They say there’s a book in everyone but, for most people, the thought of writing a book is so daunting they simply never start. Another reason people don’t pick up their pen is because they think they don’t have the time.

There is a way though. The human mind is so powerful that your book can virtually write itself without your conscious control – and even while you sleep.

The key lies in tapping into the collective consciousness through the practice of regular meditation.

At first, in a time pressured world, adding 10 to 20 minutes of meditation time to your daily schedule is somewhat counter intuitive, especially if you are planning to add the writing a book to your task list as well. Yet by meditating each day for only 10-20 minutes, you learn how ‘not to think’ at all and you start to unleash untapped creativity trapped inside you. Just a week or so is enough to get amazing results and the benefits start to pay back in regained time in all aspects of your life.

Through the practice of quietening the conscious mind you receive your guiding motivation and start to manifest situations and information in your ‘real life’ to assist you in your writing. In time, the whole process becomes effortless and you find that words come to you without you having to make any conscious intervention. At this point, you become a channeller.

This doesn’t mean you are channelling spirits or angels - you can get very specific and with a little training, you can channel your future self and actually find the words you haven’t quite written yet.

I discovered the ability to do this when I started to write a novel a couple of years ago on the latest thinking in cosmology. I had only been meditating for a few months before I started.

My research into the novel inevitably took me into the field of consciousness. It was becoming clear to me that a better model of the Universe was that it existed because of consciousness of all things and not that consciousness was a phenomenon caused by the Universe.

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Also see the blog on How to be a Laidback Writer

This interview with Tom Evans and reading by Debbie Tarrier was recorded by the amazing Neil Fairbrother of Pod3.tv

It’s hosted on Viddler.com - click the + icon to see how you can dynamically interact with it with your web cam

Watch, listen and enjoy

You have probably seen a scene in a film or TV where a writer’s bashing away on an old typewriter, frustratingly tearing out page after page and crushing it up before trying to curl it into an over-flowing waste basket. Later in the same film, they are cursing the gods as yet another rejection letter comes in from a publisher who doesn’t realise how brilliant the writer is.

Such images from our formative years can get imprinted on our unconscious mind and lead to behaviours that can reinforce this kind of stereotype.

It’s high time though to cast out that ‘old scene’ and introduce a new paradigm. Writing and getting published has never been easier.

Firstly, let’s deal with what, to many, may seem the hard part – getting published.

Nowadays, anybody can be a published author, for free, pretty much instantly. To get going, all you need is a blog site or something like a YouTube or YouPublish account. Write a few posts, craft an ebook or record a podcast or a video, upload it and you are, in my book anyway, a ‘published author’.

If your ebook is any good and it’s deserving of seeing the light of day in print, you can submit it to one of the many print on demand services, like Lulu, and you really become a published author overnight. Better still, use an assisted publisher like Authorhouse and your book can be available all over the planet via Internet retailers, and in book shops, in just a few months.

There is no guarantee that what you’ve written though will sell or inspire. This is where becoming a ‘laidback writer’ comes in.

When words and concepts just flow, you know that they are going to hit the mark with your readers. If you are stuck with your writing, you can almost guarantee it won’t scan well for a reader. If you have ever experienced a light bulb moment, you will know what I mean. You get the whole picture and vision in one go and can’t seem to get it down on paper fast enough.

Many people think that such light bulb moments are random and can’t be controlled. Well, with training and minimal discipline, you can have them daily or better still, tap into them on demand.

Light bulb moments actually happen when you are ‘not thinking’ – perhaps you are daydreaming or sometimes they occur in the gap between waking and sleeping. These points in our daily cycle have the rather pompous names of hypnagogic and hypnopompic.

Salvador Dali used them for his inspiration around siesta time. He’d balance a spoon under his elbow on the edge of a desk. It would clatter on the floor when he nodded off and he would instantly awaken and paint what was ‘on his mind’.

You can become a laidback writer in a more controlled manner and less dramatically through meditation.

What you find when meditating regularly is that you become attuned to inspirations and messages that have not necessarily come from your conscious mode of thinking. In time, you can even start a meditation with a request for specific information or a random inspiration. You will be delivered a real gem, or seed, from which springs forth a whole chapter of a book or an article – like this one.

Remember that meditation takes many forms and you can meditate with your eyes open and while walking. The morning or afternoon dog walk for me proves to be a great way of generating that sometimes elusive next chapter – and you are getting exercise and fresh air.

The ultimate way to work is to write while actually in a meditative state. This takes some practice. It is sometimes called channelling, as it appears that the writer is ‘out of the loop’. Nothing is further from reality as the writer is creating the loop and the flow.

By the way, channelling doesn’t necessarily mean you are communicating with departed Souls or the angelic realms. Rather than you are tapping into the collective consciousness, sometimes known as the holographic or cosmic mind. I like to think that this flow involves a connection in a sort of ‘Back to the Future-type way’ to the ‘future you’ that knows the words that you are yet to write.

If the thought of meditating each day seems like a waste of time in your busy calendars, there is another and perhaps more relaxed way to become a ‘laidback writer’.

Most people enter a type of meditative state daily called sleep. With some practice and a simple memory technique, you can also dream to order too. Again whole chapters and insights come in dreams. Many scientific ‘discoveries’ have come this way. The German organic chemist, Kekulé, postulated the benzene ring structure after dreaming of a snake biting its own tail.

How laid back is that?

We teach these techniques and more on his Unleash the Book Inside workshops and correspondence courses.

• Details of the next workshop
• Details of the correspondence course

& if you can’t remember your dreams, then download a free guide here.