The best lessons from Dorothea Brande and Anne Lamott, from a writing coach - transcript

By Fiona Fenwick

This is a transcript of coach and mentor Fiona Fenwick's podcast audio essay: The best lessons from Dorothea Brande and Anne Lamott, from a writing coach.

The best lessons from Dorothea Brande and Anne Lamott, from a writing coach

Writing coach and mentor Fiona Fenwick

Hello. My name is Fiona Fenwick and I'm a motivational coach based in New Zealand. I also coach creative nonfiction writers. Now for this episode of On Creative Writing, I'm going to offer my take on the timeless wisdom from two women authors. The women are Dorothea Brande and Anne Lamott.

Now, many listeners will know they're the authors of Becoming a Writer and Bird by Bird, respectively. Their words have given direction, guidance, and support to so many writers across the decades. If you haven't read Becoming a Writer and Bird by Bird, do read them. And soon. Of the hundreds of books about creative writing, I've selected these two because in my view, they're amongst the best.

Six essential takeaways for creative writers

These two women understood something fundamental about the creative process, that becoming a writer is as much about mindset as it is about mastering technique. Becoming a Writer was first published in 1934, while Bird by Bird in 1994. Yes, that 60 years apart. But the authors has arrived at strikingly similar conclusions about what it really takes to be a writer.

And now, here are my six important takeaways from Becoming a Writer and Bird by Bird.

With creative writing, mindset matters more than talent

Number one. Mindset matters more than talent that really you might be thinking, how could it not be about talent? Okay, well, let's start with Becoming a Writer. This pre-World War Two book was actually revolutionary when it was first published. It challenged everything creative writers thought they knew about writing. Brande believed that becoming a writer wasn't primarily a matter of talent. It was about cultivating what she called a writer's temperament. This wasn't about having a moody artistic personality. No, it was about developing a disciplined routine and the psychological state so that creativity can flourish. Now, just think about that for a moment. In an era when we're constantly being told about natural talent and innate ability, Brande was saying something radical that the most important thing isn't being born with a gift. As a writer, you need to make the effort to create the conditions for that gift to emerge.

Brande argued that your psychological state of mind is more important than your technical skill. Improving your craft will come in time. She wrote about character, which is something I define as mindset. Writers must develop the mindset that allows them to persist, to be honest, and to stay true to their vision.

Now, this connects beautifully to Anne Lamott's approach six decades later, Lamott also understood that the biggest barrier to creative writing isn't a lack of talent. The biggest barrier is the psychological obstacles we place in our own way. Lamott's concept of her words, shi**y first drafts is really about the same thing Brande was addressing, and that's the perfectionism and self-doubt that prevents us from even getting started.

Writers thrive with the power of routine and the unconscious mind

Number two, the power of routine and the unconscious mind. Brande emphasized something that modern neuroscience is now validated. Routine is powerful when it comes to creative work. She stressed the importance of establishing a disciplined writing schedule, but not just for productivity. A disciplined writing schedule lets you train what Brande calls the higher imagination by writing at the same time each day. We create a psychological pathway that signals to our unconscious mind that it's time to create.

I know that for many of you, it's not possible to write at the same time every day. If that's the case, follow Brande's advice and create a habit that automatically signals it's time to write whenever you have slots of free time. This could be when you finish work early, or between your baby's naps, or when you're waiting for a meeting or an appointment, or whenever an unplanned free time slot unexpectedly opens up. And make this approach easier by always having a notebook or a recorder with you.

Many of today's writers have successfully written this way. Take a look at author Alex von Konigslow's interview on On Creative Writing for one such example, an excellent example. With a routine in place, your writing will slowly begin to improve and this will help you develop trust in yourself. Brande believed that our best creative work happens when we learn to trust our unconscious mind. Brande encouraged writers to take walks, to daydream, to engage in activities that would cheat the unconscious into releasing its creativity.

Now, this isn't about forcing inspiration. It's about creating space for it to emerge naturally. Anne Lamott understood this, too, although she expressed it differently. Her advice is to pay attention to the world around you. What does this mean or look like in practice? Well, you can listen to dialogue, observe behavior, and notice the quirks and the details of daily life. Stay open to the constant flow of material that our unconscious minds are processing in every single moment.

Creative writers and the impossible-to-fail mindset

Number three, the impossible-to-fail mindset. I love this one. Failure is something many of us fear and writers are said to fear failure more than most. One of Brande's most powerful concepts was encouraging creative writers to act as if failure is impossible. This wasn't naive optimism. It was a strategic psychological approach. When we operate from a place of assumed success, we break through the inertia and frustration that keeps us stuck. We stop second guessing every sentence, and instead we focus on the craft of writing itself.

Lamott approaches this from a different angle with her Bird by Bird philosophy. The story that gives Lamott's book its title is of her brother being overwhelmed by a school report about birds. Their father advised him to take it bird by bird. This is about making a task manageable by refusing to be paralyzed by its enormity. Both writers understood that our biggest enemies aren't external criticism, market forces, distractions, or whatever. Our biggest enemy is our own internal voice telling us we can't do it. We're not good enough, or that we should quit before we even start.

Being honest in your creative writing

Number four, honesty in your writing. Here is where both writers were truly ahead of their time. Lamott talks about writing being fundamentally about truth in Bird by Bird. She encourages you as a writer to dig deep, to be vulnerable, to let the characters in your writing develop naturally rather than forcing a predetermined plot. This isn't about ignoring craft. It's about understanding that craft serves truth, not the other way around. Both writers recognize that authenticity is more valuable than perfect prose.

Lamott calls this being real. Brande described it as expressing your unique perspective. Now, readers can sense when a writer is being honest, and readers respond to that honesty, even when the technical execution isn't exactly flawless.

Surmounting the emotional challenges of creative writing

Number five, emotional challenges of writing. What strikes me about Brande and Lamott is their unflinching honesty about the emotional challenges of a writer's life. Lamott discusses jealousy, envy and the pain of rejection. She doesn't sugarcoat the difficulty of maintaining faith in your work when the world seems indifferent to the words you write. Brande too understood that writing is as much an emotional path as a creative one. Her emphasis on self-belief wasn't about blind confidence. It was about developing the emotional resilience to continue creating, even when the outcome is uncertain.

Be part of a writing community

Number six, your writing community. Brande and Lamott understood the importance of community. Lamott writes about the support of friends and fellow writers. Neither woman saw writing as a purely solitary endeavor, but as a craft that flourishes in connection with others.

Let go of perfectionism with your early writing drafts

Let's do a quick review of what Brande and Lamott tell creative writers. One. For new creative writers, it's not about talent. Develop the psychological mindset to make your best writing happen. Getting something down on paper is infinitely more valuable than getting nothing down perfectly.

So, listeners, please stop expecting your first or even your second draft to be perfect or even very good. Remember, perfectionism is the enemy of good writing. Trust that your higher imagination will guide your revisions.

Two, the power of routine and the conscious mind. Routine is essential for creative writing. Work at establishing a disciplined writing schedule. This will let your higher imagination emerge and soon flourish. But routine isn't all about work. Take breaks and fill them with activities that really nourish your unconscious like walks, music, daydreaming, and art. This will help your unconscious mind release its creativity.

Three. Learn to believe failure is simply not possible. Brande wrote that creative writers must act as if failure is impossible. Assume success and you will push through barriers that hold you back. Four, why honesty matters. Readers are drawn to honesty, vulnerability, and truth. Readers forgive imperfect prose if they sense a real human behind the words.

Five. Face your emotional struggles. Now, writing is as much an emotional path as it is a creative one. Acknowledge your feelings. Don't push them away by feeling your emotions instead of ignoring them. It becomes less of a struggle to work through them and grow as a writer.

Six. A strong writing community brings strength and resilience. Writing is both deeply personal and fundamentally communal. Yes, I know the last point sounds like a contradiction. It's not. You write from your unique perspective, but you write for your readers. In addition, a strong community will support you when you're struggling. So always remember you write alone. But all writers thrive in a community with fellow creators.

Finally, some words on finding your writer's magic. As we close, I want to return to Brande's beautiful concept of writer's magic. She believed that everyone possesses some degree of this magic, which I define as the unique combination of observation, imagination, and perspective that each writer brings to their creative work.

The key isn't having more magic than others. The key is learning how to find and nurture the magic you already have. This connects to something both writers understood, and that is that becoming a writer is ultimately about becoming more fully yourself. It's about trusting your voice, honoring your perspective, and believing that what you write matters. It's about showing up consistently, doing the work, and remaining open to the mystery of where words come from and where they lead us. It's about having the courage to keep going, even when you can't see how your fiction or nonfiction ends.

In our current moment in time, we're surrounded by AI and algorithms while the publishing industry is in constant flux. Meanwhile, social media creates both opportunities and anxieties for writers. To me, the fundamentals written about by Brande and Lamott feel more relevant than ever. You have your unique perspective, your individual way of seeing the world, and your particular combination of experiences and insights. The question isn't whether you have enough talent, it's whether you're willing to cultivate the conditions that allow your talent to emerge and then grow.

Take it bird by bird. Act as if failure is impossible. Trust your unconscious mind. Write terrible first drafts. And above all, remember that the world needs the story that only you can tell.

Here's a quote from Bird by Bird I want you to take with you. It speaks so beautifully to the need for distance, the struggle with confidence and the fact that writing is a process, not a performance. "Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something, anything down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the downdraft. You just get it down. The second draft is the updraft. You fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth to see if it's loose or cramped or decayed or even, God help us, healthy."

Cultivate your separate personalities!

Dorothea Brande emphasized the need to develop separate personalities. And again, I know this sounds bizarre. What Brande meant was that writers must separate their practical, logical selves from their unconscious, creative selves. This is because your unconscious creative self is very, very sensitive to criticism. Let's hear it from Brande herself.

"Send your practical self out into the world to receive suggestions, criticisms, or rejections. Criticisms and rejection are not personal insults, but your artistic component will not know that. It will quiver and wince and run to cover, and you'll have trouble in luring it out again, to observe and weave tales and find words for all the thousand shades of feeling which go to make up a story."

So protect and nurture your creative unconscious. Don't talk about your writing and progress to just anyone. The damage done by talking too freely about your creative writing can result in injury to your creative unconscious, and that definitely won't help your writing. Be sure to choose your early readers and reviewers carefully.

I'm Fiona Fenwick, a writing coach, and I want to say thank you so much, listeners, for joining me in this exploration of timeless writing wisdom from Dorothea Brande and Anne Lamott.

So keep writing, keep believing, and do keep nurturing that writer's magic that lives within you. You can find me at Fionafenwick.com. And if you have any questions, I encourage you to get in touch. Bye for now.