Double Your Creative Power by S. L. Stebel

Double Your Creative Power contains a number of useful exercises to discover what your subconscious feels passionate about, because as the author, Stebel points out your writing will be much stronger if you are passionate about your subject matter.

Stebel recommends that you write the book jacket material before you start the book. He also recommends writing a review of your book before starting to give your subconscious a target to aim for in the real writing of the book.

Double Your Creative Power is full of tips and exercises to access your subconscious and enlist its help in the creative process. I specialize in accessing the subconscious and I thought Stebel's methods were very useful.

For example he says watch for conflicting agendas between you and your characters. In bold type the author insists that the character's agenda always takes precedence over your agenda. The character's conflicting agenda is coming from the writer's own subconscious.

I had a hard time deciding on the most useful tip in the book, but finally decided it was the solo brainstorming technique he recommends. He recommends repeating the solo brainstorming process several times until you recognize that it is time to stop. Connections will have been made he says and a story will begin to emerge. I tried this exercise and I was impressed with the amount of targeted material I generated.

Available at Amazon, this hardcover book is priced at only $14. The solo-brainstorming exercise was worth that price alone.

Review by Julia Widdop