I realized recently that I’ve become a bit down on my Purpose Project to expand my visionary writing to include fiction. This became particularly evident as I was reading blogs of other successful indie authors who appear to be much further along than me.
I then realized that I’d failed to do something that’s really important when you’ve created a Purpose Project that could take years, even decades to complete. That important step is to “claim your ground” along the way. This means to stop looking out there in the future where the final destination may appear to be so far away that it’s almost impossible to discern any real progress has been made. Pause instead and look behind you to see what progress you have made and to acknowledge that progress.
For example, this Purpose Project of expanding into visionary fiction was birthed towards the end of 2010 when Ann and I had similar thoughts about it more of less independently of each other. The full project is to not only add fiction to my writing but to expand all my writing and to get more of it out in the world.
Here are a few of the things that have happened in the last eight to nine months:
- Created the possibility and the Purpose Project
- Pulled out the various visionary fictions novels I’d already written
- Revised and had edited Dominion Over All
- “Hired” Ann to be my book cover designer
- Created a FastPencil account so I could have others read my works in progress
- Found the manuscript for Seeds of a New Birth and had it OCR back into a computer file
- Started polishing Seeds of a New Birth
- Finished Spiral of Fulfillment, had cover designed and published on Kindle and Create Space
- Finished Dominion Over All, cover designed and published on Kindle (and very soon will be on Create Space)
- Revised three Life On Purpose Special Reports and have published on Kindle with a fourth one almost finished
- Contracted with Sherice Jacobs of ielectrify.com to create this author’s blog
- etc.
There’s much more but this should be enough to prove my point. Pausing occasionally and claiming your ground is a great way to stay inspired and motivated especially for those longer journeys and Purpose Projects. Each time you do, you’re collecting evidence that you’re vision for your life is coming true, step-by-step.
What progress are you ready to claim in one of your Purpose Projects?
This year I have
* Made the decision to complete my book
* Gave the book a name…"Running Barefoot"
* Got clear vision of my OWN purpose; now see myself as a writer, too!
* Got a clear vision of the purpose of writing my book
* Revised it's format and have edited and formatted about 75% of what I had written
* Committed myself to writing at least 5 days/week…have accomplished that for over 2 months!
* Have begun to simplify my life/adjust my finances to make room for my writing…and continue to do so!
* Have written a short story, "Cold Turkey," prepared to publish on Kindle just prior to publishing "Running Barefoot."
* Have explored different avenues of publishing and marketing in preparation of getting my book "out there."
* Have identified various other pieces, that I have written over the years, to brush off and publish.
* etc.
Great work Cynthia on claiming your ground and having so much to claim. I'd like to claim two other items myself:
1. Making the clear choice that being an 'indie author' is my preferred way to go, knowing it isn't an 'either/or' situation.
2. Attracting a great writing buddy who continues to inspire me to keep on keeping on.