Last Sunday the 9th February 2014 I was in Los Angeles completing the third day of William Whitecloud’s inaugural Million $ Book Club Congress. William is the best selling author of The Magician’s Way and The Last Shaman. William’s books are engaging stories wrapped around fundamental truths and premises that have the power to change lives. William by his own admission felt ill prepared to be a writer but he had a calling to share his wisdom. He did not write his books by following formulae or 10 step programmes but rather he used his intuition and imagination to connect with his genius and manifest high level creative function; creating unique stories that made connections that hadn’t been made before. And who wouldnt want some of that.
William’s weekend is not so much a course as a journey, one which 23 brave souls were up for. The consolation was company but the rewards proved to be individual, unique and beyond expectation. The bar was set high right from the start, William asserts that to operate at High Level Creative Function we have to understand consciousness and that starts with knowing ourselves. I was brought up close and personal with my deluded relationship with writing which swings between pointless futility and the arrogance of platitudes from some self-important sense of purpose. A place devoid of joy, frustrating as fuck and makes writing feel like extracting blood from a stone. The tension I experience is painful but revealing the truth of my egoic agenda takes the power out of it and truth, to quote William is the ‘fuel of a powerful creator’.
William unwraps his intuitive tools, shares how to use them and guides us to purposefully use our imaginations to see the potential of our genius offering; I experience expansiveness, gentleness, simplicity and vulnerability. A place where writing is a joyful unfolding, a mystery to be followed, a way of being infinitely curious. I am free to see who I truly can be as a writer and now ready to experience tension as the engine room of my genius and creativity. We learn that tension is the writer’s friend and it is our ability to master tension that determines the quality of the end results that we create.
On day three with the tension resolution system in place we are all poised to dive into the specifics of what we would love to write be it a book, a play, a movie script or poetry. All options are possible. The framework that William uses for writing; Theme, Premise, Qualities and Emotion is arrived intuitively and it ensures ample space for genius to emerge as an unadulterated offering from our Muse. I saw the book I want to write; simpler, more beautiful, compelling and revelationary. No longer is it The Quest rather it is A Journey, no longer is it about certainty and knowledge, it is about awareness and vulnerability about the revelation of a deeply imaginative sexuality – in the words of my Muse.
Returning from America, a week has passed, in the spaces between the jetlag I spy the divil of resistance. Under the covers of catching up and reconnecting I see the pariah of distraction. My personal saboteurs lurking at the wings but I know about them now, I see them, I can choose not to give them the power but to be professional to turn up as a writer regardless of the conditions and circumstances and choose to meet my Muse and write from my genius. It is a choice.
Follow the links to find out more about William Whitecloud and the Million $ Book Club
Photograph: On the Camino 2012 courtesy of Tobias Schade
For more stories from Anne or information on coaching to bring adventure alive in your live check out www.crossingfrontiers.co.uk
