Allegra Chapman on Neurodivergent Creativity as Cultural Resistance

Parents Who Create

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I bring you Allegra Chapman (she/her) — on Neurodivergent Creativity as Cultural Resistance.

Give us a snapshot of your life as it actually is.

I am a neurodivergent woman raising two (I am almost certain) neurodivergent kids, together with my supposedly neurotypical husband (I'm no longer so sure he's not one of us!).

Last year, my husband and I made a decision to go all in on living the lives we have always dreamed of. I got ousted from corporate life a while ago when I dared to get pregnant with my first child (how dare I?!), but I had still been doing consultancy work for large organisations.

My husband had been an accountant since before I met him, and had hated it for the entire 13 years I had known him. We were tired of having the blood sucked out of us by businesses that didn't care about us, or about anything else.

We were tired of being cogs in the machine. He left his job and retrained as a plumber. I left my consultancy business and committed full-time to my writing.

Now we're trying to live a heart-led life that lights us both up, and gives us space to spend quality time with our children as well as our own souls. So far the results have been mixed! :) But overall, I think it's well worth it.

Where can we find you?

Website | Latest Book | Substack | Instagram | Books on Amazon

Why do you create?

I have to. I tried not to for a really long time - in my 20s, surrounded by a load of unfinished projects and feeling out of step with the standard ideal of "the writer", I told myself I just wasn't cut out for this.

I'd wanted to be a writer since I learned to write the alphabet, but somehow it just wasn't working. I tried all the creativity courses and the productivity books, but none of them worked for me. So I gave up.

I spent years telling myself that I'd outgrown writing, that I had more "important" or "serious" things to do. Then my first child was born. I'm not sure what happened, really - the words just suddenly started pouring out of me. I remembered how incredibly integral writing is to who I am, and how much it nourishes me.

So I started, tentatively, to pick it back up. Since then, I've felt a drive to share stories that have historically been hidden or silenced. Not just in my own work, but also through coaching and empowering neurodivergent and disabled creatives.

We need a wider variety of stories shaping our culture - because the cultural narrative that dominates our society right now is failing a lot of people. I want to reshape that narrative.

As a neurodivergent person, it comes naturally to me to challenge the status quo and look at things from a different perspective - I hope that my writing, and the work of the creatives I coach and support, can help the rest of the world to reconsider what kind of world we want to, collectively, create for ourselves.

What does the inside of your creative mind actually feel like?

Chaos.

I'm AuDHD, so there are always a whole bunch of ideas swirling around at any one time. I'm extremely prone to being distracted by a new shiny idea - every new concept that pops up feels like the most important and most urgent thing in the world, so it takes some effort to keep myself on track with projects. But I've also learned to lean into that and appreciate that part of who I am involves coming up with lots of ideas and having lots of things on the go at once.

It works for me to be able to move between different projects so that I can choose what I work on based on my energy and capacity on any given day.

I'm passionate about making positive change in the world, and a lot of my work is influenced by a drive to change the cultural narrative and give voice to people and issues that have been silenced. That can mean I get easily overwhelmed by the state of the world right now, and I have to consciously disconnect from it all sometimes, otherwise the sadness and anger and fear is all too much.

I have to get the balance right between being driven by my sense of justice and wanting change, and not getting paralysed by the magnitude of it all.

Although I'm a writer, I'm a very visual person. I like playing around with painting and mixed media art to explore some of the themes in my work, and often I have images swirling around in my head before I can put ideas into words. I have synaesthesia - words and sounds have colours in my mind, so my experience of writing is actually quite visual.

I'm influenced heavily by mythology, and by nature, and the interconnection of the two. So I spend a lot of time outside, daydreaming about sea god/desses or nature spirits. I live half my life in a story world, and I have to remind myself to be present in the real world too.

What has parenthood changed about your work — and what has it refused to change?

Parenthood was the catalyst for me rediscovering my writing, and, at the same time, put a huge limitation on how much I *could* write.

In some ways, though, I think that's been helpful. When I had "all the time in the world" (not really, but sort of), in retrospect I now realise that was too big, too overwhelming.

Now, if I can only snatch 15 minutes to write while the kids are going to sleep, then that is a manageable container that my brain can handle. It forces me to actively seek out pockets of time to write, rather than thinking I can do it whenever, and then never actually getting round to it.

I sometimes worry about what my children will think of my writing. I'm working on a novel at the moment that was largely inspired by my experience as a neurodivergent woman parenting my neurodivergent daughter, and I worry about what my daughter will think of it when she's old enough to read it.

But I also want to write it for her because I want to offer some support and validation to her, and women like us, who are different. I hope she will see that, although I've found this experience challenging (figuring out my own neurodivergence alongside hers and having no guidance on either was always going to be tough!), there's incredible beauty and power in it too.

My children inspire me - I want to make the world just a little better for them to inherit, and I want to show them that they *can* follow their personal calling and live life on their own terms.

Describe the conditions under which your work gets made.

It's messy. Even though I'm a full-time writer now, there is so much of the "business" side of things that needs to be done, that seems to take up all the time I have while the children are at school!

So I'm still writing in little snatched pockets. Sometimes on the floor of my kids' bedroom while they're falling asleep, sometimes on the kitchen counter while I'm cooking, sometimes while I'm sitting on the side at their swimming classes... Sometimes I work alongside the kids, too.

We'll all write or paint together. I work in short bursts, in fragmented shards of time, but it seems to work for me!

What kind of work becomes possible when your children are nearby, and what becomes impossible?

My children don't second-guess themselves or judge their ideas, they just sit down and create. That helps me to get out of my head and just play around with ideas. Especially with visual art - I'll sit down with them and just splash some paint around and see what happens. Or I'll scribble a few ideas down.

It's freeing, being around people who are so liberated and haven't yet learned to censor themselves.

On the other hand, I cannot get into any deep writing when they're around. Every minute or two, someone will want a snack or need to ask me a question or want to tell me about something that happened last week. I can't maintain a train of thought.

So sketching out ideas is fine, but crafting them into a coherent narrative will have to wait until the small people are out or unconscious!

Allegra is running a free 5-day experience to show how a nervous system-friendly creative habit works in practice

What have you had to become in order to keep creating?

Myself. I've realised that my issues with creativity came from trying to be the type of person that society told me to be. I thought there was something wrong with me because I couldn't show up like a neurotypical person, and I spent ages beating myself about that, which just sent my nervous system into shutdown.

Once I accepted who I am and allowed myself to be different, I was able to build a creative practice that worked for me.

What is the part of your creative life that no one sees?

The angst and the worry and the imposter syndrome! I think I do a good job of pretending I'm completely confident and know exactly what I'm doing, but it's a very different story on the inside!

I was bullied a lot when I was younger, and I've been in a few toxic relationships with partners in the past, so my self-esteem has never been particularly high.

I struggle to believe that anything I create is actually any good, so I spend a lot of time worrying that it's all a massive waste of time! It means a lot to me when people tell me they enjoy my work or that it's meant something to them - it helps convince me that it is worthwhile after all!

Who or what has most shaped the way you create now, not at the beginning, but in the reality of your current life?

My husband has played a big role - he has worked really hard to carve out space for me to write, and to enable me to focus on the work that matters to me. Both in terms of financially giving me the security I need to be able to write, and giving me space from the children and the life admin. He really believes in me and wants to support me, and that means so much to me.

I also have some wonderful friends who believe in me and support my work, and that gives me the confidence and courage to keep going. People think of writing as quite solitary work, but having a community around me (online and offline) has been invaluable in making me feel that this is truly worth doing!

What happens when you’re interrupted, and how do you get back into your work?

I get interrupted a lot. Sometimes by other people, but probably more often by myself!

I leave myself a lot of notes and make a lot of lists about what I want to do and what needs doing so that I can keep track of where I am.

My energy and capacity fluctuate wildly, and I move between different projects, so sometimes a project might go untouched for a chunk of time. Having notes and plans (even if I don't stick to them that closely!) allows me to reorientate myself when I pick a project back up again - I can see where I've got to and what I need to do next.

What keeps you creating on the days it feels pointless, indulgent, or impossible?

I've wrestled with this a lot - how can you mess around with art when the world is on fire?! But I've come to understand that creativity is an essential act of resistance.

In a world that promotes mindless consumption and destruction, that uses both people and planet as resources to be used up, it's a subversive act to be creative. Our culture wants us to be anxious and uncertain and to feel that we're lacking, so that it can sell us stuff and keep us submissive.

When we lean into joy and beauty, we are subverting that paradigm. So I remind myself that the act of sitting down at the page, of expressing my voice - a voice that, as a queer, neurodivergent mother, the dominant culture would rather keep silent - and creating with joy is an act of resistance.

The more of us that create and share our voices and make beauty in the world, the more we can begin to shift the cultural narrative, and that is how we change the world.

Be honest: how do you procrastinate?

Social media is a big one, because I can easily convince myself that I need to check it for work - I have to promote myself, after all. But then, of course, I get sucked down a rabbit hole and lose huge chunks of time, and then hate myself afterwards. I'm trying to wean myself away from my phone as much as possible!

I've deleted most apps from my phone to try to remove the temptation. I put them back when I absolutely need them, then delete them again! I try to do as much as I can on my laptop as it's harder to get sucked in there.

I work at home a lot, so it's easy to get distracted by cleaning, or tidying, especially with two young children taking the house apart at every available opportunity. There is always laundry to do, or dishes to load or unload.

Then there's different bits of work I have to do, or life admin, or side projects... I currently have 30 tabs open while I'm writing this, which is fairly normal for me, and it's so easy to flick from one to the other without settling on anything for long enough to focus.

A lot of the time I convince myself that I'm not allowed to do the fun creative stuff until I've done "work" stuff, and dealt with the business side of things.

I try to work in sprints - if I set myself 30 minutes to write, then I can justify that to myself because it's *only* 30 minutes and I will do all the other stuff afterwards.

Sometimes I alternate - I'll do 30 minutes of writing, then go clean the bathroom for 15 minutes, then do another 30 minutes of writing, then set a timer where I'm allowed to dick around on social media or whatever for 15 minutes, and so on. That way I've created a container in which my brain feels able to settle.

How much of your creative life is pleasure, and how much is endurance?

I would say most of it is endurance! I get the most pleasure from coming up with new ideas and playing and experimenting, but there is so much hard work in shaping those ideas into a finished product, and then so much more work in building a career around those products that financially sustains me, and that is the stuff my nervous system objects to!

That's where I need to understand how my brain works so I can support myself to be able to show up.

What piece of work are you avoiding finishing, and why?

My novel. I started it when my daughter was a baby, and she's about to turn 8!

Part of it is time and space, but I have been doing a lot of work with a coach (shout out to Sarah Wilson!) and realised how much I avoid it out of fear. If I don't finish it, then it can't fail.

If I don't sit down to write it, I don't have to deal with how hard that process is, or my self-doubt over whether I'm actually just shit at writing, and I don't have to confront how much work there is still to do. I can keep this big, exciting idea in my head, pristine, without getting into the messy, ugly work of making it real. I'm doing my best to overcome that!

What are you in the middle of creating and what shape is it in?

I've just finished one book - Divergent Creatives, which is my manifesto for neurodivergent and disabled creatives to let go of the limiting beliefs our culture instils in us and to make art on their own terms.

I'm now in the process of launching and promoting that. This is the bit I hate most - I love writing, that's my happy place, and then once the project is finished I just want to rest. But then I have to market it and try to get people to buy it and that feels deeply uncomfortable for me because I have so many fears about being visible and being rejected.

At the other end of the scale, I'm working on the novel. I've finished the first draft, but now I have to weave in a whole subplot and flesh out the bits where I put [something happens here] and that all feels very stressful.

I keep thinking of the feeling of satisfaction that I have holding a copy of Divergent Creatives in my hand, and how I'll feel when I get to do that with the novel to keep me motivated... but that feels a long way off right now!

If someone walked in on you mid-creation, what would they see, hear, and find slightly odd?

They'd probably hear me talking to myself, which would involve a lot of muttered "shit"s and "fuck"s while I argue with my computer. And with myself.

Also probably me waving my hands around (I'm half Italian!) and drumming on the table while I try to think of the word I want that perimenopause has pulled clean out of my brain.

They might wonder why I have an essential oil burner going, a candle burning and smudge sticks of dried rosemary, sage and lavender giving off smoke.

Part of my process is to turn creativity into a ritual - opening space to mark my creative time and easing the transition into that work helps my brain to move into the right frame, and also tells my nervous system that its safe to create now.

It's a way of giving myself permission to use this time for creativity, and also making it feel a little magical! I can then close that space when I'm done, giving myself permission to rest and switch off.

I dread to think what they'd think of the state of my desk! I have stacks of notebooks everywhere, and post-it notes all around to remind me of different things I have to do, and various bits of paper strewn around...

My neurodivergent relationship with object permanence means that if I put things away, those things will disappear from my brain completely. So I need them to be out and visible if I'm going to remember to deal with them.

I do most of my writing by hand to begin with - I feel much more inspired when I'm writing in a notebook rather than a computer, and I love the sensory feel of pen on paper. So I do my first draft on paper and then type it up, which is then my first round of edits! That means I end up with a lot of notes and books to coordinate!

Where do you feel like a fraud in your creative life and what do you do with that?

I still carry a lot of baggage about not being a "proper" writer.

Like a lot of neurodivergent people, from a young age I was often told that I was doing things wrong, or that my way of thinking was wrong. Then, when I tried initially to build a creative life, and I couldn't follow the standard guidance, that was another thing that I seemed to be doing "wrong".

I was bullied a lot at school and even at university, so I always felt that I wasn't good enough, that I was inherently lacking in some way that I didn't properly understand. I've internalised those beliefs pretty deeply, so there's still a voice inside me that says I'm not doing things right, I'm not good enough, I don't deserve success.

The more I get to know other writers and artists, the more I realise that everyone feels that way. Even established creatives and ones that I look up to tell me that they feel like imposters or that they're not good enough or that they think other people are doing "better" than they are.

It helps to recognise that I'm not alone in these feelings and, actually, they're a normal part of the process. I've stopped waiting to feel like I'm a "proper" writer now.

I used to think a point would come when I'd done enough and proved myself enough that I would feel that I was now "good enough". I've realised that that point will never come, that I'll always be growing and developing and always experiencing self-doubt. Weirdly, that helps.

It's not that I haven't done enough to get there yet, it's that that point doesn't exist. So now I can just focus on doing the best I can do and accepting those feelings as part of the process.

What does your work look like when you stop trying to do it the “right” way?

Next week: Amy Gabrielle. Thank you for being here.

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