Manifest That Sh*t

Intention Setting and Positive Thinking For Writers

Image from filmplusdigital

Tonight is a full moon, which means it’s time to make the moon water! Every month, I make moon water as a way of sending my intentions and desires for the month into the Universe. (Instructions on how to make your own are at the end of this post). It’s one way in which I manifest my dreams.

So what is manifesting? It is knowing what you want, clearly, specifically, and sending your intentions to get it out into the universe. Oprah is a big advocate for it. Watch her, Reese Witherspoon, and Mindy Kaling talk about it here.

As a writer, the only things within my control are the work, and my mindset. I can’t control how people will respond to my stories or if they will like my characters. I can’t control if an agent will like my voice or resonate with my work.

Dolly Parton says, “We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.”

I can control how I think about my goals and how I respond to rejection. It’s easy to take a “no” or criticism to heart—to spiral into a negative head space, to think you will never be published.

But the magic happens in knowing that you will.

Knowing you won’t give up until you have put your story into the world. And even then you will keep going, keep writing, keep striving to be better.

I can control my effort, and that goes hand in hand with manifesting. You have to actively take steps toward your goals in order for any of this to work.

Ways to manifest your dream of making your book a reality

1. Make a cover for your novel. You can use Canva or hire a designer depending on your budget but seeing a cover for your book, even if it’s not a real published book yet, feels amazing! It’s much easier to visualize it on the shelf at Target or your local indie with a cover.

2. Write your acknowledgments. Writing out your gratitude and all the people that support you and your work is a great way send more positive thoughts into the world surrounding your dreams. You don’t have to show this to anyone. Do it for you.

3. Make your author website. You’ll need one of these anyway—why not make it now? Send out into the universe and internet that you are a writer and take yourself seriously as one.

   

   4. Set small achievable goals and write them out on a kanban board. I learned about kanban boards from Sarra Cannon. I absolutely love mine. You take a board and divide it in three. In the first section you write out the goals you’re working on, breaking up each Post-it into small actionable steps. In the next section you pick one goal that you are working on. In the third section you put all the goals you have accomplished, so you can visually see how much you’ve done. I reset my board every three months, using the act of writing out the goals as another form of intention setting. I break up my board by project, usually one I’m revising, one I’m drafting, one for other business (critique groups meetings, Substack goals) and the fourth is for family life/health goals. It is so fun breaking your work in progress up into 5,000 word chunks and moving that Post-it to the done section once you’ve achieved it.

   5. Let it go. Oprah in the video linked above, says you can’t obsess. This is a hard one for me. You have to put your intention out there and then let it go. Moonwater is a great way to do this.

How to Make Moonwater

• Get a mason jar, and either write your intention on the bottom or on a piece of paper.

• Fill the jar with drinking water, focusing on the intention you’re setting.

• Set the jar outside. If you wrote your desire on a piece of paper, then set it underneath, in somewhere the moonlight will reach it.

• Leave it overnight.

• Drink it in the morning. That’s it. It tastes delicious, like drinking water when you’re camping—chilled in a way only the night air can make it.

This full moon is a Harvest moon. A great time to harvest the crops you’ve been tending in your life, whether that be in your writing or other areas.

“Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it.” — Maya Angelou

Has any of this been successful for me? In my writing, honestly not yet. (But the first month I made moon water I did receive an offer of publication from a small press. Ultimately I decided it wasn’t the right decision for me.)

What all this intention setting and positive thinking has done though, is make it easier to believe in myself and in the worth of my words—that showing up for my stories is worth my time. I know my novels will be shared with the world some day, I just have to keep showing up and putting in the work.

Are there ways you manifest your dreams in your life? Drop them in the comments. I’d love to learn from you.