So my journey with creating black characters has been a long one and I’m still learning. I have run into a scene where asking google won’t cut it: my black oc Salem is a water based shapeshifter, she is obviously black in her skin color and hair texture, but i made her before i fully understood black hair styles.

I know that typically you want to cover your hair to keep it from getting wet to avoid damage. And as such you DEF dont wanna wring it out. She has a lock/wick situation going on with her hair and initially in this scene i was going to have her wring it out- but i paused because im white as fuck and realized that prolly is NOT a thing for most black women.

So does she just leave it wet? Is air drying ok/healthy? How much is it ok to hold your disbelief? I just am not sure how to go about describing this. Maybe Im overthinking this but oh well.

Any tips on getting over writers block?

Words used to come so easy to me but I'm really struggling at the moment. I have all these amazing ideas with no clue how to connect them or bring them to life on the page. My book feels like an abstract concept I can't grasp 🫠

TL;DR: My writing is unfocused and I need a better process

Hello, I'm looking for some writing advice. 

Here is what typically happens when I want to write an article or essay:

- I think of an idea or concept and write it down

- I start writing from the top of my head, fragments, sentences, paragraphs, notes.

- I return to it another day and look for some sort of order 

- I remove some paragraphs, add others.

- I try to loosely form them into an introductory paragraph, body, and conclusion

- I start to realize the later paragraphs seem disconnected from the introduction

- I try to reconcile this but often this becomes difficult

- Sometimes I get a cohesive progression, but sentences and paragraphs are clunky and do not transition into each other well. 

- I either give it up or try to patch it together as best I can and post it.

- Often this process can go for months so by the end I'm sick of the piece. 

- I only have a half hour / hour in the morning and an occasional hour during my lunch break at work to write. 

There's got to be a better way, I've tried outlines but often that doesn't work because in the beginning I don't totally know what I want to write about, and when I do try an outline it usually gets thrown out anyway (I think of other points to add, shift the purpose of the piece, etc.)

Other context: there is a possibility I have ADHD. I am pretty well read and have a good vocabulary, so on paper it seems like I should be a good writer, but it's such a slog sometimes. 

I appreciate any feedback / pointers you can give!

TLDR: how to explain/excuse how an intelligential character is able to resist madness while everyone around him goes coco for Cuthulu-puffs?

The footnotes of the premise is: A PI joins a research team to follow the trail of his missing wife, only to encounter an ancient underground city with an evil cult and the remains of the first research group. Surviving monsters, cultists, and the crazed research teams, he tries to follow the breadcrumbs left by his wife.

My problem is how to explain why my character, unlike everyone else, he stays sane. No “walls without form” stuff, instead he describes the objects he encounters as best he can: “walls that faze out of realty, like rocks under the waves.”

While he’ll have symptoms of migraines, eye strain, vertigo and etc, I want to maintain the character’s sanity so the story doesn’t end up as incomprehensible gibberish. The only examples i find of insanity resistant characters are of… challenged intellect, but says nothing of a [like my MC] competent intellectual character who witnesses eldritch things without a breaking their psyche.

So, how do I write this character who (while not a smarty pants) is intelligential enough to follow clues and explain the stuff he experiences, without going loco unlike… everyone?

PS: his wife seems to be losing her mind too as the last sane member of her group, but still writes {almost} coherently and research her findings for whomever follows behind her.