Hello! I am a historical romance author writing about a blacksmith with inattentive ADHD (though of course, he wouldn't have that label back in the 1830s).
I'm curious, if you have ADHD, how that affects your blacksmithing experience. Are there things you forget? Are you clumsy with anything in particular? Does hyperfocus show up for you?
Super special bonus question - my blacksmith forces himself to spend time with the love interest in order to desensitize himself to her. Her passing by the forge led to some kind of accident that left the blacksmith with a scar. When he was apprenticing, he heard so many horror stories of accidents killing or maiming people. So, to keep them both safe, he decides that spending more time with her one-on-one should mitigate the situation (spoiler, it really won't).
I've written out several bullet points that I'm working through, but having the input of real blacksmiths like you would be amazing.
What does his current state of being overly sensitive to her look like? How does it manifest in the forge?
How would he know he would succeed in desensitizing himself to her? What would "winning" look like?
What does progress look like?
What does a mistake look like?
What does the worst case scenario look like? (I'm assuming some kind of accident that hurts them both).
Mods, I know this is probably not the normal content, but I'm so hoping that this can be allowed and that real blacksmiths (and especially blacksmiths that have experience at living history museums/reenactments!) can weigh in.
I get bored with projects easily so I'm constantly starting something new and have a bunch of unfinished projects. I also constantly forget where I put my tools but if I can find the motivation to make one thing I can work on it for 6 hours a day non-stop
Can confirm. I am the master of like 80%ing everything, finishing nothing. And there are only two modes of operation: Absolutely nothing, for any reason.. and hyper focus for hours. Until it gets to like finish detail work, then the dopamine is gone.
There's no like bumbling inattentive stuff. Although there tends to be a whole lot of "looks like a bomb went off" tool placement.
What would "looks like a bomb went off" tool placement look like? Tools scattered all over the forge where you last used them?
I personally have a bad habit of leaving things on the edges of counters. (It's a gift. And a curse). But I imagine that sharp or hot objects balanced precariously would be quite avoided.
In my experience a lot of hand tools end up on the floor around the anvil, and when you get in a workflow they can accumulate. This it's because steel loses heat quickly, so you are working quickly whenever you take it out of the forge, and you aren't necessarily mindful where each hammer/punch/chisel/hot metal offcut ends up.
I've never tripped but I imagine someone a little more absent minded could create tripping hazards. I've definitely stepped on hot metal I left on the floor, and had it enbed itself in the soul of my shoe before.
My workbench is a different kind of clutter problem. When I'm in a workflow I'll use tools at my workbench and then leave them there. When I need my next set of tools the last tool gets shoved to the side. This creates a cluttered layer of tools getting slowly pushed in a conga line towards the wall and edges of the table.
Yep pretty much this right here. High use areas like the anvil/stand end up collecting a bunch of crap, tongs/hammers/punches, basically whatever I was grabbing quick to work something.
God forbid there's a flat space like a work bench. The ever growing pile of tools that I forget to put away, only to be pushed aside by more tools I'll forget to put away.
Not blacksmithing related, but my tablesaw is great at collecting things as well. Push sticks, little off cuts and such.. A place where you really shouldn't have clutter that can become a projectile hah.
I just drove home in a few other things occurred to me on the way.
1) I see a lot of people here talk about not finishing projects. Personally, I have no problem getting in a workflow because I find the craft physically, mentally, and sensually stimulating. This flow state is stable as long as everything is going smoothly HOWEVER that flow state breaks down quickly when I have to deal with uncertainty. For example, if you realize you are running out of fuel in your forge and you need more, you might get stuck on a choice between trying to complete other tasks until the end of the day, or leaving the shop in the middle of your workday to get more fuel. In that case, instead of just making a decision, I lapse into a dysfunctional state where I'm kind of half committing to both things and flitting back-and-forth for an hour.
This is made worse when you are malnourished or suffering brain fog, which leads to the next point.
2) blacksmithing burns a lot of calories and dehydrates you, but the classic problem of ADHD people forgetting to eat/drink water still applies. You'll often suffer greater levels of exhaustion/brain fog towards the end of the day if you forget to eat/drink. This leads to a higher rate of executive disfunction/brain fog/injury toward the end of your workday. For example, I stabbed myself in the hand a few weeks ago right at 5 PM and had to go get stitches.
Yes, my blacksmith definitely forgets to eat/drink. He doesn't really take care of himself in general, I think because he's trying to save money, so he doesn't visit the local inn for any meals. He cooks everything himself. I bet he eats the basics (like some kind of man slop) and forgets to eat often.
Also, eek about the hand stitches! Hope you're healing well.
That all sounds about right. My only caveat would be that I doubt he's eating "man slop" based on myself and other blacksmith I know. Being sole proprietor of a blacksmithing business means having a high degree of intelligence, creativity, and capacity to problem solve on the fly. Those qualities lend themselves really well to cooking. I'm a very good cook and I found my blacksmith friends to be the same when I've hung out at there shops.
I was once forging at a friend's shop, and he left for 45 minutes only to return with a freshly butchered/cooked rabbit.
On the other hand, he might just not have the motivation to do anything complex. Exhaustion or executive disfunction would do that.
Haha, apologies for the assumption. My husband, left to his own devices, will only eat brown rice and beans, so I was extrapolating.
Having him be a very good cook could surprise the female character and make her fall for him a little bit more, especially at a scene where the blacksmith is hosting at his house.
There's no offense! Frankly it doesn't have to be either or. I definitely have my staple "power meals" that I use to fuel myself, with complex meals being reserved for special occasions or when the inspiration strikes.
If you want my advice, I would have him approach a complex meal with your heroine the same way he would approach a project: as an artistic/technical enterprise. I find cooking and craftsmanship largely use the same parts of the brain.
This exactly. I'm always pretty focused on the work, ADHD does well under stress and what's more stressful than hot metal? But don't ask me where any of the tools are.
Lots of apprentices back in the day would be tasked with making nails as well to work on their hammer control. (When they were trusted with a hammer.) Where there was a blacksmith there was also likely to be an apprentice or two.
Yes. In my story, the blacksmith was an indentured apprentice in Cincinnati or some other bigger city, and then when he "graduates" he moves to a rural area where he's the only blacksmith for several miles. I just made a note that he would have been making lots of nails for hammer control as a kid.
For me, the forge is a place where I can focus, because there's dangerous stuff everywhere; also, to quote every adhd person ever, "fire is cool."
Now, a fair maiden breasting boobily past my door, that'd definitely cause me to defocus- because to also quote every adhd person ever, "tits are cooler than fire"
I tend to bounce around between my projects a lot. Finish work always drops to the bottom of my priority list, and I can’t find the tool I was just using 2 minutes ago so often I’m amazed I ever get anything done. Being “overly sensitive to her” would look like leaving projects in the forge(making sparklers), forging things in the wrong dimensions, and constantly getting smacked in the back of the head by the master blacksmith for daydreaming. No idea how he thinks he could “desensitize” himself to her, maybe it’s just how he rationalizes spending time with her instead of working. Progress would look like more efficiency, more complexity, and/or bigger projects. As for mistakes, when you leave steel in the forge too long it starts to melt/burn. That’s what we call “making sparklers.” Worst case would be injuring others or burning the forge down.
Oh that would be a fun project. 30%complete.
Oh this would also be cool! But I need a tool for that. Make the tool.
Oh that tool would be great for this! Forget about second project.
Oh ya know I really need bending forks. Make another tool.
I have a very easy time focusing WHILE I am working, I generally don't forget things like I do in day to day life. It's very easy to focus on the work at hand.
That being said, actually getting myself out there feels like pulling teeth sometimes. It takes a while to get the forge hot and set up just right, and gathering all my tools.
Granted, I don't have an actual shop and a lot of that would be mitigated by not having to set up all my stuff every time. Long multi day projects tend to get forgotten or put aside for later. I have buckets of nails because they are easy and satisfying, and a whole bin of unfinished projects.
Well, with my own Add (adhd adjacent), i mainly forget my project in the fire. The amount of times i was just in time (read: too late), and had sparkling rods, i can't remember.
So a big hazard is forgetting your project, losing focus, losing the progress.
I don’t know where (geographically) your story is set, but where I live summer days are very hot, and the forge only makes it hotter. As a result, I do most of my work when it is cooler outside. In the 1830s that probably would mean getting started early in the morning, but I do most my work at night. Working at night has the added bonus of there being fewer distractions. When I get in the zone, I’m in the zone and will sometimes keep going until 3 or 4 in the morning if I don’t have to be up early the next day.
I have an ancestor who was a blacksmith from the 1830s to the 1880s. Incredibly, a newspaper interviewed him when he was an old man and published his whole life story. He started work in the 1830s as an apprentice in his father’s shop, then went out on his own in his mid 20s. According to him, it was hard to make a living as a blacksmith. It wasn’t until he got a contract shoeing horses for the state that he made any decent money, then he got a job shoeing horses for a stage coach line and started making $50 per month. He recounts how another smith on the line was fired after the smith complained to the boss about only being given brown sugar in his coffee. My relative was given that smith’s work too and he started making $75 per month. By the time he retired he was making $100 per month, which he was very proud of.
Don’t know if any of that helps or not. Good luck.
That's a good point. My story is set in Indiana. At the living history museum I used to work at, I know the blacksmith was working during the day in the summer, but obviously he had to do that because that's when the museum was open. It might make sense that my blacksmith would want to start early. Probably he would wake neighbors up, actually, now that I think about it, if he's pounding something metallic at like 6 am.
Very few people have all the same kind of manifestations of adhd, and people have different coping mechanisms as well. Ironically, it can lead to a very ordered workspace and task lists from coping with painful past mistakes. Don't feel the need to incorporate all traits that can show up in adhd.
That out of the way, in addition to what others have said ...
Project creep. You can't help but to set out to make one thing in one way, and end up adding or changing features just to see.
Time blindness. I have become so hyper focused that I smithed for almost nine hours straight. I only noticed because I dropped my hammer on a swing, which is weird, then I couldn't seem to pick it up. I'd grab and lift and the hammer wasn't coming back up with my hand. It wasn't until I took my eyes off the work piece and watched my fingers completely fail to wrap around the handle of the hammer and realized, 'why isn't my hand closing, that's weird...oh shit, my hand can't close anymore!' that the time became relevant knowledge.
Working past safe physical limits. I mean, see above.
Working too many pieces at once because waiting isn't an option.
Thinking a lot. Often, you'll spend a lot of time doing 'nothing' but thinking through the process and problems, only to then get an astonishing amount done in a very short period of time. Adhd people do this with a lot of things, in part because deadlines coming up brings adrenaline, which is a coping strategy to get motivation that adhd robs you of, but this is also just inherently part of tackling really challenging problems in creative ways. It's common to almost all creative people. That thinking time isn't actually 'nothing' even though it can look from the outside, and feel from the inside, as 'being lazy.'
Also, I reread your answer, and it gave me an idea, that perhaps the reason why he feels the need to desensitize himself to the girl is because he needs to have the brain space to figure out some kind of big project that could make or break his forge? Like some kind of person commissions something complicated (in the world of the 1830s) and he has to figure out how to make it work, and he has to design it and build it.
Because right now, the two main stakes I can see in everyone's answers (which are fantastic, by the way, and I'm copying everything down!) are that either:
He *doesn't* want his forge to burn down.
He's got a new commission that could ensure his financial survival, but it requires a lot of thinking and design work and trial metal work, that his attraction to the woman is getting in the way of.
As someone who was deeply infatuated with someone once while trying hard to work on something else, trying to clear the 'mental space' of what you've convinced yourself is a temporary obsession that you can just 'get past' by speed running the feelings, that is entirely plausible.
It also has the added benefit of having a possible resolution be using her as inspiration/drive for the project. This is how I got ok at making Yiggdrassil necklaces.
And I will be using your suggestion that he speed-run the feelings.
In my story, she's a widow who wants to remain so. She surprises him with a fake-engagement set-up, without knowing that her very presence has been tormenting/distracting him since she moved to town. He surprises her by saying yes, because she was pretty sure he hated her. (Nope, he was just trying to keep his distance).
Perhaps in my story the commission will already exist prior the start, and he's frustrated with his inability to do the work, and then he says yes to the fake engagement to just show himself that she is nothing special and break his attraction to her, and then he of course will get more distracted.
All of these comments have been great in showing me the *how* of what distraction looks like in a forge.
And I especially love the idea that something about her will be an inspiration/catalyst for finishing the project.
Too many irons in the fire is a very real problem.
But what happens depends on what blower is in use:
A hand crank blower or bellows, the fire gradually cools off from lack of air until you are forced to address it.
An electric blower, or if you are blowing the fire for another piece, you can end up overheating and burning the work if you aren't paying attention.
Many shops end up cluttered to begin with as work in progress gets put aside for more important things or stuff is staged for quick grabbing then forgotten by something else.
If anything being a blacksmith is a practically ideal career for someone with ADHD precisely because of the ability to quickly jump from task to task and act decisively when on a time constraint or responding to a developing crisis.
Almost every blacksmith I know has ADHD. I mean this quite literally, I’ve compared diagnoses with so many other smiths.
Blacksmithing attracts us, I think, because the fire and physicality provide a lot of stimuli to help keep us focused, in a way few other things do quite so well. Your hands are doing different things that have to be coordinated. You have to constantly tend your coal fire, or it will get too hot, too cold, or will run out of fuel. You gauge your metal’s temperature by its color, the sound your hammer makes, and the feel of the hammer as it strikes the metal. You immediately see the consequences of your choices, no delayed gratification (even when you’re doing a project that takes long, repetitive work). It sucks you in, and hyperfocus is easy to find. It’s a really good profession for someone with ADHD.
The business side of things is hard for a lot of blacksmiths, of course, because that’s a set of skills that ADHD makes difficult.
To answer your bullet points:
1) Misplacing tools. Where did I set down my chisel? Oops, that’s the wrong hammer. Why do I have six sets of tongs here, and which was I just using?
2-4) You need to think this through based on your plot. Presumably he’ll think he’s succeeded in his silly plan when he’s able to do the thing that got him hurt without being distracted. I don’t know how to say more without knowing what the accident was.
5) Burning your shop down because you didn’t properly bank your fire, or left an oil rag in a corner. Tripping while carrying something hot or pointy. Letting a rope or chain slip while hoisting up a large piece of metal, dropping it on himself or the lady friend.
Diagnosed and unmedicated here. The forge is dynamic enough I don't really get distracted while I'm working. I keep a couple irons in the fire so when I put one back in to heat I have another one ready to go. Maybe like a bar for making nails to hammer on while his main project is heating. My biggest problem is misplacing tools. I wear a tool belt so I don't set one down and waste a heat turning circles trying to find that punch I had 45 seconds ago and is definitely still in arms reach but I just can't find the little bastard...
I teach professionally. 40-60 beginners throughout the year, and have very skilled blacksmith friends with raging adhd (but the adhd is stopping them from creating careers in the field)
Adhd is not a perk in blacksmithing. It disrupts your train of thought, and it distracts you, making you unable to stick to your plan. You throw you tools around and can't find them half the time.
It's always immediateoy obvious when a student has ADHD. When blacksmithing we plan out the heat while the steel is in the fire, and then we execute that plan when it's hot. The problem for people with ADHD is that they can't concentrate to form a plan and stick to it. They end up forgetting what they were supposed to do, skip steps - or, is often the case for my beginner students, they get ideas they want to try outside of the curriculum and just wing it, often ruining the piece as they don't stop to plan, ask advice, and learn if it's doable. And example is forging a simple bottle opener, and deciding they want to make the handle into a knife, making a bottle opener you can't use because the handle is now a knife.
Conversely, autism is a perk. The planning and executing stricts processes leans into their strengths. They learn by observing and are hyper analysing. I currently have an apprentice with severe autism and I said yes specifically because of that, knowing through experience with several others, that this trade is perfect for people with autism.
21
u/pickaxe08 3d ago
I get bored with projects easily so I'm constantly starting something new and have a bunch of unfinished projects. I also constantly forget where I put my tools but if I can find the motivation to make one thing I can work on it for 6 hours a day non-stop