In the craft of writing, we all get stuck. We all experience self doubt, and of course the good old “Imposter Syndrome’  – any writer who tells you otherwise is, quite frankly, lying.  Sometimes we need that extra bit of help to get things moving again. Or to start.

Karen Andrews,  best selling author and host of The Creative Life podcast has the book for not just emerging writers, but every writer, of ever style and genre.

Trust The Process 101 Tips on Writing and Creativity  could almost be described as  a “Choose Your Own Adventure”.   You can read it from front to back, you can read it back to front to if you so choose.

One of my favourites ways to use it on a regular basis, after inititally reading it in it’s entirety, is to randomly open it up and read one tip and focus on that for my day’s writing or ponder the deeper questions about character and plot.  I have also found, as an emerging writer, that when my own work has stalled, to open it up and do one of the exercises dotted throughout the book.

My favourite example:  Tip 16.  Let it Come to You.

All the writers I know, both the published and those working on their first manuscript talk about where they find their inspiration/ideas/muse.  A lot of them seem to to come from the shower or exercise, for me it’s the clothesline; which is ironic because I detest doing the laundry above anything else.   Andrews offers up a new idea called “think doze”, a kind of meditation to tap in to the subconscious, qell that critical self-talk  and solve those tricky plot points and charcter problems.  So when I am laying in my office on my couch, with the shutter closed I can actually say “I am working on my book”.  As Andrews notes though, you do run the risk of falling asleep, but I need more anyway.

The book also has guest contributions from some of Australia’s most loved and respected writers;  Lisa Dempster, Kelly Gardiner, Lisa Heidke, Eliza Henry-Jones, Lee Kofman, Summer Land, Laura Jean McKay, Angela Meyer, Penni Russon, Annabel Smith and Fiona Wood.  Each of these contributors offers their advice on things such as ‘Write What You Want To Write’, ‘Dig Deeper With Reserch and ‘Dialogue is Character’ to name but a few.

I think Trust The Process works so well across all writers is that it gives you what you need, when you need it.  Some are little reminders – like Tip 72, Ask for help – “ask for help, don’t do it alone”.  That’s it, short, sharp, to the point, while others are lengthier in their advice.

Trust The Process 101 Tips on Writing and Creativity
by Karen Andrews
Published by  Miscaellaneous Press
16th October 2017
Paperback
ISBN 13: 9780995350625

**For full disclosure, the author provided me with a copy of this text for review purposes.