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Mini Dream Big Lesson
Friday, April 9th, 2010

If you took the “Write 50 Books a Year” workshop, which I teach for free every August, this will be really familiar! I do something like this at the start of every workshop for a very good reason! Putting your dreams down on paper sets an internal switch in your brain called the RAS (Reticular Activating System—the part of the brain that controls awareness/arousal). The way this works is you write down your goals, and then you read them aloud. You don’t even have to believe they’re going to happen, but your brain hears the words and resets its expectations. Magic happens.

You’ve probably heard that children will live down to their parent’s lowest expectations—that’s based on what they’ve heard their parents say about them. Sad to say, if they’d heard encouragement, their brain would have been “trained” to achieve greater things.

Define Your Goals

1) The Big Bang

This is the time to dream big. Imagine what you want to have accomplished after five years of dedicated effort. Write your back cover biography!

Here’s mine:

Delilah Devlin, author of oodles of erotic romances featuring hot gratuitous sex, spends her winters in southern France with her Argentinean polo player, and spends her summers in Alaska with her not-so-Gentle-Ben backwoodsman. A regular on the New York Times Bestseller List and the Howard Stern show, she is writing an adaptation of her My Immortal Knights series for a new Playgirl channel series with celebrated screenwriter Elle James.

Okay, so I had a bit of fun with mine. Got yours done? Now print it and tape it to the wall above your computer. Read it aloud to yourself. Try to make this your daily mantra as you sit down to write. Don’t underestimate the power of “setting” your brain’s internal switch to achieve your big dream.

2) Imagine what you have to accomplish to reach that Big Bang goal—then pare it down to your wish list of what you want to accomplish over the next year. For me, it’s writing the best books I can, having a terrific time doing it (because positive energy generates positive results!!), and doing a lot of it. But when I list incremental goals, it looks something like this:

#1 Write 2 single title books this year
#2 Prepare 4 new proposals this year
#3 Write 3 category/novella length novels for Ellora’s Cave
#4 Write 3 category/novella length novels for Samhain
#5 Write 4 short stories for Cleis collections

Don’t freak when you see this list. I always start with stars in my eyes and have to ratchet down my expectations once reality (and the real planning) begins. But this is what I wish I could accomplish over the next year.

So, it’s your turn to write your bio and your To Do list!

Oh yeah—I now have the little black dragon with the long tail. So it’s two dragons down! ~DD

7 comments to “Mini Dream Big Lesson”

  1. Scarlett Parrish
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    · April 9th, 2010 at 8:57 am · Link

    I can’t tell you how much I love this post. I’m a great believer in making things happen and creative visualisation.

    My friend Lori, the one I’m always talking about on my blog, wrote 1,000,000 words last year and in the past twelve months has sold something like seven books. Proof positive that we can do anything.

    Having said that, she IS a robot ninja from the future with pens for fingers…

    Also, I’d watch out for that Argentinian polo player if I were you…I’ve heard they can get a bit frisky. 😉



  2. Delilah Devlin
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    · April 9th, 2010 at 9:07 am · Link

    Scarlett! Glad you enjoyed. A million words! Lori’s got me beat! And you think I’m worried about frisky? I have a grand imagination. Believe me, he might be the one a little winded.



  3. SonyaM
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    · April 9th, 2010 at 9:41 am · Link

    Catching up…saw that you finished your big book. Congratulations! I have no doubt it will be good. Since I have a couple of grands that LOVE McD’s, I will gladly forward any dragons I get. Have a GREAT weekend.



  4. Delilah Devlin
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    · April 9th, 2010 at 10:00 am · Link

    Sonya! Thanks so much, sweetie, but don’t pry those toys out of their hot ‘n’ sticky little hands for me. :mrgreen:



  5. Paula
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    · April 9th, 2010 at 2:10 pm · Link

    This is off topic, but I just read Ch 3 of Bad Moon rising. Gotta say I am loving it. My keyboard is soaking from the drool running down my chin. I know you are busy,but would a chapter a day be too much to ask? LOL. 😈



  6. Heather Brewer
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    · April 9th, 2010 at 3:44 pm · Link

    Congrats on finsihing the big book 🙂

    I make to do list for work. I will ususally make them before I leave for the day/weekend. I don’t know what I would do without my lists.

    I don’t do well with Big Bang goals. just the usual, health, happiness, my family and finally reading all the books in my TBR pile!!



  7. Scarlett Parrish
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    · April 9th, 2010 at 4:04 pm · Link

    I think you should use Raoul (yes; I’ve christened the young Argentinian stallion) as research…yes, that’s it. Research. Nothing rude about this at all.

    I bet you could get a trilogy of novels out of him. 😈



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