being an idea
person, I have a non stop flow of ideas about everything that may come
into my orbit besides all the other multitude of thoughts, stories, images,
daydreaming, pretending, juggling, theorizing and on and on that cram my brain.
And, if a high percentage of GREAT writers did/do have some sort of brain
problem how is that similar or how can you look at that to discover more about
adhd? I have to say, from experience and living with two, what a really good
writer (or great) writer writes does not necessarily have ANYTHING to do with
him/her as a person.