The One with the Blocked Book

It's a grey November Monday in Brixham, the gulls are having a right old row outside, and I'm thinking about the book that's living inside of you.

Yes, you. The one with the half-finished Google Doc called something like BOOK IDEA FINAL THIS TIME I MEAN IT v3 (actual final).

I see you. In fact, I am you. I was diagnosed autistic at 46, then ADHD a year later at 47. You know, just to keep things interesting. Suddenly four and a half decades of half-finished projects and, "Why can't I just do it like everyone else?" made a whole lot more sense.

So when I tell you writing a book could be the best thing a neurodivergent business owner ever does, I'm talking from the inside. Let me hit you with the why.

The soft, squishy, heart-shaped reasons

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You'll feel like you've actually done something. If your life is a glorious graveyard of half-started projects (online courses stalled at 37%, hobbies you adored for exactly eleven days), finishing a book rewrites the nasty little story that you never finish anything. I still remember holding my first paperback in my actual hands and thinking, "Bloody hell. I did that." That feeling has honestly never faded.

You'll get your voice out of your head and into the world. So many of us have spent years masking (me? Four decades, without even clocking I was doing it). A book is the one place nobody interrupts you or asks you to "get to the point." Once it's on the page, all those lightning-fast connections your brain makes become a framework someone else can actually use.

You'll meet yourself again. Writing is a homecoming. Deciding what you really believe is grounding in a way a hundred Instagram captions never will be. Believe me, I know.

(Pssst. If that made your chest go tight with "Yeah, Abi, but I can't even START," hold that thought. I've made something for exactly that feeling.)

Ok, ok. But show me the numbers

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"That's lovely, Abi. But does it actually DO anything for my business?"

Fair. So let's get nerdy for a second.

In 2024, a study of 301 published non-fiction authors (two thirds of them self-employed, like us) found 68% felt more credible to prospects, 61% said their personal brand was worth more, over 70% saw more leads or gigs, and 89% said writing the book was a good decision.

I take surveys run by publishing companies with a pinch of full-on Brixham sea salt, because they're hardly neutral, are they? But the pattern's hard to argue with. A book says: this person has thought deeply, finishes things, can be trusted. It's the ultimate business card, one someone can curl up with on the sofa before they've even met you.

And there's plenty of us out here. Research from Rotterdam School of Management found people with more hyperactivity traits are more likely to start their own company. Imagine if more of our ideas actually made it onto the page.

So... what kind of book are you hiding?

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A "business book" doesn't have to be a dry-as-hell doorstop with a lightbulb on the cover (please, no lightbulbs). It could be:

• The Method Book, your process step by step, for when clients keep asking "how do you DO that?"

• The Story-Led Book, part memoir, part lessons learned. People buy from people, after all

• The Small-But-Mighty Book, 15,000 to 30,000 words solving one problem brilliantly. Perfect for ND brains that lose steam on long projects

• The Workbook or Journal, prompts and space to scribble so readers do the thing

• The Story Itself, a novel carrying your message. I created an ADHD teenage detective in my cosy mystery before my own diagnosis, and only later realised exactly who I'd been writing about. Hiya, teenage me

The best book is the one that feels like you, and the one you'll actually finish.

The honest bit

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Your book probably won't make you rich. Not from sales, anyway. That same study found the median self-published book sells around 700 copies. Eight books in, I can confirm I have not yet bought a yacht. Not even a paddleboard for my so-called outdoorsy life in South Devon.

But that's not the point. The real money came from what the book opened up: speaking, workshops, consulting, coaching, conversations, trust, connections, new projects. The book is the key, not the treasure chest. And even if it never earns a penny, you'll have said the thing you've been dying to say. You'll be an author.

Wherever you are, start there

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Maybe your book is a flicker of an idea. Maybe it's 40,000 words you're too scared to open. Maybe you've started it three squillion times and your brain looked at something else, went "Ooh, shiny" and wandered off.

Newsflash: all of that counts!

The usual advice (1,000 words a day at 5am with a colour-coded spreadsheet) drives me a bit loopy because that kind of advice isn't for brains like ours. That's not because we're lazy or broken. I believed I was both for most of my life. Turns out I was Autistic and ADHD and I was working with structures that triggered my brain into bad places, when they should have done the opposite.

You don't need more discipline. You need to understand what's actually blocking you, and meet it with a bit of kindness. Yeah, I said it. Kindness.

Unblock Your Book

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Which brings me to the thing I've been teasing all along. Unblock Your Book is my free mini app for neurodivergent business owners who know they've got a book in them but keep getting stuck.

Inside the app, you can pick the block that feels most like you right now (there are 19, from perfectionism to "who am I to write this," or type in your own), and you'll instantly get:

1. A breathing prompt to settle your nervous system

2. A writing prompt to get words moving

3. A reframe to help you see that block in a different way

No pressure. No 5am alarms. No shame. Your book has been waiting long enough. Honestly? So have you.

👉 Grab your free Unblock Your Book app here.

(Then drop me a line to tell me how you found it - let's be friends!)

Go well,

Abi xxx

P.S. I'm about to start writing a new non-fiction book (very meta, I know). Sign up for Unblock Your Book and you'll be first to hear how it's going.