#IWSG: December 2019

This month: Let’s play a game. Imagine. Role-play. How would you describe your future writer self, your life and what it looks and fees like if you were living the dream? Or if you are already there, what does it look and feel like? Tell the rest of us. What would you change or improve?

While training to be an NLP Practitioner, I was encouraged to volunteer for a technique called the New Behaviour Generator. Reluctantly, I dragged myself up to centre stage. As this was one of those techniques where no-one other than you needs to know the details, I decided to select becoming a successful author. The technique facilitates you framing the objective in clear and positive terms, before seeking inspiration from another person, someone whose behaviour you could model and learn from – I choose Joanna Rowling. You then examine your life for current practices and opportunities which could contribute positively to your achieving your goal, and for memories of relevant achievements. You’re encouraged to take these steps via the creation of a set of moving images in your mind, editing it as you go along, until it’s exactly as you want it. You’re then asked to visualise yourself as the lead role in that movie before absorbing it into your body. The Practitioner will ask you how you feel so that you have a physical reminder of how that behaviour feels – I felt immediately that I had to stand up, for in my movie I was standing tall and confident on a stage in front of an audience, an audience who were there to see me – the successful author. The way I stood was entirely different to my normal stance and what is crazy, is that I’ve never doubted my potential to achieve that dream since, despite making horribly slow progress towards achieving it.

But what does the dream look like – other than standing on that stage? For starters, despite selecting her as my role model, I’m not seeking the type of fame which Joanna Rowling has, for I believe I’d find it hugely intrusive. I’d love to have a solid and loyal audience, to make a decent living (by which I mean being financially secure – not rich, but without worries), to be respected, while remaining accessible and having a relatively normal life. I’d hope to have a decent flow of ideas – not so many that they crowd out all my thoughts, just enough to provide inspiration for a regular schedule of publication, to have the time and discipline to do the work, and to be blessed with constructively critical beta readers, a great editor and a good publisher.

And yes, one day, I’d hope to fulfil my dream of being up on that stage 🙂

I’m so looking forward to hearing what form this dream takes for my fellow IWSG members, so please do share!

© Debra Carey, 2019