Trust Your Creative Process

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Image of quote in a speechbubble from podcast episode Trust Your Creative Process by Beth Barany

Trust Your Creative Process – How To Write the Future podcast, episode 195

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“In difficult days when I’m struggling with my story or I’m struggling with my creative entrepreneur business. I turn to what I know and to what I trust, which is my emotions, my breathing, my physical body, and often it’s a sign I need to do a bunch of self-care.” – Beth Barany 

What can you trust? Who do you trust? How To Write the Future host, Beth Barany asks you these questions in her latest episode, titled “Trust Your Creative Process” where she shares how learning to trust her emotions lead to understanding her creative process, plus she invites you to the  Find Your Creative Entrepreneur Niche Bootcamp which Beth is co-hosting with Gala Russ.

This bootcamp will provide you with support, guidance, and how to discover your strengths to help you take steps towards being a creative entrepreneur.

Platforms the podcast is available on: Apple Podcasts | Buzzsprout | Spotify| YouTube

RESOURCES 

Find Your Creative Entrepreneur Niche Bootcamp: March 20-24, 2026 online event

https://bethbarany.thrivecart.com/findyourniche

FOR CREATIVE WRITING PROFESSIONALS – BUILD YOUR BUSINESS SERVING WRITERS

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About the How To Write the Future podcast 

The How To Write The Future podcast is for science fiction and fantasy writers who want to write positive futures and successfully bring those stories out into the marketplace. Hosted by Beth Barany, science fiction novelist and creativity coach for writers. We cover tips for fiction writers.This podcast is for readers too if you’re at all curious about the future of humanity.

This podcast is for you if you have questions like:

– How do I create a believable world for my science fiction story?

– How do I figure out what’s not working if my story feels flat?

– How do I make my story more interesting and alive?

This podcast is for readers, too, if you’re at all curious about the future of humanity.

Transcript for episode 195 – Trust Your Creative Process 

Trust and Creativity 

BETH BARANY: Let’s talk about trust and your creative work and running a business as a creative person. Hi everyone. I’m Beth Barany. I run How to Write The Future Podcast. Welcome, so glad that you’re here. I’ve been doing a mini series around creative entrepreneurship, and I really wanna talk about trust. 

Trust in yourself. Trust in other people. Trust in what’s out there in the world. Who do you trust? What do you trust? 

[00:29] Trust Recession Reality 

I’ve heard some people talk about the trust recession, and okay, I get it. And when I hear that, I feel, honestly, I feel like it’s a little bit of a cop out, but I also understand, because there is so much misinformation out there because with today’s tools, the AI tools, we can create fake this and fake that.

But at the end of the day, when you are sitting in front of someone or when you’re with yourself talking to yourself, journaling, working on your creative work, the question comes down to you. What do you trust? Who do you trust? I hope the answer is: yourself. Trust yourself. 

[01:07] Berkeley Turning Point 

When I was 19 years old in, in a major transition in my college education, I was leaving pre-med, actually, this might’ve been happening right before I decided to leave pre-med.

I remember walking across campus at UC Berkeley, and they have that beautiful, um, Sather Gate, beautiful gate, and it’s a bridge. You’re actually crossing over a creek. And I remember walking across through the gate over this creek and just feeling lost and confused. I’m like, I’m not doing well in biology. I love biology, but I’m not doing well. The chemistry is kicking my butt. I barely passed chemistry my first year. Here I am my second year, my fall semester, first semester of my second year, and I’m just sad and hating, hating life. But I’m 19 years old and I have a, normally a very positive, hopeful outlook, but I was sad.

I was depressed. 

[01:58] Grounding in the Real 

And I remember walking across that bridge and saying to myself, well, what is real? What do I know? I feel completely lost. I feel completely unmoored. This dream of being a doctor that I had said I wanted to be since I was six years old, was slipping away. I’m like, if I can’t even pass biology, what’s the point?

And I remember asking myself What is real? And I was feeling my breathing, and I was feeling my steps and I was listening to the beautiful redwood trees that were blowing in the breeze that were lining the creek. And I heard the creek flowing under the bridge, and I’m like, well, if nothing else, those things are real.

My footsteps, my breathing, the trees, the water, the earth, and I knew everything would be okay. I still didn’t have any answers. I hadn’t yet made the decision to leave the sciences and stop my pre-med path, but I was sure of those things. I’m like, if nothing else, I am sure of those things. 

[02:54] Meditation and New Path 

And I actually used meditation to get through finals that semester ’cause this must have been around finals time. I remember meditating for 20 minutes before I started studying for finals every single day for like five days to just calm my system down and be able to just show up and take tests. I was an excellent student up to then, but I was, I think I got like a B minus in biology by the end of the semester, ‘ cause the chemistry, as soon as they reintroduced chemistry halfway through the, the term, my ability to understand everything was going downhill.

So long story short, I dropped out of pre-med, and I went into the social sciences, and I learned that my strength was conceptual thinking, not equations.

I learned at that turning point in my life that I could trust my physicalness, the earth’s physicalness, and sometimes that’s all we have.

[03:47] Applying Trust to Business 

So, in difficult days when I’m struggling with my story or I’m struggling with my creative entrepreneur business. I turn to what I know and to what I trust, which is my emotions, my breathing, my physical body, and often it’s a sign I need to do a bunch of self-care. 

Now, what does this mean for you? If you’re a creative writer and you’re curious about starting your own business, or maybe you’ve already started your own business and you’re looking for some guidance, I invite you to ask yourself: What can you trust? What do you trust? What do you already trust? 

[04:18] Writers Trust Superpower 

Creative writers, we have a superpower. If you’re writing fiction, if you’re writing science fiction and fantasy, and that’s who I primarily speak to, and that’s who I primarily help in my own writing business.

Then there is a lot of trust you’ve actually already built up as you work on your stories. I hope.

And there is a risk involved in trusting ourselves, ’cause maybe your instincts are telling you to go in a different direction than the common ideas out there, and that is a clear indication that you are thinking forward, you’re thinking into things that haven’t yet been created.

And that’s what we do as creative writers. So there’s a lot of trust inherent already in being a creative writer.

And if now you’re turning your attention to helping others and serving others, whether through service or products or a combination like I do, then there is a lot of trust involved in that too.

You get to trust what you know, you get to trust your own experiences, which I imagine are vast and interesting and diverse. I look forward to getting to know you, and the reason I’m saying that is 

[05:22] Business Pivot and Audience 

I’m making a big change in my business, and I’ve actually been making this pivot for a while, since about a year now, by the time you listened to this. And I’m very excited to be moving into also serving creative writers, fiction writers who want to serve other creative writers. And maybe you write in any of the genres, and maybe also memoir, short stories, children’s book writing.

Yes. It’s a yes to all of that. And now you wanna serve other writers, whether, like I said before, service provider products, or a combination. Maybe you wanna offer trainings or maybe you wanna offer workbooks. Maybe you wanna be a coach or maybe you wanna be an editor, all of that. Awesome. 

[06:02] Niche Bootcamp Invitation 

So I am inviting you to our Find Your Creative Entrepreneur Niche Bootcamp happening March 20th to 24th.

It is a paid event. We’re gonna help you with clarity, with support, with getting clear on what your strengths are. What you bring to the table so that you can walk away from our event with a niche. A niche, I can’t even say it.Sometimes a niche. Niche statement that will guide you as you take steps forward.

And of course, we’ll be inviting you to check out our further trainings, ’cause four days is four days. You can learn a lot in four days, and it’s just the beginning. 

[06:36] Quiz and Final Encouragement 

So be sure to check out the registration link in the show notes, and also get to know yourself better in business by taking our creative business style quiz that my co-teacher, Gala Russ, made for us.

I just love this quiz. 

Take the quiz. It’s short. We’ll put you into a combination of, of four types and mix and match through you answering some questions, and you’ll have some more clarity. And you can decide, hey, does this suit me? Does this not Now what? So you can bring that quiz results to the bootcamp.

That’s what we’re hoping, so we can help you more with that. 

[07:12] Closing Sendoff 

Alright, everyone, trust yourself, trust your gut, trust your body, trust your mind, trust your heart, and I look forward to having you in our bootcamp. That’s it for this week. Write long and prosper. 

Loved this episode? Leave us a review and rating here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2012061 

Need instructions on how to leave a review? Go here.

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ABOUT BETH BARANY 

Beth Barany

Beth Barany teaches science fiction and fantasy novelists how to write, edit, and publish their books as a coach, teacher, consultant, and developmental editor. She’s an award-winning fantasy and science fiction novelist and runs the podcast, “How To Write The Future.”

 

Learn more about Beth Barany at these sites: 

 

Author site /  Coaching site / School of Fiction / Writer’s Fun Zone blog

CONNECT 

Contact Beth: https://writersfunzone.com/blog/podcast/#tve-jump-185b4422580

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CREDITS 

 

c 2025 BETH BARANY

https://bethbarany.com/

For more “How To Write the Future” episodes, go here.

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