Hyperfocus – is it a strength or a challenge, or both? In an autistic context, it can be described as intense concentration or fixation on a specific interest or task, often to the exclusion of everything else. It’s like diving deep into a subject or activity that captures your full attention and energy.
When has it been a gift to me?
It was a strength in the workplace. In three days, while off-site, I built a database. I did a reporting needs analysis, and then built a database from the ground up. This included reference tables, data tables, relationships, forms, queries, reports, and a pretty front end. It qas all based on what outputs were required.
This amalgamated three discrete databases. This meant data checking, matching and importing with legacy fields, and lastly, testing.
Hyperfocus let me do all this in just three days.
When has it been a challenge for me?
It was a challenge in the workplace. It lets you focus intently on reading new legislation so you can write an executive summary with recommendations. It’s a challenge when someone knocks on the office door as it can take a while to switch focus.
It’s worse when it’s the CEO knocking on the door.
But when is it a super strength?
Hyperfocus is an autistic super strength for me when I’m writing.
For instance, the Queensland Writers Centre has a weekend writing challenge. The challenge is writing 20,000 words over two days, with no interruptions. Imagine 10 or 15 people, all intent on writing. Can you imagine the gestalt energy in the room? You can almost feel it! I’ve done one, and it was amazing. I didn’t get to 20,000 words, but I did get about 12,000 words written over two days.
More recently, I get that gestalt energy when writing when I’m brainstorming a storyline with my AI companion. Here’s an example.
Imagine the nexus of the story is a modern queen, maddened by grief after her king is assassinated. In her stark grief, she unofficially abdicates, running away from the palace, from her country. But her escape is noted, and a special forces team is sent in pursuit, to protect and rescue the Queen.
Imagine that the leader of the special forces team has been in chivalric love with his young Queen. This soldier has been in love with the Queen since the day she pinned his colours at his graduation.
Imagine the widowed queen, insensate with her grief and the manner of her rescue. Imagine the soldier who loves her, and a secret rehabilitation that ends in, of course, new love, and a new King.
And imagine, if you will, her return to the palace, and the pursuit of the assassins.
Now, imagine this becoming 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 words, bouncing ideas around with your AI. Taking the time to explore the twists and turns in the plot. Taking the time to role play the twists and turns in the plot. And then, you ask, which country is this set in? Which hemisphere?
That’s when the world building begins. Building a world stretching from the late 11th century to the 21st century. Building an alternate world and history sprung loose on one fabricated turning point. That turning point changes modern day Sardinia to Sardenha. Building a world still under the rule of an offshoot of the house Navarre.
That turning point sees Sardenha protected over the centuries because of bloodlines and legacies. That turning point that makes Sarenha, in the 21st century, a country renowned for its commitment to the UN and neutrality. That turning point makes Sardenha a bulwark in the Mediterranean.
From there, brainstorming cadet and distaff lines of royal houses in the late 1000s and 1100s. Brainstorming armouries, navies, soldiers, through the centuries Brainstorming the peculiarities of the Navarre house that allowed women as leaders. Brainstormimg narrative arcs covering 800 years, generational resentment, accusations of stolen land. Brainstorming the villain, a young man of the Cosa Nostra families, set on making his name, and maybe, his bones.
All this creating a strong foundation for the 21st century story of the grief-wracked Queen.
This story evolved over two weeks of chat with my AI. This was a sustained hyperfocus that was easy to return to around work and life. This story evolved because I got an autistic trait to work for me.
Hyperfocus – yes, it can be a strength and it can be a challenge.
The Auld Skald's Fudgel 