How do nonfiction writers create? There are many ways, but I love using a mystical creation process. In fact, you can create anything, including a nonfiction book or career as a nonfiction author or professional writer or journalist, by passing the idea through the following four mystical phases of creation.
- Experience the desire to create something.
- Develop a clear vision of what you plan to create, and focus your thoughts on that vision.
- Feel and believe that you have already created your desire in the physical world.
- Take inspired action to manifest your desire in the physical world.
I know you want to create something—a blog, a book, or a published article! Start the process now by passing through the following four four creation stages.
The 4 Stages of Creation
DESIRE: What is your desire? Don’t focus on a specific idea but rather on the urge to bring something new into the world. This desire should align with your passion and purpose. (Example: “I feel the urge to create something that helps shelter animals find forever homes.”)
THOUGHT: Conceptualize your desire into a clear thought or idea. What will you create? Can you clearly describe it? (Example: “I want to create a website and blog that provides a guide for adopting pets.”)
FEELING: What would it feel like to receive what you desire—to see it physically manifest? Do you feel inspired to take action? What do you feel compelled to do next? (Example: “I feel excited and fulfilled to help shelters, shelter animals, and pet adopters. I want to get my website up immediately and start blogging— and even blog a book! I believe I can do this. I trust in my ability to figure out what to do and how to do it.”)
ACTION: What actions are necessary to receive what you desire? (Example: “I have to contact a website designer. I need to plan out my blog and blogged book. I need to connect with shelters for potential partnerships, as well as with pet adopters.”)
Feel Your Desire
In an instant, the desire to create something new is born within you. At that moment, the transformation from nonphysical to physical begins.
Sit quietly with your eyes closed and your hands on your knees, palms open in a receptive manner. Get in touch with your desire and your inherent ability to create—to make your desires real. If you are a spiritual person, you know you were created in the divine image; therefore, you possess a divine creative ability that allows you to manifest in the world.
What does it feel like to possess this divine desire? Describe the emotions and sensations. At this point, it’s not necessary to describe what you want to create, just your desire, your urge to bring some- thing new into the world and, possibly, to have a positive and meaningful impact on others. How does it feel to have the urge to fulfill your potential and purpose?
If it’s easier, draw something that depicts your desire to create.
Focus Your Thoughts
From desire, move into the conceptual stage of creation, and begin the process of making your desire a reality.
From a mystical perspective, words have a creative ability. Your thoughts, which consist of words, organize and form matter into physical reality. Once you conceptualize your idea, it begins to materialize.
Among others, Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich), Claude M. Bristol (The Magic of Believing), James Allen (As a Man Thinketh), Wayne Dyer (Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life), and Henriette Klauser (Write It Down, Make It Happen) have all taught this lesson. Many people have witnessed firsthand the power of putting their desires into words. For example, Jim Carrey (who wrote a check to himself for $10 million for “services rendered”); Scott Adams, creator of the comic strip Dilbert (who wrote down dreams that came true one by one); and Suze Orman (who affirmed, “I am young, powerful, and successful, producing at least $10,000 per month” every day at the beginning of her career) all saw their thoughts and words made manifest.
Use words to develop clear thoughts of what you want to bring into the world. Use your mind and capacity to think and express to describe what you want to create or write.
Now focus on what you desire. Train your thoughts on your concept—your creation—and only on that. Several times per day, spend at least thirty seconds focused on what you want. To make your thoughts even more powerful, regularly devote longer periods to thinking about and visualizing this!
Connect to Your Feelings
It’s now time to enter the formation stage of creation, where you discover the means to make your writing desire real. To do so, combine thought with feeling.
Your emotions serve as guides and motivators. Your inspiration and passion, for instance, drive you to take action to create your desire. Feelings also keep you motivated. When you feel discouraged or stuck, you lack energy and motivation to realize your dreams. When you feel con dent and happy, you possess the energy and motivation to take steps toward your goals.
You will know what ideas or actions to pursue based on how the thought of doing so makes you feel. Your feelings work like a GPS, pointing you in the right direction so you know what to do next or where to go to arrive at your destination.
Feelings, like thoughts, possess creative energy. They have an effect in the physical world. (That’s why it’s so important to feel good!) Align your feelings with what you desire. As Wayne Dyer explained, “The more natural an experience your wish feels for you, the faster you will create it in your life. Conversely, the more unnatural a state of being feels to you, the longer it will take to achieve.
“The key word to contemplate is ‘feels.’ If being healthy, prosperous, happy, successful, strong, intelligent, and so on currently feel unnatural to you, naturalness may yet be achieved by persistently using your imagination and your subjective attention to make this feeling stick.”
Connect your thoughts of what you desire with your feelings of what it will be like to manifest that desire. Take time to imagine having what you want to create—right now. Allow that vision to excite and inspire you and generate other positive feelings.
During your visualization, pay particular attention to any thoughts that pop into your head, or any sense of “inspired action” you receive, that relate to realizing your desire, and write it down.
Take a moment or two to visualize what it would be like if you already had created your idea or career.
Now, go out and act as if you’ve already brought your idea into the world or achieved success as a writer.
Take Inspired Action
During the last exercise, did you sense the “inspired action” you need to realize your desire? Did you gain clarity about techniques, tools, or steps you must take to turn your idea into reality? If so, answer this question:
What actions will you take in the physical world to make your desire a reality? For example, will you send a query letter, finish a book proposal, write daily, or send books to reviewers?
The last phase of creation deals with a realm you know well: the physical world. It’s time to focus on it, and take action!
In the physical world, you are subject to cause and effect. Turn your desire, which you transformed into thought and feeling in this exercise, into physical action. Use your action plan as a guide.
Now, as Nike says, “Just do it!” Physically effect change as you take the necessary inspired-action steps.
The four stages of creation—desire, thought, feeling, and action—combine into a powerful energy that helps you attract what you desire. In fact, you won’t just attract it; you will force your desire into reality using your mind, heart, and body.
Track the inspired actions you complete and the results you achieve by doing so. Do your actions bring your ideas and career closer to physical reality?
This is probably my favorite exercise in Creative Visualization for Writers. I’d love to know how it works for you… Leave me a comment below.
If you like this strategy, you can find many more in Creative Visualization for Writers. Purchase your copy here.
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