It would be great if…I were rich and thin.
It would be great if I were done with my work on this hot Friday afternoon.
IWBGI I had a beach house in Malibu or even a pool at my house in Burbank.
“It would be great if” is a statement starter that frames your predicament in the positive. IWBGI is a tool for allowing your mind to acknowledge dreams and desires, without setting up objections. It can be used to clarify any situation.
If I were to say, I WANT to be rich and thin, my mind would put up all sorts of objections and possibly even recriminations as to why I’m currently not either. Can I be done with my work on a Friday afternoon? I could go to Malibu (now that my desires are really clarified!)
Yeah, see ya!
Okay, I’m back on a Monday morning and I want to show you this easy tool and how it helps you get what and where you want to be.
The other day, I was writing my novel, and maybe I’d written about 20 pages. But in order to write those 20 pages, I’d created my cast of characters, set up their predicament and was ready to write them all in a specific order. I’d invested a lot of work to get this far, and made countless decisions already. It already represented weeks of work.
So, I’m 20 pages in, and it is just not working. I had my lead character losing her daughter 6 months before the book opens. The mother was in deep grief. Mind you, Grief was NOT the topic of this book, but I thought I could deal with the grief respectfully, and get back to the plot that mattered to me. (LOL) Just like real grief, fictional grief cannot be stowed at your convenience. All the pages were heavy with it.
The daughter dying was an important trigger and call to action, so I didn’t see a way clear to taking that aspect of the plot out. And, have I mentioned this is supposed to be a funny book? Ugh. Grief wasn’t working.
I found myself relying on the evidence-based, trusty tools of my craft – Deliberate Creativity. And what was I scribbling?
IWBGI I didn’t have to write about grief
IWBGI the death were gone
IWBGI I had a different trigger for the plot, different cause of the problem
Can you see how, already, these thoughts are much more empowering than my original, organic thought, “OMG Grief isn’t working!”
Within a few statements of my true desires, I was headed down another path, that incidentally changed my book fundamentally, and saved a fictitious life.
And now, I’m writing about what I truly want to be writing about. I’m headed to a week-long writer’s retreat, so I’m thrilled to have righted the ship before I diligently toiled along on the grief path. What are you trying to figure out in your book? Could IWBGI help you? Give it a whirl!
In the meantime, you can learn more tools and hacks in the free Master Classes that are part of the Write Without the Fight Club – a paid monthly membership. The Club is a treasure trove of programs about how to activate and maximize your creativity – and these four courses are free. So join us in the Clubhouse.