How To Think Sideways: Weird Time Travel Moment

By Holly Lisle

Your own personal Stranger
Your own personal Stranger

I was digging through the weblog, trying to remember when exactly I suggested doing the How To Think Sideways course, and when readers voted on that course above all others as the one they wanted next.

And it was here:

My Top Twelve New Course Ideas

Reading over those course ideas, I’m amazed (and a bit disturbed) at how many of them ended up incorporated in How To Think Sideways.

Small Writing Courses

  • How to Start Your Novel

    Yes. It’s in there.

  • How to Finish Your Novel

    Yes. It’s in there.

  • How to Polish and Submit Your Novel

    Yes. It’s in there.

  • How to Pitch Your Novel to Pro Markets

    Yes. It’s in there.

  • How to Make Your Story Break Their Hearts

    Yes. It’s in there.

  • How to Write Page-Turning Scenes

    No. WAAAY too much info to cover in just one lesson—but I did follow up by making it its own separate course.

BIG Writing Courses

  • Create A World Clinic

    No. Not in there. But it’s the last writing course on my schedule, and it is about a third done.

  • Crit of the Month Club

    I’m poleaxed by this one. Yes, it’s in there, as the Walkthrough. Not completed yet. It’s what I’ll be doing while I write WARPAINT.

  • Novel Writing Secrets

    Yes. It’s in there. Every single solitary bit of it.

  • How to Think Sideways

    Yep. This is all in there, too.

  • Character Clinic Upgrade

    Yes. Even most of THIS is in there.

  • Learn to Write in a New Genre in One Month

    I cut it down to How To Learn A New Genre in One Lesson. But yes. It’s in there.

Now here’s the part that’s just really, truly wacky.

I did not consult that list while I wrote How to Think Sideways. I just wrote what I thought was that one course idea, and used the examples I needed to use to make my points…and somehow almost everything else on that list shoehorned its way in.

The subconscious mind, however, is a tricky, twisty creature—and mine clearly was up to something during the whole seven-eight months it took me to create the first version of the course…and then the many, many months I’ve spent doing upgrades and additions.

Today, I came around a corner and surprised my Muse at work, and it looked at me, winked, and said “Gotcha.”

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