If it sounds like writing…rewrite it
~Elmore Leonard~
We all come in with a purpose.
But because we’ve forgotten to remember, we spend the majority of our lives searching for it.
Unless you’re incredibly lucky and come in as a child prodigy….or angry cat.
Once we make our connection with God, the Muse, Source, or whatever you want to call it, our ONLY job is to remain a clear and unbiased vessel.
When we do finally connect with our purpose, it becomes more than a job.
It becomes a calling.
All we need to do is enthusiastically show up every day.
The purpose itself will create opportunities for its accomplishment.
What?
You mean I’m not the only one who controls how this work gets out in the world?
I feel solely responsible for what happens to anything I create, after the initial process is finished.
I want to write the pitch, I want to orchestrate the meeting, I want to call the shots with every i dotted and every t crossed…..by me.
Yet, if we can trust the Muse to co-create our purpose, can’t we trust her to place it just where it needs to go?
She’s got a much broader vision than we’ll ever have, and her contacts are legendary. Back in the day of Rolodex’s, she had fifty of them lined up, side by side, crammed with every mover and shaker across the planet.
Nothing escapes her radar.
Her ideas have ideas.
We have thoughtfully and tenderly brought her masterpiece to third dimension; she’ll take care of the rest.
If we muck up the trajectory SHE has in mind with our ideas of how WE think it should play out…..crickets.
Here is the story of J K Rowling’s (if you’ve been living under a rock, she is the author of the Harry Potter series of books) rise to fame.
After being rejected twelve times by every major publishing company, one of the manuscripts found its way into a pile on an office shelf. End of story, right?
It could have been. It should have been.
What happened next could have come with a swish of Harry Potter’s wand.
(Muse magic?)
In the spring of 1997, struggling English producer David Heyman’s secretary, Nisha Parti, picked up a manuscript from the shelf marked ‘low priority’.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was yet to be published. She took it home to read over the weekend.
Monday morning they had their meeting and David asked if anyone had read anything good. Nisha said, “Well I’ve read this book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.”
“That’s a rubbish title,” he said. What’s it about?”
She said, “It’s about a young boy who goes to wizard school.”
Intrigued, he took it home and read it in one night.
And the rest is history.
So…..
What if J K Rowling had stopped after three rejections, or seven, or ten?
We have no idea which manuscript ended up on the low priority list in that producer’s office.
What if she had listened to the criticism that boys don’t read books?
What made his secretary pick THAT manuscript to read? Who marked it low priority, so that it ended up in her pile?
What if she’d released them as short stories, because people were telling her the books were too long and wordy?
What if she was against film adaptation? Some authors are.
Someone came up with the release date parties held at midnight in bookstores across the globe. They created a marketing frenzy. That was a completely new concept in book publishing/marketing at the time. Whose idea was THAT?
(That has the Muse’s fingerprints ALL over it.)
What if she’d wanted a more well-known producer, or more money?
The list goes on and on.
I think you get the gist.
I really love the concept that all we have to do is sing, write, paint, create; then listen for instructions on what comes next and not have to drive ourselves nuts figuring out the rest.
You get that we can’t possibly know what comes next, right?
Finish your work. Say a prayer. Let go of the wheel.
Let the source that wrote the screenplay, line up the appropriate people, and then pitch it.
She’ll tell us what day and what to say. She’s proud of her work, that Muse, and so naturally she’d love it to get as popular and touch as many people as possible.
Doesn’t that make sense?
Due diligence, yes. Thinking we have all the answers, no.
The purpose itself will create opportunities for its Accomplishment
It’s worth repeating.
Do you have projects you need to let go of and trust the process? I’d love to hear some stories of how the Muse took a project where it needed to go.
Tell me in the comments!
Xox
