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The Write It Scared Podcast
A podcast to help fiction writers work through self-doubt and learn the craft of writing a novel.
The Write It Scared Podcast
Writing with ADHD: Practical Strategies to Finish Your Novel with Nicole Bross
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
If you’ve ever told yourself you’re lazy, undisciplined, or just “bad at finishing,” this episode might reframe everything.
In this episode of the Write It Scared podcast, I talk with book coach and editor Nicole Bross about how ADHD impacts a writer’s mindset, motivation, and process—especially for those diagnosed later in life. We unpack the shame spiral so many writers fall into, why traditional writing advice doesn’t work for everyone, and how diagnosis can open the door to self-compassion and smarter systems.
We also talk about her book A Novel Approach: Strategies for ADHD Writers (co-written with Kirsten Donaghey), including practical tools for overcoming paralysis, managing shiny object syndrome, and using outlines to reduce overwhelm and actually finish.
If you’ve struggled with consistency or focus, this one is equal parts strategy and permission to be kinder to yourself.
Timestamps
00:00 The Writing Advice Shame Spiral
01:41 Meet Nicole + Her Book
05:46 Late ADHD Diagnosis + Mindset Shift
13:51 Building Better Writing Systems
17:03 ADHD Creative Strengths
27:14 Motivation + Shiny Object Syndrome
32:02 Why Outlines Help
37:35 Paralysis vs. Procrastination
41:12 Final Encouragement
You can learn more about Nicole and her work here:
🌐 Writing: https://nicolebross.com
🌐 Book Coaching: https://manuscriptalchemy.com
The Novel Approach: Strategies for ADHD Writers is available wherever books are sold.
Links mentioned:
When Your Brain is the Enemy: Life as a Writer with ADHD by Nicole Bross
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Email: Stacy@writeitscared.co
https://www.writeitscared.co/wis
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Take advantage of these Free Resources From Write It Scared:
Download Your Free Novel Planning and Drafting Quick Start Guide
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Reading all of this advice that good writers are supposed to take was really discouraging. I was comparing myself to my peers who had written three books in the same amount of time. I was doing the work, but it was probably like five times as hard as what I saw other people doing. And because I didn't understand then that I had ADHD, I just thought it meant I was a bad writer, you know, I wasn't committed, you know, I wasn't taking it seriously enough, or or whatever, you know, I'm just not cut out for this. And so that really gave me kind of a negative mindset about writing in the first place.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to the Write It Scared podcast. I'm your host, Stacey Fraser, a formerly repressed creative soul, turned fiction writer, story editor, and author accelerator certified fiction book coach. At Write It Scared, we tell the truth about why writing a novel is so hard by acknowledging that most writers grapple with two stories. The one they want to put on the page to the best of their ability, and the often subconscious internal story that prevents them from doing it. This show is designed to help you identify and rewrite the internal narrative holding you back while you discover and write the story you want to tell and learn all the tools to help you do that successfully. Join me each week for a new episode where we'll talk about writing to deepen our understanding of the craft and of ourselves as writers. Writing a novel is an inside job that we do not do alone. Welcome to Write It's Scared. I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in. Hi, writer. Welcome back to the Write It Scared Podcast. I'm your host, Stacy, and this is where we talk about the brave and the vulnerable act of writing our novels so that we can do it with more clarity, more confidence, more self-trust, and not feel so alone. Today I am joined by book coach and author Nicole Bros for a candid conversation about having ADHD and how it impacts a writer's mindset and their writing process. Nicole shares her personal journey about her late ADHD diagnosis and all the years that she spent believing that she was just lazy or undisciplined, and how receiving her diagnosis helped her achieve a mindset shift that changed everything. We also dive into her new nonfiction book called A Novel Approach: Strategies for ADHD Writers, and discuss practical tools that she and her co-author offer to help writers finish the projects they start. We talk about issues with motivation, experiencing paralysis, shiny object syndrome, tools such as outlining, and why a lot of traditional writing advice simply doesn't work for neurodiverse brains. If writing has ever felt harder for you than it should, this episode will give you some compassion and some clarity, whether you're neurodiverse or not, and some concrete strategies to help you move forward. Let me give you Nicole's bio and then we'll jump into the interview. Nicole Ross is a certified fiction book coach and editor and the co-author of a nonfiction book for neurodiverse writers called A Novel Approach: Strategies for ADHD Writers. Her debut novel, Past Presence, is an adult supernatural mystery and was a top three finalist for the Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Crime Novel awarded by the Crime Writers of Canada. She's also been editor-in-chief of Birthing Magazine since 2015, and her writing has been featured in many print and online publications, as well as nationally broadcast nonfiction TV shows. As a book coach, Nicole specializes in supporting neurodiverse writers to work with their ADHD to develop healthy, sustainable writing processes. Hey Nicole, welcome to the Write It Scared podcast. I'm so glad to have you on to talk about your book, The Novel Approach. So we're gonna get into that. But before we do, how's it going? I'm doing really well. I'm excited to be here. Before we hit record, Nicole gave me a little tour around her writing area, and I got to see. Do you want to tell everybody what I just got to see?
SPEAKER_00My wall of typewriters, I guess you'd call it. There's one behind me here, but I have 20 of them all together. Every color of the rainbow. They're all manual. Some of them have different fonts. So I have like a metallic one and a script to learn. And yeah, it's just my kind of my collect.
SPEAKER_01If you can see, I mean, listeners, if you could see my face, my I have like the biggest grin on my face. This is just the coolest thing I've ever seen. I don't know why, but I absolutely am fascinated by it. Yeah, forced her to take me on a tour around her around her house on a Zoom tour. I want to see all these typewriters. That's so cool. All right. Well, thank you so much for sharing that and for being here. So why don't we kick off? I gave you a bit of a bio, but why don't you just kick us off by sharing about your journey to becoming a writer and a book coach with our listeners?
SPEAKER_00I have always been a writer. Like I started writing fiction stories in like grade school, you know, like kind of self-insertion, Nancy Drew mystery type things, because that was, you know, a lot of what I was reading. And then I did journalism in high school and university, and then kind of went back to fiction again as an adult. So I've published one fiction book, one nonfiction book. And then I've been an editor for years as well. I work as the editor for a magazine and kind of shifted into book coaching as kind of an extension of what I was already doing. I was already doing like a lot of beta reads for author friends and stuff like that. And I thought, like, why not bring this kind of to the wider world? And I decided to mostly specialize working with neurodiverse authors to get their books written because I know there are particular challenges that they may face that neurotypical writers don't. So that's where I am.
SPEAKER_01And why is that important to you to focus on that particular area with that those particular writers?
SPEAKER_00Mostly I guess with my own journey. So like I was a later diagnosed person with ADHD I send out in my late 30s in 2018. And it was actually only because one of my kids was diagnosed. You know, I'm going through all the questions and it's like, oh, I relate to a lot of these two. No kidding. So that was kind of like a big revelation for me because I had all of these kind of internalized negative ideas about myself that I was, you know, unreliable and disorganized and lazy and all these things. And it turns out there was not a logical reason for why those things happened. But it had also made my journey as a writer really difficult because I was struggling with things like consistency and organization and stuff like that. And so once I got my diagnosis, I decided, you know, I wasn't, I was gonna try and not be mean to myself anymore. I guess is the best way to describe it, and try and figure out ways that I could work around or work with these challenges to make it easier for myself. And then, yeah, as an extension of that, you know, if I can do it for myself, why not try and help other writers with the same problems?
SPEAKER_01Oh, 100%. I love that. Yeah. I mean, what do you work through it for yourself? It's giving it away. Helping somebody else facilitate their journey is just, you know, it's like the next best thing, if not better, right? Yeah. Seeing somebody else the light bulbs come on, right? And they're like, oh, yeah. I've never thought of doing it that way before. Exactly. Exactly. Or or helping people to find uh grace for themselves and compassion and empathy for themselves. That's really beautiful. And, you know, the fact that you've walked through it yourself gives you, I mean, sometimes the the the internal narratives that aren't helpful to us that we hold inside of us, once we start to talk about them and shed the light on them, then it creates like this whole like ripple effect of empathy with other people, like self-empathy. I'm like, oh, we're not alone. I don't suck, you know? Yeah. Well, exactly. I had it planned out that we were gonna talk about the book, the novel approach first. But if you're okay with it, let's talk about your journey. You mentioned that you struggled and you didn't know what was going on. So I'd like, if you're okay with that, changing gears a little bit, talking about kind of your personal experience with ADHD. You wrote a fantastic article called When the Brain Is Your Enemy. Life as a Writer with ADHD. And it was published on booksbywomen.org. And I loved reading it, and I will link it in the show notes too, so that other people can go take a look at it. But would you please share what your writing process was like pre-diagnosis and what did you struggle with?
SPEAKER_00Consistency was a big one. You know, you you read these writing craft books, and they're like, you know, you should sit down at 8 a.m. and not get up until you've written 2,000 words every single day. The most important thing you can do is write every single day. Yeah, everyone knows that particular process. But even things like, you know, doing morning pages is something that like it doesn't work for me. Like, I can't get up and write three pages freehand first thing in the morning because my meds haven't kicked in yet. Like I am not in a frame of mind to do that. And so, you know, reading all of this advice that good writers are supposed to take was really discouraging. And so I was already really down about myself because I could only write, you know, maybe 400 words at a time and it was such a struggle. And so, you know, I got I got through it. I finished the book that was eventually published, but it was really hard. I was comparing myself to my peers a lot, you know, who had written three books in the same amount of time or whatever, you know, or they'd they'd already finished their second book and I'm still like editing my second draft or whatever. So yeah, it was, you know, I was doing the work, but it was probably like five times as hard as what I saw other people doing. And because I didn't understand then that I had ADHD, I just thought it meant I was a bad writer, you know, I wasn't committed, you know, I wasn't taking it seriously enough or or whatever, you know, I'm just not cut out for this. And so that really gave me kind of a negative mindset about writing in the first place. And so then if you think about it like that, why do you even want to do it? So it was a struggle.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you mentioned, I mean, you have uh you have a fiction book out, an adult supernatural mystery. What's the title of it?
SPEAKER_00Past presence.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. So was the writing of that book pre-diagnosis or post or not in the middle, in the midst?
SPEAKER_00I wrote it pre-diagnosis, but then I got the diagnosis before it came out. So it was in I had, I think I had signed the publishing contract by the time that I had actually received the diagnosis. So yeah, moving forward, writing from that point onward was a completely different experience just because of how I was thinking about myself and my process. It took some time to figure out, you know, all the tools and strategies that were helping me, like that took a long time. And, you know, trialing meds and stuff like that as well. But it was the mindset shift that made the biggest difference for me.
SPEAKER_01What was the mindset shift? I mean, if you could put it in a nutshell, what do you think?
SPEAKER_00Honestly, it went beyond writing. It was like the mindset shift was I'm not a bad person, uh, is the easiest way to put it because I kind of felt all my life that I was uh because of these traits. And so uh thinking about myself in a different light really made a difference. And it didn't come all at once. Like it it wasn't like an instant, you know, one day I think this and the next day I think that. But it it was, you know, starting to steer in that direction that changed things a lot.
SPEAKER_01So uh it sounds like what you did get your diagnosis that it was a game changer for you and for the mindset shift, especially. But as far as the writing goes, like how did it change your approach to writing?
SPEAKER_00Again, the compassion thing was big, but I did start to try and find different ways of like motivating myself and different ways of kind of making myself accountable, you know, being more, I guess, mindful about blocking off time consistently so that I would, you know, have something literally in my calendar that said writing time. Because if we just tell ourselves, you know, oh, I'm gonna write today, you know, what does that mean? When, where, you know, what is your what is your strategy for this? So for example, like every Thursday night, I would go uh out to a little coffee shop in our in our city, and that would be like my protected writing time. And it didn't matter, you know, what was going on with my kids at home or like anything else, like I am leaving, I am getting out of this chaos place and going and working on my writing. And that at that point I had like two fairly young kids. So so doing things like that, I started really kind of in earnest tracking my progress so that I had a visual kind of reminder of how things were moving forward. So I like made myself a spreadsheet and just put my word count in it every day so I could see that number growing. And for me personally, I found that really motivating because I can see how much closer I'm getting to the end. And I also started kind of tracking information in addition to that. So, like what time of day was it? Where was I? How am I feeling like in terms of the my mood, so that I could try and find an optimal time where I do my best work. And it doesn't mean that, you know, you have to get super precious about it. And like I only work when it's 22 degrees outside and you know, sunny and whatever, or I'm Canadian, so we use Celsius. I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit. It's it's warm, it's pleasant, it's pleasant. So yeah, things like that, so that I understood like if I am going to block time off, maybe first thing in the morning isn't the best time for it because when I try and work in the morning, I don't get much done. Versus after dinner, when things have settled down a little bit, I'm more productive at that time. So trying to trying to find that information about myself and just be curious about what is working best for my brain so that I could optimize my time because you know, I had a job, I had two young kids, I had, you know, all the responsibilities of living in the world. And when you don't have much time, you want to make sure that you can use it as best possible.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Yeah. Optimizing it. Yeah. So it sounds like it opened up kind of a journey of exploration into self-awareness.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Does that make sense? Did I say that right? A journey of, yeah, well, a journey of like figuring yourself out and how you tick. And less of measuring yourself against how other people tick. Very much less of that, yes. Yeah. Yeah. I I I I could use a dose of that also. And I know it is hard. It is damn hard. It's damn hard, you know? I just have a a tendency, always have that like over there's better. Like what whatever, whoever's over there and wherever they are is better than probably where I'm sitting right here. And and I have to catch myself in that all the time, constantly. Yeah. Since you're diagnosed, have you been able to see any advantages that having ADHD brings into your life and your creative process?
SPEAKER_00Oh, for sure. The more I started reading about what ADHD means and had, you know, kind of the differences in the brain, it turns out that as like a measurable aspect, I guess, of neurodiversity is that people with ADHD tend to be more creative. They look at a lot more solutions to problems, for example. They don't just kind of find one way of doing things and stick with it. And so I think that creativity um lends itself maybe to being a better writer or maybe a more interesting writer, I guess, because I'm looking at lots of different ways to solve plot problems or whatever. Neurodiversity is definitely overrepresented in the arts compared to other like fields or professions. And I believe that it's in part because of that, because of that increased creativity. And I guess the other big thing is when I can, when I can hit it, when it happens, that kind of hyper focus where everything in the world drops away and I'm only focused on writing can be, you know, a massive leap forward in terms of productivity because you know, everything just stops existing except the words. And that's another kind of, I guess, mind state that people with ADHD can kind of jot into. And when you're when you're doing it on the wrong thing, it can be quite negative. But if you can kind of direct it toward writing, yeah, that's that's kind of a great advantage.
SPEAKER_01So you had this kind of life-altering experience of getting this diagnosis has definitely changed the way you approach writing, the way you approach your life. So, what drove you to consider writing a book about it?
SPEAKER_00Uh, it's actually interesting because it wasn't my idea in the first place. I have a co-author, and she had read the article that you mentioned earlier, When Your Brain is the Enemy, and a couple other ones that I had written as well. She's also neurodiverse, and she kind of saw that there was a gap in the market where there's books about writing and there's books about having ADHD, but there isn't a book about writing when you've had ADHD. And so she emailed me out of the blue. She was not a person I knew at all. I just got this email in my inbox saying, Hey, I read your articles. We want to write a book together and have this idea. And, you know, because I'm very impulsive, again, in ADHD feature, I was like, sure, yeah, let's do it. With no like, with no plan, with no anything, just yeah, let's write a book together. And that, and now here we are a few years later.
SPEAKER_01Had she ever written a nonfiction book?
SPEAKER_00No, she had never written any book, as far as I know. So yeah, well, yeah. And that that was a couple of years ago now. So my my fiction book had been out for a while and I was working on other things throughout the pandemic. So yeah, it once we once we got started, I guess, then kind of realized like, wow, this could make a big difference for some writers out there.
SPEAKER_01You could also make a big difference for book coaches who help writers that are neurodiverse, 100%. I'm reading it now, and I love how it's laid out. I mean, that you can jump around, that you don't have to read it chronologically. I mean, I went immediately to the section of like, I've written 80% of my book, why can't I finish it? And then it had to, then I was like, it's not boredom. I have to go look at motivation. And you know, I it's just it's really well done. And you know, you mentioned like before that you had to kind of start exploring what works for you and what doesn't by paying attention, being aware, tri tricks and trial and error is what it sounds like. And you invite writers to do that in this book. There's a lot of exercises for them to start exploring these things. And it was definitely eye-opening for me. A lot of strategies, a lot of wonderful ideas in there. So how did you guys go about putting it together? You and your co-author, whose name, by the way, is Kirsten Donnahae. Donahe, wasn't sure how to say your last name. Kirsten Donahe. How did you guys go about putting this book together? What was the strategy behind it?
SPEAKER_00So she had kind of like some, I guess, disconnected ideas about some things that should be in it. And I pretty much straight away said, I'm not on board unless we do an outline, because outlines are a huge help for me when it comes to writing. And I said, like, I'm just, I'm literally not going to be able to do this if there isn't an outline. So we built an outline and we were working in a common Google document. We kind of divided up the different topics. You know, I'm going to do this chapter, you're going to do that chapter, kind of thing. And then just worked on it together over quite a long period of time. It took a while. But and originally we had it organized in a different way where we were going to talk about challenges related to the type of ADHD that you have, because it's generally kind of broken down into three categories where you're the inattentive type. So the person who's like daydreaming, not necessarily paying attention to what's going on in the world around you and you miss, you know, important things. There's the kind of impulsive or hyperactive type where it's more about like being super fidgety, can't sit still, you know, and having all these kind of like impulsive thoughts and moments and stuff. And then there's combined, which is like some aspect of both. So originally we were going to organize it like that. And then we found more and more as we kept going, a lot of the advice from one section should also be in a different section. And so when it came time to edit it, once we had all the chapters finished, I actually did one of the one of the tools that we recommend in the book, which is writing down every chapter or every scene on a post-it note. And I threw them all up on the wall and then started moving them around, like what fits with what? You know, do these chapters kind of align well together? And so we ended up with the five sections in the book because of that. And that was, I'd never done the post-it note method before. I write when I write fiction, I write linearly. So I start on page one and I write straight through to the end. But a lot of people write just in scenes and kind of paste it all together later. And so I that's how kind of we wrote this book. And so yeah, I found it really effective to organize it that way. And it made a lot more sense when we just broke it down into kind of basic challenges like focus, organization, motivation, that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_01So it's been out since October of 2025. We're recording this into the first part of December of 2025. So, how has the response been for the book?
SPEAKER_00Really good, actually. Um we all have, or many people have, that kind of imposter syndrome where it's like, you know, nobody's gonna like it, nobody's even gonna read it. You know, am I even qualified to write this book in the first place? And I I wasn't really sure what to expect in terms of early sales and everything. But yeah, it's it's doing really well. We hit number one in an Amazon category the day it came out. So that was like super exciting to get that number one bestseller banner, you know. When things like that started happening, it kind of again shifted that mindset to like, okay, yes, like this is actually helpful. People are finding it useful. Yeah. So I'm I'm delighted by it by how well it's doing.
SPEAKER_01That's so awesome.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Like the horse smiling so big.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome. Of course you did something good. You did something amazing and something brilliant. And the reason that you were able to do it because you leaned into your who you are.
SPEAKER_00Isn't it? Yes.
SPEAKER_01So I'm I'm very pleased. That's awesome. I'm very glad that you shared it with the world. It takes a lot of courage and a lot of guts and vulnerability, right? To be like, hi, here's my insights. Go ahead. Get the luck, you know.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Because it is very personal in parts of it, you know, like where we talk about our own experiences and you know how it how it felt for for us. So yeah, it it is kind of a nerve-wracking moment once you hit publish and it's like, okay, you know, can't take it back. Now it's it's shipping out to people. But but so far it's yeah, it's it's an only good feedback. So I'm very happy.
SPEAKER_01I'd love to ask you a few questions that came up for me as I was reading the book. I really appreciated how you were able to highlight some of the patterns or some of the issues that writers may deal with, even if they're not diagnosed, even if they don't know like that this is a problem for them. Honestly, I could see myself in so many of these places, so many of these issues. Like, hmm, well, I think that this can be helpful for me no matter what. So you already gave us a snapshot of of what the th three different types of of ADHD, what that can look like. And it sounds like it's very much on a spectrum, right? It's not a box. It's not like you go to this box or you go to this box, or you go to this box, and you stay in that box forever. It's not like that. Yeah, not at all. Okay. Well, let's just talk some tips for writers um who are struggling somewhere on the spectrum of ADHD. Uh, and and let's say that they're struggling with their motivation. They can't they can't get themselves to the page. What can they do?
SPEAKER_00So there are different reasons why you might not be motivated. You might not be motivated because you don't actually like your story or you're not into it. And so then it's a matter of like, well, what what don't you like? You know, are you finding that it's boring? In that case, you know, maybe you need to go back to your outline because of course you have an outline, right? Uh, and and see, can you make it more exciting in some way? Like what would make you want to write this again? Sometimes people aren't very motivated because they're bored, you know, and they they just don't have that kind of fresh new book feeling anymore. You know, they've gotten halfway through or whatever and they're like, oh my God, this is so much work. And they, you know, that honeymoon kind of phase is over. Maybe they also have like a great new idea and they want to shift to that because they're so excited about the shiny new thing that they've got going on in their head. In that case, what we kind of try and advise to do is to take that feeling of excitement and newness and shift it back to the project that you're actually working on, whether that's trying to recreate, you know, how you initially felt when you got that idea. Like for myself, for example, for whatever reason, I don't know why it happens, but I get kind of book ideas from song lyrics. Well, I'll just hear a song and it'll be like one line and I'll be like, oh my God, new book, you know, just like that. And so when I get to that kind of, you know, point where it starts to be really difficult and I don't want to be doing it anymore, going back and listening to that song again, for example, can kind of recreate that feeling of like, oh my God, I felt so right when I when I had this new idea. So kind of shifting that motivation back to your existing project and tucking away the new idea for later, because one of the biggest challenges that a lot of people with ADHD have is finishing their books. They're great at starting them, and then, you know, they kind of bail part way through and start something else. And so we don't want that to happen. We want to get you to the end. We want you to be able to write the end, because that's, you know, besides being the best feeling, it's also the end of an objective because, you know, you want to be an author, but you can't publish half-finished books. You have to get them done.
SPEAKER_01Have you ever heard of the Valley of Despair when it comes to like psychological, like how we approach a challenging whatever what is it called? Yeah. So that's what I was thinking about. You know, when we first start a project, you know, we're like, woo, woo. And and our brain chemistry is like, woohoo, the dopamine's kicking and kicking. And as any challenging project will any, any, anything that's a challenge, right? Any goal that we set that is particularly difficult, it's gonna get a little hard. There's gonna be moments, right? So where we drop into that, what the hell was I thinking? This is dumb.
SPEAKER_00I was bored. I don't want to do this anymore. Right. For me, it's like 30,000 words when I hit that point. I'm like, oh no more.
SPEAKER_01Mine's always like around 50 to 70, even so. Oh, yeah. That's always so you're like so close to the end. I yeah, I am, I am, and I just want to throw my pen at the wall sometimes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So you mentioned the word outline. You mentioned it several times. You said that you definitely didn't feel comfortable writing this particular book without an outline. And in the book, it's kind of the keystone as far as tool goes. So please talk about how because I bet, oh man, a lot of people would have resistance to that. The idea of embracing an outline. So please talk to me about what kind of a tool it is, how you use it, why it's a good strategy for writers with ADHD.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So an outline, and I understand the objection. You know, people feel like it kills their creativity. They just want to like write and see what happens. And an outline still gives you a lot of room to do that. You know, it isn't something that's set in stone, but there are a couple of ways an outline helps. The first one can be because a lot of people with ADHD kind of get paralyzed by big projects or big ideas. You know, it just it feels it feels like too big of an undertaking and they don't know how to tackle it. You know, it's this huge, bolder monolith of like writing a book. And so an outline can really help in that respect because if you don't know how to get started or you don't understand what writing a book means, an outline will break down, you know, the idea of a book into chapters or scenes where they become much smaller, kind of manageable pieces. So instead of, you know, writing a book today, you are writing one scene or, you know, even one page or whatever, and you have this kind of roadmap to tell you what all those different blocks are. So it could become, you know, easier to just keep going. And the other, the other reason outlines are such a great tool is for organizational purposes. So if you if you kind of know the basic parts of your story and a really important part of it is the ending, then you have an objective you're working toward because you know when you reach this exact point, you're finished. So you can kind of see it in your mind. And then it also gives you different points, same kind of idea where you know what you're working on. So you're not spending a lot of mental energy trying to figure out like what even is my story? What am I writing about? Is what I'm writing about going to be a complete waste of time because it doesn't follow the narrative. So it kind of takes a lot of that mental chatter out of your head, I guess is a good way of putting it, and then shows you, you know, where where you're headed toward. And it doesn't mean that you have to write it linearly, like I tend to do. Like a lot of people will just, you know, oh, I want to write this scene today and do it because you have an outline which tells you all the different parts, and then you can kind of pick and choose whatever excites you the most that day and kind of figure out putting it all together later. So I'm a huge proponent of it. I also think it kind of cuts down on the revision phase because if you already know that all of your scenes have like a point or a purpose toward the ending of your story, then you're not writing a lot of kind of extra stuff that you're just gonna end up later. And I find that makes revision a lot easier. And outlines can be super simple, like they can just be a few bullet points of basic ideas. They don't also have to have everything in them. Like a lot of my outlines will literally just say a bunch of stuff happens because I don't know. I know what happens later, but I don't know what happens in this part. And I find it's helpful if I can at least write what needs to happen in that scene in order to get to the next point. So I can say, you know, these two people need to have a fight, but I don't know what the fight is about. I don't know, you know, what they're gonna say to each other or anything, but that has to happen to to push forward to the next scene. So I find it massively, massively helpful. And my my outlines are kind of beast, like they can be 10 or 12,000 words long. Like they, you know, it's almost a draft in itself. But having for me that level of detail makes it so easy once I start drafting to just look at it and go, oh, this is exactly what this scene needs to do. And then, and then just go, yeah, I love that.
SPEAKER_01And I love that you said that it can look, you know, it there can be it can the outlines can be on a spectrum too, right? Yeah, absolutely. They can be lean or they can be fully fleshed out. Yeah, it just I think that's what works for the writer, and sometimes that's a trial and error thing. But I also am a fan of outlines for myself, for the writers that I work with, but again, I hold it pretty loosely depending on depending on how analytical you are, and but also, you know, a lot of times you can't figure stuff out until you get to it, until you get to the writing of it, and you can't force it. You can't take no force.
SPEAKER_00And then when I when I look at like my the end product, once I've finished the first draft, if I look at the original outline, there there are lots of places where it doesn't match up at all because once I've started writing, I figured out something that works better, or it just so happens that, you know, the story goes in a different direction that I wasn't expecting. So I never I never consider my outlines as like, you know, the holy grail and must stick exactly to this. It's like it's a fluid living document that I change at will. And there's lots of opportunity in there for that discovery kind of style of writing where where you don't know what's gonna happen. You know, your outline just kind of gives you a rough starting point for for where, you know, where you're jumping off from.
SPEAKER_01Could degree more. One of the things I really enjoyed was how the book talked about how ADHD writers experience paralysis, but they often see it as procrastination, but it's not, and it's and it's rooted in that having a difficult time, like like visualizing the whole end or the you know, the finishing, right? It's hard to finish because you can't visualize the whole thing as finished. I know the other analogy I really appreciated was the, you know, how many, like how many departments it takes to write a book inside a brain. I thought that was hilarious. Do you want to share that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's just the idea that writing a book isn't just sitting down and putting your fingers on a keyboard and typing until you write the end. There are so many different parts of the process, you know, whether that's iteration, you're figuring out your ideas, you know, there's research research. Yeah. There's, you know, the part where you might just like sit down and daydream about your story for a while because you need to figure out some plot point before you start actually working and you know, editing and all the rest of them. It's it's a lot of different pieces or parts that you have to put together into the process of writing a book.
SPEAKER_01When if you're especially if you're a new writer and this is your first time writing a novel, and you, you know, you have the expectation that you're just supposed to sit down and and and just do this, right? But then you walk up and you're like, oh wow, this doesn't work. Just the sitting down and just doing this doesn't really work, especially if you take, you know, take something all the way to the end, or you have started multiple things and not finished them, and you're like, what's wrong with me? Why can't I do this? Actually, you know, it's a lot like being walked into a house with a bunch of different doors. You have to like pick and choose. So so, but I I just thought that was really a very interesting point that what we think of as procrastination is is often just difficulty with an overwhelming amount of decisions that have to be made. And what I think you're saying is that having an outline, the tool like an outline, is a way to compartmentalize and make your decision-making process a lot easier and to simplify it, I guess. Very cool. Are there any myths about ADH writers that you would like to bust?
SPEAKER_00The big one, I think, is that, you know, that lack of understanding, you know, where they they just they're not cut out for it, you know, they can't get organized, they can't get motivated, they can't focus long enough to get to the finish line, you know, because of like a personal flaw, like, you know, this just this just isn't for you. You're not cut out to be a writer because you struggle with these things. If you understand it from the point of a neurological difference and something that once you identify, you can use tools to kind of get around those challenges. I think that's that's the biggest thing. That if somebody trusts in you enough to tell you that they have a neurodiversity, whatever that might be, that you think about it in, I guess, a compassionate terms, as like, you know, why be curious, I guess, if this person is challenged by, you know, oh, they missed their deadline or or whatever. Is it because they're lazy and disorganized? Maybe it's not. Maybe it's because they had a challenge that they haven't addressed yet that can be improved upon.
SPEAKER_01Compassion, not assumption.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yes, assumption. Assumption is the worst.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Where you just immediately go to the worst possible, you know, thought about that person.
SPEAKER_01All right. Last couple of questions to wrap up. What do you think the best piece of creative or writing advice you've ever received is something that you've held on to that you use as a bit of a North Star?
SPEAKER_00I think it was the idea that writing craft books in particular are written for neurotypical people and that the advice in them because I can't follow it, doesn't mean that I'm not cut out for this.
SPEAKER_01What wish would you like to impart to your fellow ADHD writers?
SPEAKER_00Be nice to yourself. Have that compassion for yourself that you would have for somebody else in your shoes if you happen to encounter them. Like if somebody you knew, a writer with ADHD, said, you know, oh, I forgot to write today or I haven't been able to write it all this week, you wouldn't say to them, like, oh, you're so lazy and unmotivated and disorganized, you know, you suck. But when it happens to us, that's automatically where our brains go and it needs to stop. So please, please be nice to yourself.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you so much for your time today for coming on the show. Can you please share where listeners can find you and if you and the book, and then if you have any anything new coming out in the world that you want listeners to know about?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so the book is available kind of everywhere where you can buy books online Amazon, Barnes and Noble, bookshop.org. It's in paperback or ebook format. So it's on Kindle and Kobo and Apple Books and all of that. And you can find me. I have two websites actually. So NicoleBross.com is where you can find out about my writing. And then my book coaching is at manuscriptalchemy.com.
SPEAKER_01I will put those links in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here and for you know writing this book. Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, I'm so glad we got to talk. Thank you for listening to the Write It Scared podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please make sure to hit the follow button so you never miss an episode. And please leave a review. Reviews help other writers like you find the voices and messages they need to hear to continue to write their stories. Let's lift each other up. Remember, you can be scared and still be unstoppable. I'll see you next week.
