(Lessons from Brandon Sanderson’s 2025 Writing Lecture)
Yesterday, I woke up like a kid on Christmas morning.
Instead of running down the stairs to unwrap presents, I opened YouTube and refreshed the page, waiting for a specific video to drop—the one I’d been looking forward to for years.
Brandon Sanderson’s first recorded writing lecture since 2020.
If you’re not familiar, Sanderson has been teaching creative writing for over two decades. His lectures have become a staple for aspiring writers, but until now, the most recent recordings were from five years ago.
For those of us who follow his work—not just as fans, but as students—this was big.
And within minutes of watching, one quote stood out to me:
“The product of your writing time is YOU.”
- Not the ideas.
- Not the word count.
- Not even the finished draft.
You.
At first, that idea sounds counterintuitive. After all, isn’t the point of writing… the writing?
But the more I sat with it, the more it resonated.
The Invisible Work of a Writer
Most of us judge our writing by output.
If we don’t have something tangible to show for our time, we feel like we’ve wasted it.
But writing isn’t just about producing.
It’s about becoming.
With every word we write, we:
- Train our ability to think clearly.
- Refine our creative instincts.
- Strengthen our voice and style.
- Learn what resonates—and what doesn’t.
Some of these lessons are obvious. Others happen beneath the surface, in ways we don’t notice until much later.
That’s why Sanderson encourages new writers to finish at least five novels before even thinking about publishing.
Not because those first five books will be great.
But because those books will make you great.
The words might not be perfect.
The structure might fall apart.
The story might need to be rewritten.
But none of it is wasted.
Because you are the artwork.
The Chef vs. The Cook
Sanderson uses a brilliant analogy for writing education:
“I want to treat you like a chef, not a cook.”
A cook follows a recipe. They might be able to make something great, but when things go wrong—when an ingredient is missing, when a dish doesn’t come together—they don’t know how to fix it.
A chef, on the other hand, understands the principles behind the recipe.
They know how ingredients interact, how to adjust flavors, how to adapt when something isn’t working.
Most writers start as cooks.
- They follow advice.
- They replicate techniques.
- They try to fit their work into pre-existing molds.
But the real goal—the thing that separates great writers from the rest—is to become a chef.
To deeply understand why stories work.
To experiment.
To adapt.
To develop an instinct for storytelling that goes beyond formulas and frameworks.
That transformation doesn’t happen overnight.
It happens through writing.
Through trying, failing, learning, and improving.
You are the Masterpiece
We live in a world obsessed with output.
- Publish more.
- Ship faster.
- Monetize everything.
This mindset bleeds into creative work—especially writing.
But storytelling isn’t factory work.
It’s craftsmanship.
And the real masterpiece isn’t the book.
It’s the writer who wrote it.
Every hour spent writing shapes you.
Every bad draft teaches you something.
Every frustrating revision strengthens your skills.
So instead of asking:
“What did I produce today?”
Ask:
“How did I grow as a writer today?”
The more you focus on that, the better your work will become.
And the more sustainable your writing journey will be.
Writing Update
I’ve added roughly 20.000 words to the first draft of my fantasy novel since my last post, taking the total word count up to 119.000 with 44 out of a projected 67 chapters finished.
Now, this is slower than I had originally intended so I’ve done some new things to hopefully up my tempo and get the first draft finished.
These include:
- Filling out a Writing Tracker spreadsheet everyday to see the effort compound.
- Joining an online writing community with weekly accountability posts.
- Getting back in the habit of writing 6/7 weekdays.
I’m into my Act 2B now which has gone a bit different than my original outline but hopefully ends up setting the 3’rd act up in a satisfying way.
There are roughly 3 big(ish) reveals that needs to be done around late Act 2B/Act 3. Two of which are character focused and one is more plot/world focused.
I am trying to figure out exactly when these should be revealed: spread out or in more of a Sanderlanche fashion.
Let’s see where it goes.
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Until next time,