Writing Down Your Soul, the book you all know and love, was published 11 years ago on January 1, 2009. This was not the date I planned. I turned in the manuscript on November 11, 2007 and thought she would come out the summer or fall of 2008. But the timing was clearly divinely appointed.

When Writing Down Your Soul launched, the whole world was spiraling down a vortex of relentless financial woe created by unseen greed. Everybody everywhere was seeking answers.

The timing was perfect. Because the book has one message: your answers are within. Step into divine dialogue with your own “extraordinary voice within” and you will discover the guidance and grace you need in this moment—and in all moments.

Well, here we are once again, tumbling into another global crisis, this time instigated by a relentless and unseen virus.

Now, Janet couldn’t have planned this in a million years, but in perfect divine timing, my new publisher, Mango Conari (who acquired the Conari imprint last October) called to say they want to give Writing Down Your Soul a big re-launch this December.

And they want me to write a new introduction and invite someone to write a foreword. A foreword? Gosh, none of my books have had a foreword. Who should I invite to write one for my precious book…?

The universe was way ahead of me on this. It just so happened, that I was scheduled to record an interview on the writing life with a woman I adore, Dawn Montefusco.

Perhaps you’ve been in one of her previous Write from Your Heart seminars. She’s a magnificent writing coach who helps people break through whatever is holding them back from becoming the writer they want to be.

Dawn has invited me to be a part of her last two seminars, and we always have the best time talking about the writing life. I always share my own rather unique, you might even say odd, view of what it really takes to be a successful writer.

Last year I blew her mind with how I learned to write not from writers but from pop musicians. Trust me, everything you want to discover about how to create a wildly delicious creative life, you can pick up from listening to musicians talk about how they write music.

This time, I wondered what to say that’s new and different and, OK, a little odd.

I took this question to Sophia in deep soul writing and knew immediately that my interview with Dawn would be about the essential before you write one word. And that essential—that little thing from which all writing flows is really quite simple. Only writing teachers rarely talk about it.

You must fall in love. You must fall in love with books. With poems. With words in all their sacred forms. In short, you must fall in love with sentences.

Don’t write one word until you fall in love. With sentences.

So does this matter? Is it important to fall in love with sentences and then start writing a few sentences of your own?

What difference could one person deciding to write from their heart possibly make in a world that’s roiling with pandemic and reeling from all the ugly things the pandemic is revealing.

Oh, it matters. And it matters in ways you’ll never see.

On one level, someone might read something you write, whether it’s a poem, a post online, a newsletter, maybe even a book. And that someone might find exactly the food they need in that moment. But you might never know.

That’s certainly a lovely reason to write, but there’s a much deeper cosmic ramification.

Falling in love with sentences, and then writing a few of your own, changes your life.

I’m quite the poster child for this dramatic change. Writing carried me out of headhunting and into a whole new—and way more fun—creative life. But it did something else. Something that I might never have known, except for the Masters and Teachers of the Akashic Record.

On October 17, 2007, I had my first Akashic Record consultation through Lauralyn Bunn. I had a lot of questions for the Masters and Teachers, but the big one was: Am I fulfilling my soul’s purpose? Their answer left me speechless:

“Writing is not what you originally came in with. It was an option box. You checked it. If you’d made other choices, life would be different. Writing is now your first and foremost purpose and it will usher you out of this body. When you checked the box, it brought forth talents that hadn’t been developed. If you come into another physical body, it’s potential will be a future creative writer. Less memoir, less spiritual healing. True pure absolute art form.”

I still haven’t recovered from that astonishing awareness that a small creative choice we make today, vibrates out across time and space affecting countless others not just in this lifetime, but in future lifetimes!

You’ve heard about the proverbial flutter of a butterfly’s wings in Africa that launches hurricanes…. Well, it looks like you are that butterfly.

So, whether there’s a tiny voice in your heart whispering, “I think I might be a writer,” or a bloomin’ megaphone shouting “Got on with it!” I have the perfect free gift for you.

Click below and register for Dawn Montefusco’s 10-day free online seminar

The Healing Power of Words: Create with Passion and Write Powerful Stories That Have Impact

It opens tomorrow, Monday August 17th.

You’ll get to meet writers, artists, storytellers and entrepreneurs who will show you how you can break through resistance and ignite your inner muse and write in any genre.

You’ll learn how to:

Come and play with Dawn and me a whole host of other creative guides.

to making a small creative choice today that changes the trajectory of your life
and maybe of the world

Janet

PS: Here's one sentence I fell in love with this week. Stumbled across it in Clark Strand's Now Is the Hour of Her Return. (interview coming on Thursday on Praying at the Speed of Love). "Time is an illusion the soul must break through prayer."

PSS: Oops, forgot the big finish: ten guesses who’s writing my foreword!

And one more PS for good measure: Have a friend who needs to know about this powerful event? Share this link with them. Let's spread writing inspiration to as many people as we can.