"Use your conscious as a compass…use your subconscious as a map." Killah Priest

I am dyslexic. I have learnt how to maximise the strengths of how I think and cope with (or not worry about) my weaknesses.

In order to make working with words work for me I use various techniques and tools, including mindmapping, a whiteboard, large coloured paper and coloured pens, visualisation, a voice-recorder and spatial memory aids. These techniques enable me to draw on (rather than shut down or remedy) the strengths of my natural way of thinking, which usefully leans towards: tangents, lateral thinking, unusual connections, deep patterns, synaesthesia and the use of spatial, visual imagination. Creative writing isn’t about spelling and grammar, it’s about embedding a unique way of seeing the world into language.

My word mistakes can be creative. What happens when I am trying to find the word ‘feather’ and I say ‘fire’ instead?

The idea of dyslexia is controversial. The term identifies a person’s thinking through a lack. I prefer the term ‘neurodiversity’. I don’t identify with the word ‘dyslexia’, even though I feel obliged to use it in reference to myself. Embedded within the idea of dyslexia is a notion of a ‘normal’ way of thinking and relating to language, which is questionable and uncreative. I think we need to have a wider conversation about the labelling of thinking styles and their usefulness (or otherwise) in people’s real lives.
See Dysbiog for more.