Superpower by S. Lee Manning

Todays' topic is superpowers! Awesome, right? Here's S. Lee Manning to tell us more...

S. Lee Manning: You might not realize it if you meet me casually, and I didn’t always realize it myself, but I have a superpower. I can hyperfocus.

Hyperfocus is the ability to concentrate totally on what you’re doing. When I’m in hyperfocus mode, my family can set off bombs in the next room – or under my feet as a matter of fact – and I wouldn’t notice. I don’t notice the time. Phone calls go unanswered. Cats go unfed. Dishes pile up in the sink. 

I do have to be really interested in what I’m doing to go into hyperfocus mode. But when I am in it, bingo. Using my superpower, I aced law school exams and graduated in the top ten percent of my class. It’s also how I wrote my debut novel, Trojan Horse, being published October 16 by Encircle Publications. I fell in love with the story and with the characters – and, boom, superpower activated. What’s not to love? Kolya, a jazz-playing, poetry reading Russian Jewish immigrant to the United States who works for an American intelligence agency, is betrayed by his own office in an effort to stop a murderous neo-Fascist. Kolya is joined by a cast of appealing characters: his attorney fiancee, who puts Kolya in his place when he needs it; his best friend at the agency, a trust fund brat who defied his father to go into intelligence work; a language prodigy who is an annoying but loyal friend; and a host of menacing villains. 

I couldn’t wait to get back to writing the novel, and when I wasn’t writing, I was living in the imaginary world that I’d created, even though it was a pretty scary world with terrible things happening. But it was exciting. And it kept my hyperfocus powers going over the year that it took me to write and edit the first draft. When I finished writing Trojan Horse, I was sad. Not just because I had to leave Kolya’s world, but because I had to return to my non-superpower existence. 

I didn’t always know I had superpowers. In fact, for much of life, I thought just the opposite. Because there’s a catch to my superpower. When not in hyperfocus, I tend to be easily distracted. (Squirrel!) I have trouble finishing projects. I interrupt people. I abruptly switch topics of conversation. Because hyperfocus is one of the characteristics of ADHD – which I realized rather late in life that I have. 

I suppose I should have suspected when I was in school, but it wasn’t a common diagnosis back then. When I was bored in math or science, I sat in the back of the class reading novels. Or I would just daydream about television shows I’d watched or books I’d read. I never thought I had a neurodevelopmental disorder. I assumed that I was lazy. Or just a general screw-up. 

The teachers told me – and my parents – that I was smart. That I should be getting better grades in math and science – especially since I did well in English and history, subjects that interested me (and triggered hyperfocus). No one ever suggested ADHD. 

By the time I graduated high school, ADHD had been recognized as a mental disorder by the medical world. It just wasn’t recognized in me. Maybe because it presents differently in girls than in boys. Boys tend to be hyperactive and disruptive. Girls are more likely to be inattentive with a tendency to daydream. And it affects girl’s self-esteem. 

But then, those of us with ADHD do have that superpower ability to intensely focus on what we’re doing when we’re interested and block everything else out. Unfortunately, though, I don’t have perfect control over when I hyperfocus. Sometimes, I go from intense interest to less interested – and SQUIRREL. 

I also can’t completely control my tendency to wander off when not “in the zone,” but knowing I have ADHD changed everything. There are techniques (and occasionally medication) I can use to keep focus when I’m having problems doing so. I have stopped calling myself names when I do get distracted. And I’ve realized that my focus problem when not in hyperfocus mode is just the price I have to pay for having a superpower. 

And the price is worth it. I’m back in hyperfocus mode, now that I’m writing the next novel in the series, and I’m back in my spy universe. And it’s great to be here. 

So, Reds and Readers, what's your superpower?

S. Lee Manning’s career as an attorney ranged from a top-tier New York law firm to working for the state of New Jersey to solo practice. Now a recovering attorney, she spends her days writing. In Trojan Horse, which debuts this month, Kolya Petrov, a Russian Jewish immigrant working for American intelligence is betrayed by his own agency in a devious plot to thwart possible terrorism by an anti-Semitic neo-Fascist Romanian. Manning, who is working on the second in the series, lives in Vermont with her husband and two cats. Check out her website at https://www.sleemanning.com. 

 Trojan Horse is available through Encircle Publications https://encirclepub.com/product/trojanhorse/, on Amazon amzn.to/3fJdEDk, and through your local independent bookstore.