We included “Home Grown” in our Bloom issue, and in this warm story, Liz—divorced, downsized, and battling a stubborn garden—finds an unlikely connection with a new neighbor and discovers the messy magic of trial and error. Let’s learn more about the mind behind “Home Grown” and how Allegra Chapman finds inspiration for her writing!
Allegra Chapman (she/her)
is an author, columnist and creative well-being practitioner. She is passionate about helping people to reconnect with their innate creativity, and her membership platform, Creative Fix, provides a space to explore creativity as a self-care practice. As an autistic and ADHD writer, Allegra champions neurodivergent creatives, supporting them to build productive and sustainable practices that suit their needs. She offers courses, resources and creative services at creativefix.net. Her latest book, Creativity Is Your Self-Care, is out now.
At what point did you consider yourself a writer?
I’ve been writing since I was a child—I started writing short stories when I was seven years old. But I struggled with calling myself a writer for a long time. I felt like I needed someone’s permission, that I needed to have books published or to be making my full-time income from writing before I could claim the title. I felt like I wasn’t productive enough to call myself a writer—it seemed like I was doing the whole creative thing “wrong.” I didn’t realise until I was in my late 30s that I am autistic and ADHD, so standard creativity and productivity advice simply didn’t work for me; but until I understood more about my brain, I just assumed that’s because I was doing it wrong and I wasn’t a proper writer.
I put my writing aside for a long time, figuring I just wasn’t cut out for it. Then, once my first child was born, I suddenly had an intense urge to start writing again. The words started pouring out of me. That led me to take a class with writer Beth Kempton, and she encouraged us all to start taking ourselves seriously as writers – to call ourselves “writers”, because anyone who writes is a writer. That encouraged me to change my social media bio to “writer” and start talking about myself as a writer. Within a few months, I had had a pitch accepted by a national newspaper, and been approached by a publisher and asked to write a book. My first non-fiction book was published a year later. I have now written two books and a number of columns for a wide range of newspapers and magazines. Of course, the change in title wasn’t the only thing that led to that, but I have no doubt it contributed to a wider mindset shift that made a huge difference.
Give us a peek into your writing process.
As someone with ADHD and two young children, my writing process is fairly chaotic! I don’t get much chance to build regular routines, and I don’t think they’d work well for me if I could. I’m a big fan of tiny goals—if I can get myself to write a few words, even just a paragraph, in whatever bits of time I can snatch, then that feels like a win. It’s enough to keep me moving forward, maintain the drive to show up, but without overwhelming my nervous system or putting too much pressure on myself.
Since regular routines aren’t really an option, I like to have creative rituals instead. I spend a couple of minutes preparing my desk, making sure it feels tidy so I’m not stressed out by the mess that is usually my default state. Then I might light a candle, burn some essential oils or incense, do some quick stretching or breath work, or a short meditation, to bring me into my body and into the right headspace, then I feel ready to write.
I’m very lucky to do some work for Writers’ HQ, hosting monthly one-day retreats for them, so that gives me a full day each month to get stuck into my writing. I wrote most of my first book at those retreats! Although I do think you need to be able to just take small steps forward wherever you can, I find it so valuable to have the occasional day set aside where I am forced to focus on writing—I can’t distract myself with laundry or cooking, and no one is asking me for snacks every five minutes!
How do you come up with your ideas? How do you beat writer’s block?
I tend to get bursts of inspiration out of nowhere—a story will just appear in my brain, inspired by something someone has said, or a piece of music, or even a dream I’ve had. I’ll rush to write it all down in a flurry of excitement… but then I’ll reach the end of what was illuminated by that initial flash, and then panic that I don’t know what comes next. At that point it’s really easy to just abandon the work and not finish it. I have a lot of unfinished short stories scattered around. This is where having small goals helps—if I tell myself I have to write 100 words or I have to write for 10 minutes, then I force myself to just write something. Anything. And that usually pushes me past the blind panic of what I should put on the blank page.
If I’m feeling really blocked, getting out in nature—walking in the woods or swimming in the sea—and daydreaming about my story or my characters often helps. I let my mind wander, or imagine what I would do if I were in the story, and sometimes that unlocks something. Music is also a big help for me—I often listen to music that fits the mood of what I’m writing as if it were the soundtrack to the movie version of my story. Somehow it brings the characters to life in my mind and I can watch them acting out little parts of the story. Then I think, “Oh yes, that’s what needs to happen!” and then go write it.
In your opinion, what separates a good short story from a great short story?
This is probably connected to my neurodivergence, but I very rarely remember the details of a story. There are stories and books that I adore, and I will tell people they are wonderful and they should read them, but when they inevitably ask me, “Oh, what’s it about?” I draw a blank. The details don’t necessarily stay with me, but I do remember the way it made me feel. I’m not particularly bothered about a writer demonstrating amazing skill or innovation with structure or technical devices, although those things can be fun; I want to read a story that connects with me emotionally and makes me feel something deeply. The best stories, in my opinion, give you an experience that the writer has cracked open the very core of life and shown you something essential about being human that pulls to the surface something inside you so that you feel seen and connected to something bigger. The best stories are a conversation with your heart where both parties are saying, “Yes, this is what it is to be alive, and isn’t it beautiful that we are all in this experience of life together?”
What was the inspiration behind your story featured in DRP’s journal?
My story, “Home Grown”, is about a woman trying to grow sunflowers. It’s also about a woman navigating the grief of a divorce and infertility, as well as an entire identity change, in midlife. But the sunflowers were my starting point.
Like the character in the story, I first tried to grow sunflowers as a small child. Slugs ate the seeds before they even got going. For some reason I can’t explain, I was strangely and quietly devastated by that. I’m not exactly green-fingered—I kill all houseplants, and the things I grow in the garden have maybe a 50/50 chance of survival—but I’m getting more into gardening as I get older, and I’ve started growing a few vegetables and flowers. A couple of years ago, I decided to plant some sunflower seeds again. Once again, the slugs and/or snails got to them. I tried again the year after, and made some progress, but they died before they could bloom. It was a deeply frustrating process. I grew so many other things, but the sunflowers just wouldn’t play ball. This became a personal battle for me. So I planted sunflower seeds yet again this spring.
I’ve also been navigating some life changes and some big questions in my 41st year, and considering how I can put down roots of my own. When I saw the topic of “Bloom” advertised, it made me think about that need to try and plant and nurture myself… and also trying to nurture these damn sunflowers!
In a beautiful moment of synchronicity, my story was published by DRP the day that my first sunflower finally bloomed!
What do you hope readers will get out of your short story featured in DRP’s journal?
With everything I write, I hope that people will feel seen. My aim is to speak to experiences that aren’t often talked about publicly, and emotions that we often feel we have to cover over. If I can shed some light on those dark corners of ourselves and give people a sense of relief in knowing they’re not alone and their experiences are valid, then I feel I’ve done good work.
What other creative projects are you working on? How can readers find your other writing (and future writings)?
I have been working on a novel for about seven years now and I am setting myself a goal to finish it in 2025! If you see me in 2026 and I am still working on it, please shout at me.
I’m also working on plans for more non-fiction books, and more short stories. Like I said, I have ADHD, so…
I write a lot on SubStack, where I talk about my own creative journey, and also share guidance and support for other writers and artists who are neurodivergent, living with chronic illness or disability, or just generally don’t fit the typical mould. You can find me at yourcreativefix.substack.com
I also have another SubStack (I mean, ADHD, what can I say…) where I write about the bigger questions of life, the universe and everything from my own cynical, slightly sarcastic but also spiritually seeking perspective, at gathertogether.substack.com. You can also find information on my online courses and products to support your unique creative practice at creativefix.net, and you can follow me on Instagram at instagram.com/allegra_chapman.