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Preorder A Novel Approach HERE! (Releases on October 15th, 2025)
Suzy sits down with Author, Editor, and Book Coach, Nicole Bross to talk about her new book A Novel Approach: Strategies for ADHD Writers. They dive into what makes neurodivergent brains unique, and how you can harness the strengths of your brain function to finish your own book!
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Podcast Episode Transcript (unedited)
Suzy Vadori: [00:00:00] Welcome to Show, don’t Tell Writing with me, Suzy Vadori, where I teach you the tried and true secrets to writing fiction nonfiction that are gonna wow your readers broken down step by step. We’re gonna explore writing techniques. I’m gonna show you a glimpse behind the scenes of successful writers’ careers that you wouldn’t have access to otherwise.
And I’m also gonna coach writers live on their pages so that you can learn and transform your own storytelling. Whether you’re just starting out, you’re drafting your first book, you’re editing, or you’re currently rewriting that book, or maybe even your 10th book, this show’s gonna help you unlock the writing skills that you didn’t even know you needed, but.
You definitely do. I’m so looking forward to helping you get your amazing ideas from your mind onto your pages in an exciting way for both you and your readers so that you can achieve your wildest writing dreams, [00:01:00] and you’re gonna also have some fun doing it. Let’s dive in. Today I have special guest, fellow author, accelerator book coach, and my friend Nicole Bros.
She was diagnosed with A DHD in 2018, and she says, not to sound too cliche, but finding out was like the proverbial light bulb moment for her. All the things that she always hated herself for. The disorganization, the paralysis, when faced with complex tasks, the absolutely constant daydreaming that kept her from focusing on anything even remotely tedious.
They all had an explanation, and that was when Nicole decided she was gonna stop beating herself up for something that wasn’t even her fault to begin with, and start figuring out not only how her brain works. But how to turn those perceived flaws into assets she could use to her advantage. So any of this is sounding familiar.
If you followed me for a long time, you will be well aware in that I am fascinated by the human brain. And so this was a really, really great conversation [00:02:00] to undertake with Nicole. Nicole Bras that we’re about to hear from is a certified fiction book coach and editor, and she’s also the co-author of a non-fiction book.
Coming out this month for Neurodiverse Writers called a Novel Approach Strategies for A DHD Writers, her Daily Novel, past Presence, and Adult Supernatural Mystery was a top three finalists for the Arthur Ellis Award for best first crime novel awarded by the crime writers of Canada. She’s also been the editor in chief of Birthing Magazine since 2015, and her writing’s 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 A DHD to develop healthy, sustainable writing processes. Oh my gosh. So excited for you, Nick Al. Then as your book is coming out and we can’t wait to read it, how are you feeling about the launch? [00:03:00] I’m really excited.
Actually, this is the first non-fiction book that I’ve ever written or even considered writing. I’ve always been a fiction writer up to this point, so the process of writing it has been really different. And then also self-publishing, which is a new one for me as well. So there are a lot of things to be really excited about.
Yeah. And you call this a writing process book, which is a little bit different from being a craft book. How is it different? So craft books generally teach you how to be a better writer. They teach you about the craft of writing, and this as a writing process book is going to teach you how to write consistently, how to kind of improve your efficiency.
How did you become, yeah, a more, a more consistent writer so that you can start your book and also finish your book, not finishing a book. That’s that’s the dream, right. I love it. Okay, so how did this book come about? Like why are you writing this book in the first place? Right now, there isn’t a book that’s targeted specifically to [00:04:00] writers who have a DHD on how to kind of address the challenges that they face, that neurotypical people might not face or might not face as severely.
’cause I’m not gonna say that nobody gets distracted or, you know, nobody has trouble focusing sometimes if they’re neurotypical. So right now there isn’t a book for neurodivergent or people with a DHD. Who are specifically writers and it focuses on the challenges that they have that might be different from neurotypical people.
So increased difficulty with focus, organization motivation, that sort of thing. I’m writing it with a co-author, Kirsten Donahue, and she actually. Contacted me outta the blue. We didn’t know each other at all. We weren’t colleagues. She wrote to me outta the blue because she had read some articles that I had read about being a writer with A DHD and thought she’d had this idea to write a book specifically for a DHD writers and wanted to do it with me because I already had, you know, the experience.
And I was like a published [00:05:00] writer at that point as well, which is why I was writing those articles in the first place. That’s awesome. So why whole book right now? Because it, it doesn’t exist. And because you’re also a book coach, right? And you, you specialize, I mean, you help all kinds of writers, but specifically love focusing with neurodivergent writers.
Right. And is this a lot of your experience in this book as well, in working with those writers and your own experience writing?
Nicole Bross: Absolutely. Yeah. Like when I found out that I had A-D-H-D-I was in my late thirties and I, I only found out because one of my kids was diagnosed and a lot of the questions and stuff that they were asking I realized related a lot to my own experience as well.
And it turns out that I was basically the poster child for undiagnosed A DHD in girls growing up. But it was a later in life kind of revelation for me. And so, yeah, we wanted to write a book that would help people who had had the same challenges. For me personally, it’s really important that it gets acknowledged that, [00:06:00] you know, these challenges are, are different and that we can help.
Yeah. Yeah. Because how does understanding one’s own Neurodivergence, how does that actually help them with writing? The first and the most important part for me was just finding like a lot of grace and forgiveness for myself. Thinking, you know, all the things that I hadn’t really liked about myself. You know, the distractibility, the forgetfulness, the lack of focus.
I just thought that I was like a lazy, bad person, and so finding out that it’s an actual facet of my brain and not, you know, a personal flaw is massive. Just in being able to better understand. Why, um, you do the things you do, and I think once you understand why, then you’re actually motivated to figure out ways to improve it or get around those challenges because you don’t just think poorly about yourself.
So I think there are many people out there who are down on themselves because they think they can’t finish a book because, you know, they. Whatever, [00:07:00] 30,000 words in and then get distracted by a new idea or go off and do something else. Or they, you know, they have great ideas and they wanna start a book, but they never can.
Understanding that there’s a reason behind that and it’s a facet of your brain chemistry is really important I think, to actually understanding it and then wanting, knowing that you can get through those with tools. Yeah. Amazing. So your first book, your debut novel past presence, came out in 2019. Was that before or after your own diagnosis?
That would have been green. I wrote it before the diagnosis, but it came out after, so it was right around that time. And before that I had written a few other books that are just trunked on my hard drive, will probably never see the light of day. And it was really challenging. And so, yeah. So how has your, your own writing changed?
I, I know that this was sort of the genesis for your book coaching business and all of these things, but how has your writing changed since that [00:08:00] really challenging time when you, you did it anyway, uh, you were doing these strategies, you just weren’t sure why you needed to do them. Is that sort of an accurate statement, or you were trying them.
Yeah, maybe subconsciously, like there was a lot of beating myself up and being really hard on myself. And then once I did get the diagnosis, that’s when I started looking into like tools and strategies and ways to, you know, improve my own process and, you know, become a more efficient writer and understand the way my brain works and how I can kind of trick or hack my brain into getting past some of these difficulties.
So it’s all of that learning. Throughout years basically of trying different things that I’ve put into the book. Yeah, and, and just, I wanted to say as an Nicole, I mean I’m working alongside you as you build your book coaching business for years now. You are so far from, you know, you said you used to just think that you were lazy or around, and you were so far from that as you build it and just show up for yourself and for your clients consistently.
And [00:09:00] I love, love, love that you dug in, you figured this out, and you’re helping so many people and this book is going to help. So many more people figure out how their own, you know, brain works and what might work with that. Okay. So what is, what ended up being in this book? Like I think it’s organized you a few different parts.
Do you wanna share with us what in the book and how did you organize it? So it’s organized into five parts, basically. One on organization, one on how to develop your own writing practice. There’s another part on focus and motivation. There’s one on support for writers with A DHD, and then the last one is just a short part on the A DHD brain in case people are interested in kind of the medical or the scientific explanations behind why their brain is doing what they’re doing.
Oh my gosh. I am all about how brains work and I know that many of the listeners on the show how podcasts know that. I’m always fascinated with how reader’s brains work, writers’ brains as well, [00:10:00] so I just can’t wait for that. That section in particular I think is gonna be awesome, but I’m sure the book is just full of strategies, but can you share one strategy that you’ve employed that’s worked for you and for the writers that you’re, or the writers that you’re working with?
So the, the biggest thing for me, personally has been outlining. Outlining for me has been massive for two reasons. The first reason is because it lets me visualize the whole book, but particularly the end because people with a DHD have. Kind of a, a deficiency in dopamine in the brain, which activates the reward center.
It gets people excited for finishing a task basically. But when you don’t have as much of that dopamine in your brain, it can be difficult to envision the ending and how you’re going to feel about finishing. So a lot of people, especially when they’re faced with a hard task. If you’re neurotypical, you can visualize what it’s gonna be like to finish and then you get really excited about it.
You know, you get that anticipatory feeling [00:11:00] of joy or glee or satisfaction or whatever. And for a lot of people with a DHD, that’s really difficult to do. So an outline helps you see the ending. And the other thing about an outline is it gets you organized so you can break down your entire novel, which is, you know, a pretty daunting task to think about writing a book.
Into small, manageable chunks, so you have all of your scenes broken down. I myself write linearly, so I write from chapter one all the way to the end. But for a lot of people, they like to jump around and they like to pick this scene out and write this one that day, you know, this one the next day, and then cobble it all together at the end.
So having an outline written out allows you to have more choice and more freedom. That can be especially important if you’re having a day where you’re not particularly motivated to write, you know, you’re not really into the scene you have been working on at the moment. You can just pick a different one and write that instead.
And so that for the A DHD brain. Is kind of, it’s, it has a lot of novelty [00:12:00] to be able to just pick the most exciting parts whenever you want, and so that really helps to get to the end of the book. Yeah, I mean, I’m a cobbler myself. I call myself a quilter. I think you’ve probably heard that before. There’s plotters and pantsers, and then there’s those of us that plots, and then we pick and choose and quilt it all back together.
I, I must say that I work with most. I would say most neurotypical writers do linear. I think it depends on your life, depends on how much time you have. And I, I like to say, it all has to get done. So whatever you’re feeling in the moment, pick a task and tackle it during that hour that you’ve got and get it done.
It is the most efficient way, I gotta say, to cobble it together at the end. I mean, there’s more work, right? There’s more revision because you’ve gotta make it all match and you’ve gotta make the arcs all work and everything. And sometimes you don’t know everything. When you write that middle scene at the very beginning, I often start with the climax actually, because that’s usually what comes to me first is that like moment of resolution, [00:13:00] but wouldn’t necessarily recommend it.
But it does, it all has to get done. So I, I love that you’re giving people tools to do that if that’s their in like inclination. So what outlining method do you teach or do you have an outlining method in this book? I teach all kinds of different ones. I work with all kinds of different ones. I personally love other accelerators, Jenny Nash’s, inside outline.
I think it’s like the outline for answers. I’ve heard people like hanging, outlining, but yeah. What do you recommend? Usually, Nicole, when I’m coaching, uh, I like you, I use the inside outline for the most part, the book offers a lot of flexibility to let people do it in the way that makes the most sense for them.
Definitely. Um, so. You can start out with something as short as like a couple of paragraphs and build out from there. You know, start out by writing everything you know about the story in your head so far. If you know the beginning, if you know the end, maybe you don’t know everything in, in between, but you know you have some details and then try and build out from there.
So take you know each sentence from that paragraph [00:14:00] and write out more about. What you know about that scene, for example, and the, the cue card method, uh, we call it in the book, is another way where you write down, you know, all of the scenes, you know, on cue cards or post-it notes or whatever, and then stick them all up and, you know, move them around, try and fit them together is another way.
So the idea is more in the book, at least not about teaching a specific method of outlining, but just figuring out what makes the most sense for you and your particular brain’s way of. Of seeing the story and then working with that. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Yeah. I, I also really believe that there’s no one way, there’s no one way to write a book.
There are lots of ways and you gotta figure out what’s gonna work with for you. And I love that you’re writing this book with lots of different strategies so that people can try on what works for them. Amazing. Okay. So what do you think the benefits specifically for neurodivergent writers is in working with a book coach [00:15:00] along the way?
’cause that’s sort of, we have this weird little profession that fairly new, it used to be something that traditional publishers took on and they don’t do it anymore, right? Like take a book that has promised and coach you through it. And so this need for book coaching has come about, but specifically for neurodivergent writers, how do you see them thriving with a book coach?
What? What’s the difference? I think the advantage is that they can take advantage of all of these tools and strategies that I’ve developed over the years for myself and benefit from that knowledge and be able to try out different things so that they don’t have to spend as much time. Cobbling together their own method.
Like I have lots of different ideas for how to improve focus or how to improve motivation, for example, because those are two pretty big issues for people with A DHD. So yeah, just being able to take advantage of the things that I’ve learned and implement them immediately. I have lots of great ideas basically, and, and I [00:16:00] understand the way that.
Neurodivergent brains work, so I’m not going to not get angry, but, you know, get frustrated or not acknowledge and understand and have compassion when people are having those challenges, because I have them myself and I know how bad they can make you feel about yourself. And so you’re never, you’re never gonna get that from me, that you’re always going to get compassion and understanding.
But also the strategies to get around them or get through them. I mean, you’ve really figured this out and, and harnessed all of that knowledge to figure out your writing process. Cool. I love that. Great. So for the neurotypicals in your life, what is one thing that you wish that they understood about how your brain works differently, that they might not?
I think it’s, it’s what I said before, that people with a DHD or neurodivergent people aren’t. Lazy. They’re not unreliable, they’re not difficult. I guess, that they can be disorganized, but there’s a reason behind it. And so it isn’t that, you know, they’re bad people. It’s that their [00:17:00] brain chemistry works a little bit differently and there are good reasons why things like that happen.
So I would like neurotypical people to have more compassion and understanding when these things happen. Because it’s not, it’s not because we’re bad people. We just not, of course not. Yeah. Many people that I work with and write with that do have Neurodivergence talk about their superpowers as well, because there are superpowers of having a DHD or other types of neurodivergence.
I could share what what other people have said, but, but do you find that with the A DHD writers that they actually have certain sort of powers that, that make them actually better at it? They’ve actually done multiple studies on it that show that people with A DHD are more creative and they’re also better problem solvers because they are always looking at the world in different ways.
And because they have these challenges, they’re always looking for different ways to solve problems Normally, um, like a neurotypical person might just see one [00:18:00] way to solve a problem and then implement it, but because people with A DHD, it often doesn’t work the first time. They’re always looking at different ways of doing things, so it can be really helpful as a writer when you’re trying to figure out, you know, a big plot hole and you have all these different amazing ideas for how to fix it, or, you know, even just in coming up with story ideas in the first place, that increased creativity and being able to look at things different way is yeah, a, a massive advantage, I think.
The other one, of course, is Hyperfocus, which gets talked about a lot with A DHD. And that is just the ability to, you know, the whole world around you falls away and you are entirely focused on whatever it happens to be. And if you can get into that zone and learn how to harness your hyperfocus as a writer, you know, you can.
Some people write for hours at a time and they don’t even know what’s going on in the world around them. And so that can lead to. Massive jumps ahead in your writing progress, if you can figure [00:19:00] out how to get your brain into that state of mind and then, and then stay there. Yeah, I think, I mean that’s, that’s one of my superpowers as a writer.
I’m neurodivergent, but I, you know, I could write for probably 12 hours if I had it right. Like just, and my family will be like, mom, I told you that thing. And I’m like, I was in the zone right by that. Yeah. Also being in flow and I know that, you know when you can harness that and. Be able to do it for longer and longer amounts of time.
It can be tremendously helpful. It can really boost your writing, I would imagine that I, I love, actually, I’ve never thought about it that way, that they, that you can think of different. Ways to solve a story, which, like you said, would be immensely helpful in creating a creative plot, right? A creative plot that maybe still hits some of the markers, but maybe goes a different way.
So I love that. So maybe there’s something unique about, about the writing and not just the process, right, but the results. That’s [00:20:00] awesome. You are a writer yourself, as we said. In addition to being a book coach and coaching other writers and your debut past presence, tell us a little bit about that book.
So it is an adult, uh, supernatural mystery. It’s set in a fictional town that I made up in Oregon, and it’s about a, uh, a woman who when she touches people, she can see their past lives. And she, yeah, she ends up inheriting like a. Kind of old running down in hotel and bar kind of thing in this small postal town and decides, you know, that she’s gonna fix it up and, and get it back up to speed.
But along the way, people in the town start dying. They’ve been murdered and she uses her disability to see people’s past lives to help solve the mystery. Because in the book, people find each other throughout their lives. So, you know, you, you know the same people through all these different. Iterations of yourself.
And in, [00:21:00] in one case, you know, this person might be your lover in another, they might be a parent or a best friend. Um, and so she’s able to see these connections between people to help solve the mystery. Oh, I love that. I just got chills when you think about meeting the same people over and over again in your lives, and maybe that’s not good for some people.
I think it’d be amazing for me. I hope I meet lots and lots of people, including you in my next one. Okay. Because I think that, you know, you’re drawn to the people that you’re drawn to and you work with the people that you work with, so awesome and amazing. Okay. Tell us a little bit about your book coaching as well.
So, like you mentioned, I, I specialize in working with neuro divergent people, although I will happily work with any neuro type. Um, I don’t limit myself to only the neurodiverse. Uh, I coach fiction writers in pretty much every genre for both, uh, adult and YA books. And so a lot of my, a lot of my focus is on developing a sustainable writing practice to get people writing regularly, consistently, and.
As well as that [00:22:00] organizational component, getting a good outline down so that it makes the drafting part a lot easier and a lot smoother going. Awesome. And then I also love revision. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. You love revision. Talk about that. Why do you love revision so much? Because for myself as a writer, my first drafts are very lean and bare bones, and because of some of those A DHD challenges, getting through the first draft can be more work and more difficult than the revision phase, which I love.
Like I will suffer through a first draft in order to get the opportunity to revise because I think that’s when you know the magic comes out. That’s where you can really dig in and take something that’s okay into something that becomes magical or fantastical or inspiring. Yeah, I, I love to revise. I will revise a book 10 times.
Yes. And you are also an editor, right? Yes. Um, and many of my, we refer people back and forth all the time, but that’s one of the [00:23:00] things that I don’t do is line and content editing. And Nicole is amazing at that. We can see if you love revision and you love helping other people get through that, uh, as well.
It’s, uh, it’s a talent for sure. It’s a talent. So the book, a novel approach, strategies for a DHD writers is coming out this week. It’s available where, where can we find it? Everywhere. It will be available in print as a paperback as well as an ebook so you can get it all the typical places. Your bookstore should be able to order it in if you want the print copy.
Otherwise, the ebook will be available on all platforms. Amazing. Well, I can’t wait to see you and Kirsten go through this launch process and be cheering you on and shouting at the top of my lungs and I’m buying a ton of copies for my thank you. This book is gonna help a lot of people. And I wanna just thank you for writing it and if you are looking for Nicole as a book coach and or an editor, where would we find you there?[00:24:00]
My website is manuscript alchemy.com. And so you can read all about my services and you know, every, everything that I do. Awesome. And those links will all be on the show notes. Thank you so much. Good luck with your launch this week and I wish you all the success and I can’t wait to see all the lives that this book transforms.
Thank you so much and thank you for having me on the podcast. It anytime come back and it’s been fun. I love these chats. Me too.
Thanks for tuning in to show. No. Tell Writing with me, Susie Vadori. I’ll me continue to bring you the straight goods for that book you’re writing or planning to write. Please consider subscribing to this podcast and leaving a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever else you’re listening. Also visit susie Vadori.com/newsletter to hop on my weekly inspired writing newsletter list where you’ll stay inspired and be the [00:25:00] first to know about upcoming training events and writing courses that happen in my community.
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