For any writers out there, I want to share some really fabulous news. (I know, I usually try to write something thought provoking or that teaches a principle of some sort, but today I just had to share!) I have managed to go from having no literary agent representing me to having two – well…actually three – representing me all at one time! Yahoo! Thank God! Baruch HaShem! And they’ll all be at the Book Expo America in New York at the beginning of June peddling my three current book projects. Can you believe it? I can hardly believe it myself! I am so very, very grateful to them for believing in me, my work and my projects. And they all tell me that they hope to bring me good news come the first week of June, and, God willing, they will.
So, I have found an agent to take on my Jewish celebrity cookbook project, which should have been in stores for the 2006 holiday season…but wasn’t. If you recall, that book had a publisher, but the book was returned to me so I could find a larger publishing house to take it on. Yesterday, I found the perfect agent to take on that job for me, and she feels confident that she will have success in doing so. Yeah! I’m grateful to the 90 celebrities who signed on to that project and offered me their time, support, stories, and recipes. If the book is successful, we will all help MAZON: A Jewish Response to World Hunger help others around the world.
And, as you already know, my other agent is shopping my candle lighting as a spiritual practice book. She has another agent in her firm also selling my book on boys in the dance world, which was inspired by my son’s dancing endeavors.
(Okay…don’t ask how I will write two books at once, handle anything thrown at my by the publisher of the cookbook – which is complete — and keep up with my client’s editing. I should be so lucky to have that problem.)
Shabbat is nearing quickly…and when I light the candles later this evening I will have so much for which to be grateful and I will celebrate my success by allowing myself to welcome in the Shechinah and to rest peacefully and joyfully in this sanctuary in time. As I work madly on trying to make the changes to the cookbook proposal my new agent requested, I will feel so filled with gratitude and with wonder at how the Universe works. I attribute my “success” not only to my diligence and perseverance, but the powerful energy of my intention and my knowing that I would, indeed, get these works published. I totally trusted…well, I had times of doubt, especially with the cookbook, but I would shrug that off and get back to work and back into a place of knowing it would work out.
Last week I resigned myself to approaching not only two new agents (on the suggestion of the last agent who had just turned down my cookbook project) and three small publishers (one the suggestion of my first agent and the person who brought the cookbook project to me in the first place. That said, when I actually sat myself down to write the letters and put the packages together, I did so with the intention of actually finding an agent. I changed my AOL password to reflect my desire to have an agent of a publisher for the manuscript by 6-07. Every time I typed in that password, I remembered my goal while at the same time I knew that as I had placed the parcels in the mailbox I had released the book and its outcome to a higher source. I had released it. I stopped thinking or worrying about it, except each time I typed in that password and affirmed that I would, indeed, have an agent or a publisher by June.
Now, I do this thing with the password all the time. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I think so much of what makes it successful comes down to my own attitude. How strong is my intention? Have I released whatever it is I want, thus creating space to receive my desire, or am I holding on to it and filling myself with worry and negative thoughts? Am I trusting that what is for my highest good and the highest good of the project and those concerned with it will come to pass? Am I offering gratitude to God for my desired outcome having become manifest even thought it actually hasn’t yet; in other words, am I trusting that it has manifest in the World Above and will, therefore, soon manifest in the World Below? Am I behaving “as if” what I want already exists in my life and feeling all the joy and fulfillment that would come with that experience?
If I can answer “yes” to these questions, my affirmation works well, because of all these other things I have done. And that’s the “secret” to manifesting what we want, isn’t it?
By the way, my new booklet, Abracadabra! The Kabbalah of Creation, 7 Mystical Steps to Manifesting Your Dreams and Desires will be available in July! It will talk about some of the tools I use to create what I want in my life, and today I realize more than ever how very powerful those tools truly are. If you’ve heard of the bestselling book and DVD The Secret, my booklet (which will one day be a book – mark my words!) puts the principles set forth in The Secret through a Jewish mystical lense. (You can preorder it now in my store.)
So, I will move through today gladly putting my energy into the last thing I personally can do to sell my Jewish celebrity cookbook – finishing the proposal. Then I will again release the project – this time to my new agent as well as to my God. May the perfect publisher take on the book.
Ken yehe ratzon. May it be God’s will.
Shabbat shalom!
