My impressions of How to Beat Writer's Block by Holly Lisle

How to Beat Writer's Block is a one hour audio workshop that talks you through reconnecting with your muse, finding out what is blocking you, and brainstorming hew ideas, and having fun writing.

Here I'll look at what you get from the audio course and whether it is worth purchasing. Read my full review at the link below.

• Break your writer's block in just one hour and have fun writing:

The course took me just over an hour because I stopped the recordings in order to work on the exercises uninterrupted. If you can manage to write with promptings in the background then the recordings do run to 60 minutes.

Following the course I wrote for just over 10 minutes as suggested. This was the first time I had managed to get myself sitting down and writing in two weeks, and it wasn't hard. I probably could've written longer, but I felt tired at this point and it was late Friday afternoon - time to knock off.

Verdict:

Yes, I had taken the first step in breaking my block after the hour's session. I did find it took me about a week using the daily visualisation tool before I had fully recaptured the enjoyment and excitement of writing.

• Be fully committed to breaking your block in ten minutes:

I'm stubborn, so I didn't expect this to work for me, but unexpectedly there was an interesting moment of clarity here.

Verdict:

Yes, she got that commitment out of me

• Discover how to get past what was stalling you:

I didn't have the type of block where I was stalled on the story - but I can see how this tool could work really well to either unstick what's wrong with the story, or help you realise that the story is not going to work and is not worth continuing.

Verdict:

I did get a couple of starter points on why I was feeling demotivated, but I think I need to work through this tool again. I was too unfocused here and ten minutes wasn't long enough to get my teeth into a particular issue that came up.

• Generate fresh ideas for your blocked story or a brand new one:

I didn't need any more ideas. I had plenty that I just couldn't get out. Nevertheless this was still a good tool that led me to think of some areas for improvement and also eventually spilled over into an assessment of my workload in general. This resulted in me dumping some unnecessary projects which did wonders for my stress levels.

Verdict:

I think it will work for most people.

• Learn how to stay focused:

Here the author and I differ on our approach to writing. I did try her methods for this session but I know from experience that this doesn't work for me for long. Some of her points do make sense, though, and I have been doing a variation of one of her ideas for a while with good results.

Verdict:

I'll stick with my methods.

• A one hour workshop split into eight sessions, including the tools mentioned above. These come in separate files so that you can listen to them as you're ready. If you feel you're ready to stop and work on your writing, you can do that easily and come back to the workshop.
• One of the recordings is meant to be used as a daily visualisation tool. I found it easy to remember which one it was and set it up before my writing sessions.
• Another recording is a checklist that you can go through when you need to be reminded about how to keep going.
• A very brief instruction booklet in pdf. These are just the two worksheets used in the course.

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