Computer Go

I have always wanted to be a writer. When I was in elementary school I would create little picture books with my crayons and paper and staples then try to peddle my stories from door to door in my neighborhood. In later years I filled notebook after notebook with story ideas, chapter outlines and scene settings. I was sure that someday I would be a writer of great fiction with all of the fame and notoriety to match. Then I went to college.

In my freshman year of college I took American Literature and was cursed with the quintessential pragmatic professor who saw it as his personal mission in life to strip his students of all of their delusions. My seventeen year old aspirations came under direct fire and I found myself suddenly drowning in a sea of self doubt. “I can’t be a writer. People who are great writers are all older and more experienced. They have lofty degrees. They have travelled the world. People who are great writers live a different life than the one I am living.” I found that my desire to write began to wane and the ideas became fewer and farther between until my creativity seemed to be a shadow of its former self. Along came a husband and children – the most wonderful things in my life and yet I allowed my mind to use these blessings as excuses, as the proof that my dreams of writing were unrealistic. After all, what stay at home mother of four has the time to write?

When my youngest child was only a few months old I met another mother who was forming a writing group. Something stirred in me, a memory of the joy that I had had in the past when lost in the creative process, and I had the desire to dream again. The desire to dream brought me to the desire to learn how to make my dreams truly effective and I found a new course of study.

As I learned about the Laws of Thought through reading Leslie Householder’s books, The Jackrabbit Factor, Hidden Treasures and later Portal to Genius (co-written by Garrett Gunderson) I started to see how the simple act of believing in a dream brings the dream closer to me. The first law, the Law of Perpetual Transmutation, states that everything in this world is continually either coming into being or going out of being. This applies to the elements of the earth constantly changing in their physical states, yes, but it also applies to the circumstances that we want to attract to ourselves. As long as I believe in something and can see it as already mine, then it is gathering and coming toward me. When I doubt, when I let fear rule me, then it is dissipating.

As I grew to understand this principle and practice applying it, the idea cloud began to gather and the more I dared to picture myself as a writer, the more the ideas started to flow again. Soon I was filling notebook after notebook with plot lines and character surveys and I began to write in a way that fed my soul. One day an idea popped into my head quite suddenly while I was getting a haircut and it blinded me with its brilliance. I rushed home and made notes. For three solid days I scribbled in a spiral bound notebook until I knew I was ready to embark upon the complete work. Now as I am nearly done with my first completed novel, I see just how clear these principles are. When I believe that I am a writer and allow myself to really feel the beauty and joy of it then I am filled with inspiration that allows my dream to come true. Conversely, when I doubt myself the ideas disappear and I am left with no mental energy to create.

By living the Law of Transmutation, by holding onto that belief in myself, all my dreams and aspirations are building until that idea cloud is heavy with all the blessings and desires of my heart and I am ready for the rain.