Guest post by Libby Copa
When we sit around imagining our dream creative careers, I think most of us will admit we focus on the big moments—winning an Oscar, having Stephen King blurb our book, or playing at Carnegie Hall. We don’t dream of our everyday routine that is part of creating art—getting the bubbles out of our clay or playing the same five chords on the guitar over and over until the lyrics come. We don’t think, ‘When I am a full-time artist and make my own schedule, when will I go to the grocery store? When will I do laundry?’ Obviously, it is more fun to dream about the life changing moments. But as someone who practices manifestation, I will tell you, making time to consider the small day-to-day things are just as important as those big career goals.
If you are not familiar with the concept of manifestation, it is a practice and tool of creating your reality through your thoughts and intentions. As an artist, you already know the true power of creativity and imagination, learning manifestation can help you harness that power in a new way.
Manifestation is the concept that what we think about, we attract.
Success means different things to different people, but I think most of us would agree that we want some kind of recognition for our work. By visualizing our success and focusing energy on it, you can make it reality. The more you feel it, the more likely you are to manifest it.
Many manifestation techniques have you picture the big moments, those ones that ultimately define your career. I want to encourage you to also think of your day-to-day routine in this future life of yours. Use visualization to walk yourself through your day.
What does your day look like?
What schedule do you follow?
Who is included in this dream?
If housekeeping plays no role in your desired life, who helps you with it?
Upon when do they arrive at your house and when do they leave?
When do you eat meals?
What type of foods do you consume?
How do you balance your creative time and your non-artmaking time?
As you work through these questions, imagine you are there. Move through your day. This is all part of the manifestation process.
Manifestation isn’t a magic wand. Your dreams will not come true overnight, but stepping blocks will be formed and you can begin to climb toward what you desire.
If you would like to learn more techniques to manifest the creative life of your dreams, Your Creative Path Workbook is here to help you with the big and the small aspects of your creative career.
Designed with an artist in transition in mind, each chapter focuses on a different aspect of the creative journey. Chapters include writing down your big vision and examining your road map—where you have been and where you want to go, releasing fears that have been holding you back, understanding the education you still need to access to move forward, the financial lives of artists, finding your audience, and making your art into a voice for global change.
This workbook will help an artist build a strong future for themselves, no matter where they are in their journey. It is the workbook that I wish I had earlier in my career, and I still use the writing prompts today when I feel stagnant or confused about which direction I should go next. Learning the art of manifestation and all that aligns with it has helped me to change my creative future. I know it can do the same for you.
Here's what one reviewer had to say about working with the Your Creative Path Workbook:
"As a self-published independent author—one of the ‘late-night writers’ for whom author Libby Copa is writing here, although actors, artists, musicians and other creators in the arts are also included—I’m always on the lookout for ways in which I might increase my target audience and grow my readership, not to mention my bank balance. Your Creative Path Workbook caught my eye as potentially having something to offer in that area, so I gave it a whirl.
It's a well-organised text, stressing the steps to be taken by those who wish to create their own path to success—not forgetting to sit down and work out what exactly success constitutes for them. We all have our own individual journeys to make, and what works for one artist may not work for another—this is also underlined, along with the fact that the measures given here may not need to be used in the order in which they are given. It would be useful though to first address the list of reasons for why we do what we do, to help us focus on what comes after: the Law of Attraction, Manifestation of our dreams, use of vision boards and gratitude journals, to name but a few. Focus on what we desire is important, as is overcoming fear and setting goals. Not just any old goals, but SMART goals, and the author sets out in depth how to work these out.
The difficult question of how to achieve financial success through our art is covered, and the honing of skills to this end. There’s advice on how to find the correct target audience, and—something which is often missed—how to building a community of other artists, in the same or a different sphere(s), with the aim of mutual support. What you want to say, and how you want to say it—arguably the most important question any artist can ask themselves—is kept to the end. However, as the chapters of this text can be taken in any order, it’s up to the reader which order they read them in.
Overall a useful and thought-provoking text for creative individuals in all disciplines and genres."
I hope this inspires you to explore the power of manifestation and use it to create your dream life as an artist. Remember you have the power to craft your reality, so why not create a reality that is full of joy, abundance, and creativity?
About the author
Libby Copa is an author, educator, and rebel. For almost twenty years she has helped artists strengthen their writing and their creative practice. She began her professional editing career in her last year as an undergraduate at Prescott College. Word had gotten around the campus about her mad editing skills and she was offered a position organizing and editing a professor’s book on the history of the college. She went on to receive her M.F.A in Creative Writing from Hamline University, focusing on historical fiction, dystopian and apocalyptic fiction, and poetry.
After receiving her degrees, she spent a handful of years working for the Dakota County Library system. Always desiring to give back to her community, she spent eight years as a volunteer staff and editor at Spout Press, three years as a volunteer writing coach for the Veterans Writing Project, and continues to collect books to send to military personnel through Operation Paperback.
Her own writing has appeared in literary journals across the country, including Hanging Loose, DASH, and Matter.
Libby is a longtime supporter of small and indie publishing, as well as the DIY underground arts scene. She spent years in the zine world writing Sour Girl and The Way Fish Love, as well as supporting local slam poetry contests and other literary events.
Libby lives in Minnesota with her husband. She teaches creative writing to students around the world on Udemy. She is writing books and working toward her dream of living on the road in an airstream and traveling internationally for months at a time. Her first novel will be released in April.
To learn more, visit Libby at https://www.libbycopa.com/