As I begin part two on how the100+ Blog Post Game came about, I know that I am in the midst of a breakthrough, a breakthrough in my self-expression as a visionary author. The term, breakthrough, is both a common term in today’s vernacular as well as being a Landmark Education distinction. In Landmark terms, a “breakthrough is often thought of as a one-time event—a quantum leap that moves us ‘outside the box.'” From the Landmark website:

“Breakdowns are an integral and critical part of any breakthrough. When we welcome and embrace breakdowns, what they reveal actually affords us a larger opportunity—stepping stones upon which we can expand and extend the breakthroughs. Breakdowns occur only against a background commitment—they are an occasion for extraordinary action, for making something happen that would not have happened otherwise.”

While the work of Landmark has been integral to causing this breakthrough, it has, by no means, been the only contributing factor. Another factor that has led to these unprecedented results is reconnecting with old friends especially the family that has opened their home to me for the duration of the seminar series. As I mentioned in the last blog post, reconnecting with these loving, kind, and generous friends has been like a seminar unto itself. They have helped me realize that our personal and spiritual growth and development is ongoing or should be. We are never completely cooked or done, but we continue to evolve. These Friday evening conversations led me to two books that have become part of my morning practice time in preparing for the day:

The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living is just what the subtitle suggests, a series of short meditations taken from the wisdom of the Stoics. (It’s likely I’ll share more indepth about this fine book in a future blog post.)

Writing Down Your Soul: How to Activate and Listen to the Extraordinary Voice Within by Janet Connor is a deep dive into how to tap your inner wisdom through journaling.

Now, I’ve journaled off-and-on for decades but frequently the entries have been nothing more than an elaborate to-do list, and that’s okay. However, recently I’ve wanted to go deeper so this book was a perfect fit. It literally fell off the Hoopla shelf into my lap. Well, as much is that sort of thing can happen in a digital bookstore. I knew the instant I saw the title that it was the book for me. So, on Thursday, February 7 (I know the exact date because I checked my journal.) I started reading Writing Down Your Soul, and on February 10, three days later, I had one of the most incredible breakthroughs from journaling I’ve ever had. Now if that isn’t an endorsement for a book I don’t know what is.

I started by writing to “my Cosmic Friend” the name I chose for Divine Wisdom/God/etc. and the words flowed. From the book and my own experience as a life coach I know the power of asking questions with the intention of tapping into that infinite wisdom so I started by asking this question: “How can I take my writing to the next level, especially how can I be a visionary author, be it for fiction or something else?” That question led to another question: “How can I balance writing as my self-expression and the “business of writing” especially the marketing, promotion, and the selling of books via Amazon and the like – the ‘how to make money as a writer?'”

And from these questions flowed some powerful insights starting with another question. “Could that marketing and promotion part of the business become an aspect of my self-expression as well?” Well, at first my response was, “I don’t see how,” so my Cosmic Friend invited me to look deeper. “Didn’t you learn to love writing query letters back in the days when most of your writing was for magazines? As I remember it, writing query letters became at least as much fun as writing the articles that those queries generated.”

I reluctantly agreed this was true. So my friend continued. “So, how could you create bookselling, etc. as part of your self-expression? Carve out your own path. Attract new readers your own way, not at the exclusion of other ways, but make sure those ways fit with your own nature, your own self-expression.”

“How might that look?” I asked. This dialogue continued for another page leading to this revelation: “What if I shared more openly with my readers and potential readers through my blog? What if those blog posts became my query letters!!” OMG. Really? Why not? Really, why not. That reminded me of a game I created when I first started writing for magazines: The Big R Game. You can read all about The Big R Game right here, but here is the essence of it:

The game was to write 100 query letters as fast as possible while writing them as well as possible.

That was it, pure and simple. You see, I knew that as I played this game two things would happen:

  1. I would be developing the ability to write quality query letters, and
  2. These query letters would eventually lead to contracts to write articles.

Now, I’ll be honest. I’m not as clear where this new game of writing 100+ blog posts will lead. I guess it’s time to meet with my cosmic friend again, but my cosmic friend is sneaky. He may actually choose to speak through one of you reading this blog. Feel free to share your thoughts about what might come out of this new game in the comment section below.

In the meantime, stay true to yourself.

Coming Soon: The FreeForm Series Relaunch