I Got This Part Wrong

I’m writing from the kitchen of a mansion in La Jolla, California that I rented for my first Three Days to Done conference. The writers are gone, the trash has been taken out, the towels are piled up on the bathroom floor.

For the last 3 days, I’ve been working with 3 authors, hand-in-hand to help them finish their first book. Each of them had one thing in common: they have wanted to write a book for a long time. 10, 20 even 30 years.

And I have another secret. EACH of them signed up to work with me in the past and didn’t finish even though they really, really wanted to be an author.

I thought this time would be the magic touch that pushed them over the edge because they would be working in a luxurious mansion overlooking the water with fine marble, 500 thread count sheets and an ocean view.

Inspired by the surroundings, I imagined the muses gathering around them, blessing them with inspiration all day long.

But… um… a funny thing happened on the way to the mansion…

This place was NO PALACE! The house was dated and in disrepair, the ocean was far off in the distance, and the 500 thread count sheets existed only in my imagination.

I screwed up. I walked onto the set of Sunset Boulevard after the starlet’s fall! NOW HOW WERE THESE BOOKS GOING TO GET WRITTEN?!

On the first day we started with a meditation. I imagined a great hall with marble floors, yoga mats, and lavender scented eye pillows. Instead there were broken tiles and dirty yoga mats. And I mean filthy! We did the meditation sitting on a couch.

As usual, the meditation opened up amazing opportunities for our authors. One channeled 60% of the content of her book in about 15 minutes. Another got total clarity on the book cover and imagery. And another realized she’d have to let her most vulnerable self take the lead to get the book she had dreamed up.

As the day moved on and we focused on the work and things started to click. I had a process for how to write a book in 3 days. I had developed it and tested it and the time had come to put away the broken dreams about the magic of La Jolla and trust myself.

We didn’t have the mansion. But we had a lot of laughs about the lack of light blubs, the accumulation of dirt, and the shoddy towel situation.

Each round of laughter brought us closer together and the love in the room created the very opening I thought the surroundings would create for the muses to bless our writers.

These aren’t books, they are love letters. And they weren’t written, they were downloaded with grace.

Congrats to authors Tami Mathisen, Jeanne Boschert, and Janeen Latini!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a fan of gorgeous homes! And I’ve got an advance team heading to our country state house in Bath to make sure this time we have the aesthetic experience I imagine for my clients. But now I know the truth. The magic isn’t in the 500 thread count sheets or the marble floors. It’s in the community and accountability created together.

In A Course in Miracles it says, “Whenever two or more come together in my name, there am I in their midst.”

Call it God, call it Your Inner Author, call it The Muses, call it the Holy Spirit. Whatever you call it, it was a miracle. Our miracle. Born from love and not some pretty house.

If you want to be a part of our next book miracle, schedule a call with me for more details: https://authorincubator.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?appointmentType=276594