Working with ADHD: Find Your Focus (Part Two)

In my last post, Working With ADHD: Find Your Focus (Part 1), I shared three simple productivity hacks that have helped me improve my concentration. Below, you’ll find my final four tips. 

Please note: this advice is NOT one-size-fits-all. Depending on your unique flavour of ADHD or other neurodivergence, some tips may be more helpful than others. The key is always to find what feels good for you, and adjust as needed!

#4: Practice time-blocking 

Look… the idea of working nonstop for hours is extremely outdated. These days, even neurotypicals lack the necessary attention span, so take a more realistic approach to your time management. Many people find the Pomodoro Technique® helpful, as it breaks time up into manageable periods of focused work followed by timed breaks. Experiment with different work-and-break combinations to find what works best for you.

#5: Honour your energy

Scheduling tasks based on your energy can be very effective. If you tend to hit your creative peak after the sun goes down, tackle creative tasks in the evening. If your concentration levels are highest in the morning, use that time for copy editing or research. Mapping out your energy throughout the day, week, and month will help you plan your work accordingly.

#6: Keep your workspace organized

Clutter is the enemy of focus for many of us, so be proactive and nip those potential distractions in the bud. Before you sit down to start working, give the room a quick tidy and clear your immediate workspace of clutter. If visual distraction is an issue, try out a storage system that keeps smaller objects hidden from view, like a small chest of drawers or a couple of lidded baskets.

#7: Hide your phone

Confession: I am addicted to my phone. If I were Gollum, my phone would be my precioussss. The sweet dopamine hit of an Instagram like, the thrill of the reddit scroll, the endless supply of topical and hilarious memes… I can’t say no. If my phone is within reach, I‘ll inevitably reach for it. That’s why I keep my phone in a designated box when I need to focus. Out of sight, out of mind, out of my grubby little paws.

Have fun with it—grab a cheap wooden box at the dollar store and decorate it to match your aesthetic. If hiding your phone feels too extra, the Brick app temporarily disables distracting apps and notifications until you’re ready to end your work day.

Your Accursed Librarian,

Valeska

Working with ADHD: Find Your Focus (Part One)

The ADHD experience can be a lot of things: frustrating, embarrassing, creative, joyful, challenging, and sometimes hilarious. But it’s not often easy when it comes to productivity. When your attention span is fun-sized, knocking tasks off your to-do list can be a daunting endeavour (unless the tasks relate to your special interests, of course, in which case you’ll probably happily go into overtime).

While each neurodivergent individual is different and there really aren’t any one-size-fits-all solutions, I’d love to share a few actionable tips that have helped me improve my focus and productivity. These tips can be used alongside any medication or techniques recommended by your doctor. Your mileage will almost certainly vary, but learning how we work (and work best) is part of our ongoing journey.

#1: Stay hydrated
If you’re rolling your eyes right now, I get it. I too am annoyed when people offer overly simple “solutions” for neurodivergent (and mental health, for that matter) concerns. But stay with me, because studies have shown that even mild dehydration negatively affects cognitive performance, including concentration, memory, and critical thinking. And when your attention span is already below average, every second counts. If you experience dry mouth, fatigue, dizziness, and headaches frequently, consider investing in one of those jumbo refillable water bottles.

#2: Eat the frog
Task paralysis is no joke. Identify your most challenging task of the day—the one you’re most likely to push off until tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that—and really push yourself to do it first. That task is the frog, and procrastinating will just ramp up the dread. You’ll thank me later!

#3: Make use of multiple desktops
If you’re anything like me, you probably have multiple active browser windows that have collected dozens of tabs each—and the temptation to click through them (and away from your current task) can be irresistible.

Windows 11 users can and should take advantage of Microsoft’s game-changing multiple desktops feature, which allows you to set up separate desktop instances for different areas of focus. Creating a desktop devoted to deep work or research allows you to work within an environment free of distracting tabs and notifications.

Thank you for reading. Stay tuned for Part 2!

Your Accursed Librarian,
Valeska

Halloween Ends (But Your Halloween Mindset Doesn't Have To)

As Halloween approaches, we count down the days as our excitement grows. For horror fans, it's one of our favorite (formative) holidays, its eerie enchantment shaping our lifelong love of things that go bump in the night. That nostalgia, the magic of Halloween, never truly leaves us — and we savor its seasonal charm each year by immersing ourselves in our celebrations.

Sadly, around the concentrated commerce of the spooky season and increasing commitments in our distracted lives, the holiday is here — and over — before we know it.

Halloween Ends, but your Halloween mindset — pausing to be present in the moment — doesn't have to. 

While horror fans continue the spooky aesthetic, ambience, and content during the rest of the year, how often do you truly slow down (like you do at Halloween) to engage with and enjoy daily tasks — especially as readers and writers?

Around the grind, our love for and enjoyment of reading and writing often takes a back seat when we're under pressure to deliver a deadline. As a self-confessed distracted writer, finding time to read for research or sit down and smash that wordcount is hard enough, let alone that elusive golden egg — taking time to actually rest, and read or write simply for pleasure (without feeling guilty as hell).

One small change that's truly transformed my system is creating a reading and writing (W)ritual. As unique as each reader and writer, your Writual is your routine to consistently nurture your writing in order to get results. (What's Your Writual? Read here to outline yours (and see mine!))

In addition to enhancing focus, an integral part of my Writual is romanticizing: drawing on my Halloween mindset by reading and writing mindfully, both of which are greatly helped by implementing spooky stationery and practical tools to help me focus and manifest. A reflective and conscious commitment to slow our pace, quiet our minds, and immerse ourselves in the act itself, mindful reading and writing allows us to press pause and romanticize the experience — to savor the atmosphere, soak up every word, and actually enjoy it.

Even if you don't have an unhealthy obsession with beautiful seasonal stationery (*cough, cough*), taking time to physically mark passages that resonate, to regularly record your thoughts in a journal, or to take research notes by hand are all mindful acts that encourage you to engage fully with the words on the page.

In addition to improving your relationship with the text itself — whether that's retaining knowledge, sparking creativity, or simply an emotional connection — this practice of slowing allows you to pause and not only appreciate the small moments but participate in them.

As the world spins madly on, taking time for ourselves will only become more difficult. Romanticizing your reading and writing — invoking the spirit of Halloween in your creative and practical endeavours — is a simple way to take care of yourself.

Don't just take my word for it; the benefits of mindful reading have been noted by medical professionals, from promoting mental health to cognitive improvement in adults, and a range of developmental advantages for children.

And that's the ethos behind our Writual set. It's designed to help you practically implement the intentions of our Hex Libris blog: to romanticize regular reading sprints (for both research and pleasure, encouraging mindful reading as part of your self-care routine), and to enhance your writing focus and enjoyment to build productive writing habits. (To manifest your own Writual, click here!)

Our first-ever Writual set — the Jessica Rose x HoL-loween Collection — was named after the nostalgia and magic of Halloween, a joy and mindset intended to be invoked and experienced all year round. It was so special to curate this collection, and knowing that so many of our readers and writers share our excitement is amazing!

If you love your collection, we'd be grateful if you’d share a pic on Instagram and tag us. And if you're ready to romanticize but haven't ordered your Writual set yet, we still have a few available!

Happy Halloween!

As ever, stay safe and spooky,

Rebecca, Jessica, Ryan & Valeska

Art of the Scare: Creating the Jessica Rose x HoL-loween Collection

When I was first asked to design some spooky artwork for a Halloween stationery collection, my first thought (aside from an enthusiastic, “Hell yes!”) was: “What does Halloween look like at House of Leaves?”

Using my personal drawing technique — as well as employing the practical purposes of the collection and invoking what I love about Halloween imagery — I wanted to create pieces that would enhance the terrific tools included in our first-ever Writual bundle, from the handy book-band down to the adorable pumpkin paperclips.

In this special collection, you’ll find three items I drew by hand after collaborating on some ideas with fellow Accursed Librarian, Rebecca: custom House of Leaves pumpkin stickers, zombie bookworm bookmarks, and seasonal (haunted) library book trackers. Each is created with the collection’s intention of promoting mindful habits, practicality in function, and enhanced focus — all with a thoughtful, signature style.

Pumpkin Sticker

The pumpkin logo design was the easiest to draw. I didn’t want to complicate the look with too much texture on the pumpkin itself so as not to distract from the logo. I wanted House of Leaves Publishing to stand out, so I centered it within the shape and added a little more line design to the stem. We often associate pumpkins with an autumnal pale orange; however, I gave it a stand-out shade as a grown-up nod to the nostalgia and magic of Halloween: the bright, rich, semi-red orange color of vintage Halloween paper decorations and blow molds. Wherever it’s placed, it’s sure to pop!

Undead Bookworm

For the zombie bookworm design, I knew it would be something I could really have some fun with. When I think of a worm, I think of squirming; I wanted the design to ultimately look like something crawling around within the book in which it resides. These little creatures have a lot of movement to them and I tried a few different sketches that played with capturing their physicality (without the design looking too snake-like). I toyed with drawing the worm bursting out of the ground, adding some background detail etc. (which you can see in my process reel), but we settled on a die-cut bookmark item to suggest movement. I stripped out any extraneous details and focused on the worm itself squirming around the Print Is Undead tombstone. Being a zombie worm, I did a little research into what the insides of their bodies look like (and I now know more about the anatomy of a worm than I ever thought I would…). Their insides are unfortunately not as complex as humans, which left me with little to display on that front, so I added a few tears and bites into its epidermis, as well as a sickly green color to the exposed areas, to achieve the zombified look. Isn’t it just the cutest decomposing worm you ever did see?

Haunted Library Book Tracker

Creating the book tracker was a real treat. I basically thought of what my ideal bookshelf would look like — which meant lots and lots of books! I wanted users to have a generous number of spaces to fill in so that each print they receive would last as long as possible. Using my own library shelves as inspiration, I made a point to vary the sizes of the spaces’ spines to give the scene a realistic look. The bookshelf itself is modeled on pieces I’ve admired while shopping for antiques: big, bold, and beautiful. I knew I didn’t want to just square the top — because where’s the fun in that? — so I gave it a simple arch to brandish the Hex Libris logo and some chunky, regal gothic scrollwork. To give it a seasonal feel, it had to have pumpkins, cobwebs, and the cherry on top: a human skull. These little details are drawn from core designs in my spooky home décor (which you can see for yourself, alongside my tips to trick out your house this Halloween, here: part one; part two). You’ll see little thoughtful additions like imperfect cobwebs, knots in the floorboards, and dripping wax that give the tracker a special charm and dark academia vibe.

All of these designs keep with my line drawing artwork, a style I have always found to be my most comfortable outlet. They’re easy on the eye and match most aesthetics. Being able to contribute artwork for something like this, a bundle of stationery goods that I would personally find at my own desk, has been such a tremendous reward. My hope for all those that get their hands on this exclusive Writual collection is that they find just as much joy in using each item as we did in pulling it all together. There’s both tricks (the good kind) and treats in this seasonal set. Use them wisely… tour the Jessica Rose x HoL-loween Collection and get yours while you can!

Happy Halloween!

Your Accursed Librarian,
Jessica

What’s Your Writual?

Writers are in many ways a product of the literary savage garden. We cannot grow or thrive without sustenance, nurture, and the optimal environment for our individual needs. 

Which is why your writing (W)ritual is as unique as you are. Taking time to recognize what serves you (and what doesn’t) is an integral part of your process: your Writual is sacred. 

Once you’ve created your optimal environment, it’s simply a matter of sustaining and nurturing your writing — training your brain to manifest magic through (W)ritual. 

Which sounds way more complicated than it actually is — the hardest part is sticking to it!

Your Writual can be broken down into three acts or affirmations:

Focus
Your set writing goal, organizing and protecting your time, and using the correct tools to ensure maximum productivity...

Romanticize
Your reflective and conscious commitment to slowing down and immersing yourself in the act itself — from mindful ambience to spooky stationery...  

Manifest
Curating your optimal environment — your sanctum — to inform your mindset and habitually craft a routine that not only produces results, but allows you to fully engage with and enjoy the experience.

Your homework this week is to outline your Writual — what ingredients do you need to curate your sanctum?

Top tip
If there’s something new you'd like to incorporate into your Writual — a beautiful fountain pen, organizational software, visiting that new cosy coffee shop with your work in progress — add this as a reward for sticking with your routine for a month. Having this goal gives you something tangible to focus on, and the reward will be even sweeter knowing you've habitually worked to build a strong Writual with real results.  

Here’s my Writual:

💯 Having a clear goal before I start the session is paramount. Whether I’m researching (annotating a chapter), writing (hitting my word count) or editing (checking references), I frame each task around the time I have available that day...

⏳ …which is why organizing — and protecting — a regular slot of time allows me to create a routine. Consistency here is key; you can absolutely be malleable and move your allocated writing slot as needed, or amend your goal to work on something more manageable during a shorter session, but your Writual won't work unless it becomes a habit. Nurture your writing.

💧 I always make sure I have water to hand (as well as way too many coffees, but I'm working on that...). Keep those big, beautiful brains hydrated, people!

🎵 Horror film and videogame scores create the perfect atmos(fear). Aside from the usual suspects (Carpenter, Korzeniowski, Morricone, Ortolani, Resident Evil, Silent Hill etc.), for a change I’ll stick on the score from the film, TV show, or game I'm writing about or that's mentioned in a piece I'm editing.

🎧 On that note, noise-cancelling headphones are the MVP in my arsenal, allowing me to adjust my ambience in order to minimize distractions and slip into the correct headspace. Into the further you go...

🕯️ As I work from home, I use scents to help segment spaces — including getting myself in the ‘write’ headspace. My Writual scents include woodsy, moody, green notes (our Blair Witch-inspired candle is perfect for this...).

✒️ As a lover of spooky stationery, it’s a great way to inject some personality and fun into my research, writing, and editing. Plus, putting pen to paper — annotating by color, and writing notes by hand — has been scientifically proven to enhance knowledge retention. This is one of the reasons behind our curated Writual set...

🖥️ …and is also why I use a hybrid paper-digital system (which I'll explore in another post...). Even if I’m still at the paper stage by the end of the session, I end each Writual by digitally recording where I’m up to — along with next steps so I have a clear plan for the next session. 

☕ Well, almost. I always end my Writual with a treat, no matter how small. Very mindful, very horreur.

And that’s all there is to it. If you outline your Writual, curate your sanctum, and consistently nurture your writing with a bespoke routine that serves you — I can guarantee that you will not only see results, you’ll make magic.

And what better way to start curating your sanctum than with our first-ever Writual set? Featuring 15 tools designed to help you focus, romanticize, and manifest (three of which have been exclusively designed by featured artist Jessica Rose) our Jessica Rose x HoL-loween Collection — named after the nostalgia and magic of Halloween, a joy and mindset we believe should be invoked and experienced all year as part of your Writual — is a super-limited drop! Tour the collection here (but you’ll have to be quick, there’s only a few left)!

Essential Horror Film And Fiction Books For Every Shelf: Summerween Special [Part Three]!

Spoofing The Vampire: Essays On Bloodsucking Comedy

We could have included any number of Simon Bacon's comprehensive list of books analyzing vampires across visual culture, but Spoofing The Vampire is not only the first book dedicated to dissecting the vampire comedy on film and television, it's also a real treat to read.

Distinguishing between parody, satire, and serious-spoofing, it covers everything from defanging Nosferatu in children's media to "Mocking Masculinity" via subversion in ­women-directed vampire films to "Vampires Clashing with the 21st Century."

Image: McFarland

Image: Pulp-Lit Productions

Varney The Vampire; Or, The Feast Of Blood

Fans of Penny Dreadful (let's just pretend the show ended before the abysmal final showdown...), this one's for you! Varney The Vampire (often attributed to James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett) is a popular example of the penny dreadful, notorious Victorian gothic literature serialized in illustrated pamphlets.

Pulp-Lit Productions collects several issues across two volumes, including original woodcut illustrations and presented as they would have appeared in the 1840s, albeit with larger print for reading ease.

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The Horror Sensorium: Media And The Senses

Angela Ndalianis' The Horror Sensorium analyzes how storytelling practices, emotional experiences, cognitive responses, and physicality ignite the sensory mechanics of the body and its connected intellectual and cognitive functions.

Image: McFarland

Image: Dark Moon Books

The Five Senses Of Horror

This unique anthology, edited by Eric J. Guignard, offers sixteen horror stories exploring how our impressions of the world are formed by the five senses.

Each entry is accompanied by cognitive, cultural, and literary insights by psychologist Jessica Bayliss, which, in addition to further academic and fiction reading lists, makes this an essential book for writers of psychological or sensory horror.

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Killing For Culture: From Edison To Isis

David Kerekes and David Slater's Killing For Culture offers a detailed history of death on film, broken into three sections: the depiction of death in conventional or feature films (focusing on Roberta and Michael Findlay's exploitation film Snuff — originally filmed in 1971 and loosely based on the Manson murders, later released by Alan Shackleton in 1976 with a new ending and marketed as an actual snuff tape), mondo films (shockumentaries purporting to show real death, often containing real animal cruelty), and death captured on film (focusing on the live broadcast of State Senator R. Budd Dwyer's suicide).

This was the first book in the Critierion Cinema series (see part one of our list for another entry, The Satanic Screen), which has since been expanded in a reprint by Headpress — highly recommend getting both editions if you can!

Image: Headpress Books

Image: Independent

Autumn Gothic

An extreme horror novel involving the gods of death, Brian Bowyer's Autumn Gothic is an unrelenting read that takes you on a violent race across America.

After guitarist Mark learns that ritual murder is to thank for his bandmate Delilah’s musical success, she lets him scram rather than become her next sacrifice — before changing her mind and hunting him down.

As she carves her way from LA to a haunted mansion in West Virginia, arriving just in time for Halloween, she discovers Mark and the mansion’s former resident aren’t alone.

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Terror Tracks: Music, Sound And Horror Cinema

Focusing on the post-War period, Terror Tracks, edited by Philip Hayward, explores patterns and inflection in a range of scores — orchestral, popular, rock, and electronic — and how these relate to non-musical sound.

Image: Equinox Publishing Ltd

Image: JournalStone

Out Of Tune

Edited by Jonathan Maberry, Out Of Tune is an anthology series split across two volumes that creatively reimagines folk ballads as short dark fiction.

Accompanying each story, folklorist Nancy Keim Comley comments on each source ballad in this wonderful blend of folkloristics, storytelling, and ethnomusicology.

Also had to mention George R.R. Martin's 1983 novel The Armageddon Rag, in which a journalist’s investigation into the death of a rock promoter reveals that his favorite band, Nazgûl, has returned to the music scene with a little help from a demonic force...

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Reservation Reelism: Redfacing, Visual Sovereignty, And Representations Of Native Americans In Film

While not horror-specific, Michelle H. Raheja's Reservation Reelism is the first book-length text to explore how the contributions of Indigenous actors, filmmakers, and spectators helped to shape the representation of Indigenous peoples in Hollywood.

A comprehensive study that fully embraces the complexity of this relationship, it attempts to create positive representations in film that reflect the influence and experiences of Native peoples and communities in Hollywood and beyond.

Image: University of Nebraska Press

Image: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Never Whistle At Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology

Edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr., Never Whistle At Night is bursting with 26 stories from Indigenous North American authors.

Featuring a foreword by Stephen Graham Jones, who introduces and frames the importance of the book's Native perspective when he speaks to a specific fear of the "colonized body" in possession narratives, the breadth and range of subjects, style, and sociocultural themes explored resonates beyond literary representation.

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Thank you for reading! If you haven’t already, check out part one and two of our Summerween special!

We’ll be back next week with the final installment.

Until then, stay spooky!

Welcome to Hex Libris — your accursed library!

Greetings, f(r)iends!!

Welcome to our revamped blog, Hex Libris!

It's been a hot minute since we last spoke. The time away has allowed us to focus and resurrect the blog — Hex Libris is your accursed library, a (horror-themed) resource to encourage mindful reading and help writers to build healthy, productive writing habits.

Like many of you in our HoL coven, we're not strangers to hustle culture; our tiny team works several jobs on top of our writing, editing, and artistic output.

Juggling calendars and commitments leaves us with very little time for ourselves. Especially time spent on self-care or creative projects (and their deadlines). Which, in the end, only adds fuel to the burnout fire.

Trying to keep the plates spinning for too long left me with a stress-induced speech disorder that affects every part of my life. On top of being a full-time carer with a day job, I've had to recalibrate my whole system, listen to my body, and make time to take as needed.

The deadlines, stress, and work will always be there.

Time, however, is fleeting. Memories and loved ones matter. Your wellbeing matters. You matter.

Healthy habits are a must to set protected boundaries for every part of your life, allowing you to be productive while enjoying the ride. And that's what this blog is designed to do. 

Our aim here is twofold: 

• suggest ways to enhance and romanticise regular reading sprints (for both pleasure and research) — to encourage mindful reading as a part of your self-care routine.
  

• offer tips and tricks to help you focus, enjoy, and build productive writing habits — to manifest your own writing ritual.

Each week, we'll touch on tools to help inspire, motivate, organise, and more — prompts to get you thinking practically about steps to take in your own journey.

To start, we've compiled several playlists on our YouTube channel sharing our fave ambience videos — all the spooky atmosphere your horror-filled heart could wish for.

Whether it's Halloween all year in your house, you fancy a night-time stroll through rain-dampened Victorian streets, or vintage spooky music is your vibe, there's a little bit of everything to help you romanticise, focus, and manifest.

We'll be adding to the ambience playlists on a regular basis — as well as videos sharing tips and tricks to help with productivity, organisation, mindfulness, and more! — so do let us know what content you want to see included!

Disclaimer: House of Leaves does not own the rights to the content in the playlists. All rights belong to the owners.

Please also shout out with any suggestions for the blog. Your accursed library is always open.

Thank you for reading. As ever, take care and stay spooky.

And if you could do me one last favour — do something for yourself today. 

Your Accursed Librarian, Rebecca

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