Recently, a young relative, who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent, was preparing for their first date through an online dating app. My husband and I met online, and so we were plying this young’un with all our so-called wisdom. In doing so, we realized we were just telling them not to do any of the things we had done. We are now happily married.
But both the hubby and I are writers. In some ways we writers are a different breed, and that means there are different ways to woo our hearts. The following is advice you definitely should not follow. It will not lead to second dates, to marriage, or to happiness. Unless you are a writer.
Send detailed, soulful messages to someone far, far away. What is distance, when you are pouring your heart out on the page? A ten hour drive away? Sure, you probably won’t ever meet in real life, but at least you’ll be in love. Do not call or zoom or meet. You are a writer. Only write.
Stand them up at a literary event. When you are finally in the same town, cancel plans to see them at a literary event because you started dating someone else while also sending soulful messages to the writer you thought you’d never meet, and now you feel too guilty about dating more than one person. But definitely still go to the event. Make sure it’s a costumed event, so you can pretend you’re not yourself. But also, it makes for extra magic if your name could be announced at the event, so you both know the other is there. Hide in the corner. DO NOT INITIATE CONTACT!
Send them weird things like a stalker. After standing them up, ask for their home address. When they shockingly give it to you, send them strange things. It’s best if these things are handmade and look it. Make sure you don’t give too much context, like an apology for standing them up or any update on your life, like that you are single again. Just the weird crafts will do. Writers like bookmarks. Extra points if they are made out of dead things, like conch feet and sharks’ teeth.
Bring your publisher on your first date. Sure, some people might think it’s weird to bring someone else along on a date you’ve been planning for months. But you’re at AWP, or some other writing conference, which just means all rules are out the window. Bonus points if your publisher is age appropriate for dating you. Extra bonus points if they are incredibly assertive and do most of the talking on the date. Extra-extra bonus points if your publisher drove you to the date and now you don’t have a ride home.
Invite them to sleep in other writers’ beds. As you house sit for your other writer friends, invite your new flame to come along. How many already-published writers’ beds can you sleep in while you yourself are dreaming of that book deal? Has anyone washed these sheets? Perhaps some of that publishing magic will rub off on you. Isn’t it romantic?
Bring them someplace scary. When you finally invite them to your own house, make sure that it’s a remote cabin without cell reception. What seemed romantic in your soulful messages will seem like a horror movie when they realize no one would be able to hear them scream. The cabin should be filled with books (signed by your famous author friends), but only have one chair, so it is very obvious you have never had company there before. The guns are optional, but the taxidermy is not. Don’t forget to sleep on your publisher’s sheets.
Yule, or the winter solstice, is a time of year when the days are the shortest and the earth begins to tilt to bring us more daylight. At its heart, Yule is a celebration of both the darkness and the light, and it is an opportunity for us to celebrate winter. This post contains ideas for Yule traditions, the spiritual meaning of winter solstice, Yule rituals for writers, and winter solstice writing prompts to help you connect with the season and your craft.
Winter Solstice
It’s impossible to let the solstice pass without recognition when one lives this far north. At 3:00 pm, the sun has already set and on cloudy days it’s hard to tell if it’s coming up at all. These days, depending on how you count your twilights, we are getting about three hours of sunlight, and everything else is dark.
Winter Solstice is one of our family’s favorite holidays, and we’ve created some of our own family Yule traditions. There’s something beautiful about knowing that you have been through the darkest time of year and you know each day will get brighter and brighter. Every solstice, we create a mandala with natural materials.
We also celebrate by decorating “Bruce the Solstice Spruce.” A few years ago, we started the tradition of finding our tree in the woods and bringing him home with us. The white and black spruces that grow up here might not be as full or as round as the store-bought trees, but there’s something magical about the act of actually bringing the tree in from the cold and celebrating it.
What is Yule?
Yule is an ancient Scandinavian festival that corresponded to the Winter Solstice, the shortest day or the longest night of the year. It was known as the time when the world is the darkest and people would wait with bated breath to see if the sun would return. But it was also a time of great celebration, because the sun did return.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the Winter Solstice usually falls on December 21st or 22nd. In the Southern Hemisphere, Midwinter usually happens on June 21st or 22nd. When it is Yule in the Southern Hemisphere, it is Litha in the Northern Hemisphere and vice versa. Yule follows Samhain in the Wheel of the Year, and it in turn is followed by Imbolc.
The solstice actually is just one measurable moment: the moment when the pole of your hemisphere is tilted as far as it will be from the sun, creating the longest night. However, because of the importance of this holiday, many cultures celebrate this time of year for many days, like the Twelve Days of Yule or the week of Saturnalia.
Winter Solstice Meaning
Yule at its heart is a celebration of the sun. We have made it through the long dark. We are on the slide into spring. The sun is coming up more and more each day, making the world brighter and lighter. As the sun returns, we know the plants and animals and mushrooms will also return.
On one hand, the Winter Solstice represents the depths of winter. The landscape is at its most threatening, and it is a time that the land is calling us to go inward, reflect, rest, and hibernate. On the other hand, it’s a time of incredible celebration because the darkest time of year has passed and we have made it through. The days get brighter from here.
Yule vs. Christmas
Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere is celebrated on December 21st or 22nd, when the earth reaches its ultimate tilt, while Christmas is celebrated on December 25th. But there are other differences between these holidays as well. Though a lot of Christmas traditions come from old pagan Yuletide celebrations, to me they are very different holidays.
For me, Yule has been the hardest sabbat to write about. Christmas is so prevalent in my culture and was such a bulwark of my childhood that I can hardly ignore that it is happening. But all of the trappings of consumerism and expectations at this time of year honestly used to make me a little bit scroogey about Yule.
On the other hand, this is such a spectacular time of year in the Great North. All day, the light is breathtaking. At night, the aurora borealis are dancing among clear, glowing stars. There is magic in the air, and it begs to be celebrated.
In our family, we’ve decided that we will celebrate everything. We do celebrate both Winter Solstice and Christmas. But, unlike Samhain and Halloween, or Ostara and Easter, I do not think of these holidays as interchangeable.
Instead, we celebrate them separately, as two holy days that are interconnected. On solstice, we make a mandala, honor the sun, and celebrate nature, including decorating Bruce the Solstice Spruce. We try to spend as much time outside as possible, even when it is 30 below zero, like this year.
On Christmas, we celebrate abundance, warmth, and generosity with a big meal, family and friends, the coziness of home, and gifts under our solstice spruce. To me, Christmas represents the time when the return of the light is noticeable, the day when it really does feel like there is more light than there was just a few days ago, and that is definitely something to celebrate.
Winter Solstice Traditions
One of the beautiful things about this time of year is that there are so many ways to celebrate. You can honor the return of the sun, or you can honor the shadows and darkness. You can host friends and family, or you can retreat into your own cozy little world. Bonfires, feasts, sacrifices, and inebriation have all been part of Yule. But reflection, rest, home, and hearth are also important this time of year.
One Yule tradition that has persisted is bringing greenery inside the house. This happened both as Yule trees, which were decorated, or Yule logs, which were covered in ashes, and burned later in the year. You might bring in mistletoe to embrace the properties of the tree it grows on. You could create a simmer pot of spruce or pine. You might bring a stick of willow or birch inside to watch the leaves bud as a reminder of the coming spring, or an omen of good things to come.
Another lovely winter solstice tradition is to give a gift, offering, or sacrifice. This time of year, we put out bird seed in recognition that even our feathery friends might be in need. It’s a time when we must give what we can because we do not know if our neighbors have enough for winter.
In honor of the return of the sun, it’s also a wonderful time to bring fire into your world. You can light a candle or have a bonfire, sit by the fireplace, put up twinkle lights, or just spend time in the precious sunshine.
Yule Correspondences
One of the most recognizable symbols of Yule is evergreen. But this doesn’t just mean pine and spruce trees. Mistletoe is also evergreen, and was thought to bring the properties of whichever tree it grew on. Holly and ivy are also traditional evergreen Yule plants. Animals that correspond to Yule might be squirrels, deer, owls, ravens, or bears.
Food that evokes the Winter Solstice are oranges, apples, gingerbread, fruitcake, cinnamon, root vegetables, and game meat. The colors that correspond to Yule are those of the sun and holly: red, green, and gold. You might also choose to reflect the colors of the land this time of year: white, blue, silver and black. Crystals that correspond to Yule follow the colors: emerald, rubies, diamonds, bloodstones, garnets, and quartz are just a few. Wreaths, candles, stars, and bells can also be used to represent this time of year.
Any of these correspondences, whether they be plants or colors, can be used to bring the joy and meaning of the season into your life. Anything you do with intention can help connect you to the turning of the Wheel of the Year. So break out your owl pictures, hang some mistletoe, light some candles, or eat an apple — it’s all ritual and celebration!
Yule Rituals for Writers
Here are some ideas about how to celebrate Winter Solstice. These Yule ideas are geared particularly at writers, as they are ways to connect with your creativity and your craft this holiday season. However, I’ve tried to leave them open-ended enough that they can act as Winter Solstice celebration ideas for anyone who wants to connect more with the season and the land. It’s a great time to reflect, be generous, take some time for yourself, and dream about the year to come.
Start a journal. It is time to go inward. Like the land, we can pull into ourselves so that we can grow even more next year. One way for writers in particular to connect with this inward-facing energy is to journal. Use one of those nice notebooks you haven’t touched. Use some of the prompts below that call to you. You might choose to start a daily practice, or to journal through the twelve days of Yule. Use your words to discover yourself.
Write the story of your year. As the year comes to an end, write about the key events of the year. What have you accomplished? What have you overcome? What is the overarching narrative of the year? What has changed? How have you grown?
Give gifts. What do you have to give, in terms of your writing life? Could you give lessons, encouragement, or even your writing itself? You have gifts to give, and giving can connect you to a community. How can you be generous this season?
Set intentions and make wishes. It’s a particularly good time of year to think about what you want to grow in your life. As the light comes back, take some time to think about the big picture dreams you are trying to nurture. It may not quite be time to set particular goals and make a plan, but explore your thoughts and intuition to dream about the potential for the coming year. Why are you writing? Is it to make money? To inspire people? To entertain? How can you grow into your fullest potential this year? What would it look like? It’s a great time to make a vision board.
Rest. Like the earth. As the world sits in stillness and waits for the light to come back, the animals, plants, and fungi outside are resting up for all the growth that is to come. We too need rest. This can be a busy time of year, and if you are anything like me, you have a huge to-do list of all the projects to complete, holiday plans to make, travel, and festivities. But these expectations of busyness at this slow and calm time of year makes it all the more important for us to be conscientious about the rest we are getting. Allow yourself to enjoy the time with others and to rest.
Winter Solstice Writing Prompts
Here are 30 Yule writing prompts to help you connect with your intuition and creativity at this powerful time of year. I have purposefully created these prompts to be interpreted in many ways, as inspiration for creative projects like poetry, fiction, or personal essays, or as Yule journal prompts. Don’t worry too much about what they mean. Instead, let your creativity fly with whatever comes to mind. It’s an especially good time of year to use these as winter solstice journal prompts, letting you turn inward to reflect and see what your imagination holds.
Write about a time of starvation.
Write a narrative that begins with finding a word written in the snow.
Start with a memory of a smell you associate with winter.
Write about an unexpected creature killed during a hunt.
Write about your biggest accomplishment this year. What kind of future does it propel you into?
Write about a scarcity.
You kiss someone under the mistletoe, and in that kiss, you gain some of their powers.
Write about what happens when the light comes back.
Listen to your dreams. Go to bed with a notebook and pen on your bedside, trying to remember your dreams. When you do remember your dream, write it down. Start your writing there.
Write the story of the next year. Pull one tarot card (If you don’t have a deck, you can use this.) per month, and write the story that comes up.
Write about giving birth to the sun.
Write about overcoming the darkness.
Go outside if you can. Take a walk with no set destination and let your intuition guide you. Write about where you end up.
Write about the naughty list.
Write about a party that lasts as long as the ale keeps flowing.
What percentage of your day is darkness on Winter Solstice? Do an erasure of a text that blacks out that percentage of the words.
Look at the variety of paints in the color white from Sherwin Williams. Pick one that is evocative to you. Start your story with the name of the color.
Write about a fire that burns all year.
Write a story that begins with an ending.
Find out how long the shortest day is where you live. Write a story that takes place in that amount of time.
Write about the first sunrise after the long dark.
It’s not an easy time of year, but it is one of my favorites. As a girl who originally grew up in Florida, I couldn’t have imagined loving the world when it was forty below. But there’s something otherworldly and magical about the landscape of the north at this time of year. Everything, the trees especially, is dusted with hoarfrost, like icing on every surface. The snowflakes are distinct and glistening, which my four year old calls “glitter snow.” And the entire day is a sunrise or a sunset, depending on how you choose to look at it.
Either way, the light turns from pink to blue and slants across the ice to reflect on itself again and again so that the whole world is sparkling. And there’s something about the way that the air nips your cheeks that reminds you to be grateful that you are alive — that even if the sun isn’t shining, just existing is enough.
As I finish writing this, it is 12:18pm and already the sun has begun to set. The hills around us are pink with alpenglow and the snow is taking on the icy blue of twilight. There are hundreds of boreal chickadees in the yard. They are shaking the birch trees so that their seeds fall from their catkins and litter the snow. Even in these darkest of times, the land is preparing for new growth, and we can, too.
If you are looking for more prompts and rituals based on the Wheel of the Year, you can find them here. For more creative writing prompts, look here. For more ideas about how to deepen your writing practice with rituals, check out this post.
Samhain is celebrated on October 31st and November 1st. This post contains magical writing prompts for Halloween, Samhain rituals for writers, correspondences, history, and the meaning of Samhain to help artists connect their craft to the season and find more creativity and inspiration. Prompts can be used as Halloween creative writing prompts or Samhain journal prompts. This post has ideas for how to celebrate Samhain and use the energy of Halloween to manifest creativity and inspiration for the year to come.
Samhain
The snow has started to fall here. Even the yarrow has given up the ghost, as if the very breath has left the land. There’s an intensity to silence, to the light. Though the sun is not burning as bright, the light that does shine is reflective, bouncing off snowflakes and looking so closely at itself that it shivers.
My husband tells the story that he always wondered why kids in other places got to celebrate Halloween in September, when the leaves were changing, and Alaskans had to celebrate in October, in the snow. He didn’t realize then that the climates were different, but not the dates. It may not be traditional to have snow on Samhain, but it feels appropriate. If you listen closely, you can hear the heartiest of plants begin to wilt. The world is blanketed over now, put to bed. It’s quiet enough that you can almost hear the shadows and the ghosts of those you’ve loved.
This year, as a very late first snow fell, we raced around pulling up our kohlrabi, harvesting more kale than we could possibly eat (Would you like some kale?! Please take some kale!), and processing as much as we could before warming our frozen fingers around bowls of soup.
What is Samhain?
Samhain (pronounced sah-win) is celebrated on October 31st and November 1st and shares a lot of the traditions and symbolism of Halloween, All Hallow’s Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day. It is the day when the veil between the worlds is the thinnest. It’s a celebration of the final harvest before winter, of our ancestors, of those we’ve lost, and of death and rebirth.
In the northern hemisphere, Samhain is celebrated from sunset on October 31st to November 1st and in the southern hemisphere it falls between April 30th and May 1. When it is Samhain in the northern hemisphere, it is Beltane in the southern hemisphere and vice versa.
Samhain is the third and last harvest festival in the Wheel of the Year, situated between Mabon and Yule. Traditionally, Samhain is the time to bring in and celebrate the very last of the harvest, all of those fruits and veggies that have held out until the cold begins to threaten: carrots, turnips, pumpkins, apples, berries and squash.
This holiday marks the start of the dark time of year. It is time to turn inward, look backward, and clean the slate for the new growth to come.
Many of the rituals, symbolism, and traditions of Samhain, along with All Soul’s Day, have evolved into the modern celebration of Halloween. The themes and correspondences of Samhain will be very similar to Halloween. Whether you want to celebrate Halloween or Samhain, a lot of the information, observances, and writing prompts in this post will work for both holidays.
In this blog post, I use Samhain and Halloween interchangeably, very conscientiously. For me, it’s a way to bring together the traditions of my childhood and where I live (Halloween) with the traditions of my Irish ancestors (Samhain).
Meaning of Samhain
Samhain is sometimes called the Witch’s New Year, because it begins a whole new cycle of death and rebirth. Though there is traditionally the specter of death this time of year, with skeletons and ghosts and jack-o-lanterns, all of this is also connected with rebirth and new beginnings. The cycle of life requires that old things die to make room for new growth. Samhain is time to make that room.
This is an excellent time to connect with your ancestors. While the veil between the living and the dead is thin, it is thought that our loved ones who have passed are closer than at any other time. How might you reconnect and honor those who have paved the way for you? Maybe it makes sense to do something to honor the people who took care of the land where you live before you were there. Maybe it means your blood relatives. Maybe it’s the most influential people in your life. Or even people you have never met but who have inspired you. What can you learn from them and what roots are you building your foundations on? Is there someone you have lost who you want to connect with? This is the perfect time. Ask for signs, ask for guidance, and then keep an eye out for the answers.
But it’s not just about what our ancestors can do for us. What can you do for your ancestors? Are you honoring their memory? Are you keeping those characteristics that were wonderful about them alive?
It’s also a time to reflect. Because it marks the end of harvest season, it’s a time to take stock of what has grown this year, what has been successful and what has not. As you prepare to make room for new growth, it’s important to look back first and see what worked.
Traditionally, Samhain is a time of faerie tricks and ghosts and other supernatural creatures. Because of this, it’s also a time of offerings to elicit help and protections to ward off evil.
History of Samhain
Samhain was originally celebrated in Ireland and Wales (shout out to the motherland!). It’s one of the four fire festivals that marked the seasons of the ancient Celtic year, the others being Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnasadh. Unlike Mabon, Samhain is quite an old festival, being found in some of the oldest Irish texts, dating back to the ninth century. There are even prehistoric tombs in Ireland that align with the sunrise on Samhain.
Bonfires were lit, emulating the sun and helping to give it strength as the light began to wane. They were also used for burning and banishing negative energies and spirits. Often, these community bonfires were used to light the hearths of homes for the rest of the winter.
Divination was also an important part of Samhain. As the door between the spirit world and the material world is open, we have the opportunity to gain insight that is not always available to us. Traditionally, this might be done with fire, by bobbing apples, and cracking nuts.
Given that the line between worlds is hazy, it was a time to honor ancestors and help lost souls find their way to the underworld. It was also a time when the fairies and spirits were out and about. Faces carved into turnips or beets, the precursor to our modern jack-o-lanterns, were said to both honor the dead and also acted as protection from spirits with more nefarious purposes.
It was also a time for costumes and disguises. People would dress up and go house to house, asking for food or treats. In some cases, revelers would dress as those who had passed, asking for offerings, while in other areas, the disguises were needed to confuse and ward off the evil spirits that had passed through the veil.
Samhain Correspondences and Symbolism
Samhain is a celebration of the dark side of fall. It’s a time to honor the beauty that comes as the landscape dies back. Pumpkins, jack o’lanterns, autumn leaves, and apples are all seasonally appropriate. So are symbols of death: skulls, zombies, skeletons, etc. You might also bring out things that remind you of loved ones who have passed: photographs, old possessions, things that remind you of them. All of these can make excellent symbols of the season.
Any of these correspondences and symbols can be used to decorate your workspace, as your desktop or phone background, or even as something to wear. You might pull some of these correspondences into your Samhain altar, your desk, or the colors of pens you use.
Colors of Samhain
If you live in a place where it is not quite winter, the colors of the season will be what you see when you look out the window: red, orange, and brown. Other colors are those outside the window once the snow flies: black and white. Decking out our desks or our selves in the colors of the season can go a long way in reminding us the lessons of this time of year.
Foods for Samhain
Apples, squash, nuts, berries and bread are all great celebratory foods for Samhain. Parsnips, carrots and turnips are also very traditional! Pumpkins are not traditional, of course, but are definitely seasonal, especially if you are in North America. Everything that captures that end-of-harvest feeling. Even wild game can be a meaningful way to celebrate this season, if you are into that kind of thing. Rosemary and sage are also great herbs that help capture the magic of this time of year.
Pumpkin spice is also a good way to honor this time of year. Cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg are traditionally used to keep evil spirits away. (What does it say about me that I don’t like these spices?) So if you are a pumpkin spice person, anything with these spices is good for this time of year.
It’s also a great time for warm drinks: teas, hot chocolates, cider, mulled wine, hot toddies! You need something to keep your soul and your hands warm as the temperatures start to drop.
Every Sabbat is a great time for a feast. And this holiday in particular invites us to set out offerings for those who have passed. When we are honoring my grandfather, we always have Heineken (Pour one out for Grandpa!). But you might also set aside some of your feast, or set a place for loved ones who can only be there in spirit.
Crystals for Samhain
The crystals for Samhain include a few different types: those that enhance our intuition and psychic abilities, those for protection, and those for connecting with death and the spirit world. There is a lot of crossover, of course. Labradorite, obsidian, and fluorite can heighten divination and magical activities. Smoky quartz, amethyst, and hematite can help ground and protect you as the veil is thin. Bloodstone, carnelian, and petrified wood correspond to those who have passed and our ancestral roots.
You can connect with these stones by wearing them, or setting them on your writing desk or on your altar. Sometimes a little bit of sparkle that catches your eye can be a powerful recurring reminder of what you are trying to cultivate this season.
Samhain Rituals for Writers
There are quite a few writing-oriented ways that you can use the energy of Halloween to further your writing practice, and especially to hone your craft as an artist. It’s a great time to connect with your roots, reflect, let go, and set yourself up for the rest of the year. Here are some ideas for Samhain rituals that can also support your writing and creativity.
Connect with your literary ancestors. Who made you first want to write? What was the first book you read that lit your creative spark? Which authors have influenced you? It’s time to connect with those roots, with those who have come before us. Pick up your old favorite book. Read what your idols said about their writing practices or their craft advice. What has shaped and influenced you, and what have you learned from them? What can you still learn? It’s time to honor that, and give thanks to those who have paved the way.
Simmer pot! I also suggested a Simmer Pot for Mabon, and I might suggest one for Yule, too. In my opinion, all of these “pumpkin spice” holidays lend themselves to beautiful simmer pots. There’s something cozy about a pot of spices and herbs bubbling in the kitchen. To make a writing simmer pot, simmer a large pot of water and add herbs, fruits, and scents that represent what you want to put out into the world. You might choose to write your intentions on bay leaves or basil so you are clear about what your wishes are.
Reflect. This is a great time to work with mirrors, both actually and metaphorically. This is a time when you are working to wipe the slate clean and make room for new growth in your life. How can you do this with your writing practices? Which of your writing goals are serving you and which are not? What do you need to let die? Habits? Beliefs?
Use divination. What do you need to know to take your writing practice to the next level? This is the most perfect time of year to ask those questions and get some answers. You might ask your intuition, the universe, God, your ancestors or whatever feels comfortable for you. Make a list of questions you have been seeking answers to and ask for help. You could use tarot cards, tea leaves, meditation or any divination technique that works for you. Remember to keep your eyes out for signs.
Dress the part. It’s an excellent time to try on new costumes, and disguise yourself. How might you dress in a way that can support your writing practice? How would it feel to write dressed as Dickinson or Hemingway? What about your main character? Or your ideal of the writer you want to be? Sometimes shaking up our look can open new doors to creativity and inspiration. Have fun with it!
Protect your practice. What is threatening your writing craft? What do you need to protect to enhance your writing practice? Your space? Your energy? Your mental health? Your time? Create a plan or a ritual to protect what needs to be protected as we settle in for the winter.
Plan for the year to come. As Samhain is also a celebration of rebirth, it is a good time, once again to craft a plan for your writing practice. What are you hoping to accomplish in the coming year, or the coming six months? How do you hope to grow as an artist and what steps are you going to take to support that growth? As you reflect on what you’ve harvested and clear space for new growth, it’s also a powerful time to think about what it is you want to plant in the future. It’s time to dream big!
Samhain Writing Prompts
Here are 30 Samhain writing prompts to help harvest your ideas. I have created these prompts to be interpreted in many ways, so don’t worry about “what it means.” Just let yourself write and see where your creativity takes you.
Many of these Halloween-y writing prompts are intended as inspiration for creative projects like poetry, short stories, or memoir. However, I’ve tried to leave them open-ended enough that they can also function as Samhain journal prompts. How can you explore yourself through these lenses? Have fun with it!
Go outside and find something that is dying. What is the destiny of this thing? What happens to them in the underworld or afterlife?
Write a story about a ouija board session gone terribly wrong.
Emulate your literary ancestors. Tell your story in the style of your favorite writer. How would they say it? What kinds of language, sentence structure, and dialogue might they use?
Write about someone who marries into the underworld.
Do an erasure of your favorite scary story. Don’t have one in mind? Check out the stories here and here.
Write a story that begins with passing through a veil.
You look in the mirror. What you see is your worst nightmare.
Write about a soul who passes back through the door to the living, only to find the world is very different than they left it.
Write about an undead horseman who brings messages from beyond the grave.
Create a recipe for the dead.
Write about a drunken pact made with the devil.
For your Samhain feast, you leave out a plate for the dead. In the middle of dinner, an unexpected visitor sits at the empty place setting.
Write about a musician who emerges from the underworld and puts everyone to sleep with his songs.
Find one of these Death tarot cards in which the picture speaks to you. (If you have a favorite deck, you can also pull your card from there.) Look deeply at the picture. What is the story? What are the images on this card trying to say to you in particular?
Write about tricking the dead by wearing a disguise.
Do some divination. Next time you have tea or coffee, look closely at the grounds. What do you see? Start your story there.
Write a story about guiding a lost soul to its final resting place.
What comes inside when you leave the window open while the veil between the worlds is thin?
Write about an evil spirit who is thwarted by pumpkin spice.
Find a grave. Use the findagrave website to find the grave of someone important to you. This might be a hero, an ancestor, someone with your same name. Try to find one with a photograph. Imagine yourself at the grave, and start your story there. (Shout out to Katie Andrews Porter for introducing me to findagrave!)
As we approach Samhain in the far north, it feels like new beginnings here, like a clean slate. The garden is put to bed. We have planted garlic, so even the seeds of next year’s first harvest have already been planted. The world is blanketed in snow and for a moment, and the spiritual world feels so close, as we shepherd the land to sleep.
“I love winter!” my four-year-old says, on the first day it snows. And in this moment, she does. I can’t help but wonder if she will feel the same way in six months. Luckily, the Wheel of the Year is constantly turning. Just as our feelings about the snow may not stay stagnant, nor will the land outside. More than any other holiday, Samhain reminds us that the wheel is always turning, that what grows must also die, and that what dies makes way for new growth. Sometimes we need to look back and let go in order to move forward.
If you are looking for more prompts and rituals based on the Wheel of the Year, you can find them here. For more creative writing prompts, look here. For more ideas about how to deepen your writing practice with rituals, check out this post.
Mabon, or pagan Thanksgiving, is celebrated on the autumn equinox. This post contains witchy writing prompts for fall equinox, Mabon rituals for writers, autumn correspondences, history, and the meaning of Mabon to help artists connect their craft to the season and find more creativity and inspiration. They can be used as autumn creative writing prompts or Mabon journal prompts. Use these fall ritual ideas to spark your imagination and decide how you want to celebrate the autumn equinox.
Change is in the air, here. Each morning on the drive down the hill to school, my daughter calls out, “It’s looking a lot like fall out here!” from her carseat. As much as I may be resisting it, she’s right. Mushrooms are coming up. The sky feels crisper. The aspens are turning pink. If I embrace the present at this time of year, it really is beautiful.
In our garden, we currently have more than we can eat. I have been trying to get everyone I see to take my kale. But it is also becoming clear which plants will not have the chance to ripen before the temperatures drop (I’m looking at you, winter squash and peppers).
What is Mabon?
Mabon, which happens on the fall equinox, is the time of year when the earth is balanced between summer and winter. It’s known as the pagan Thanksgiving, the season of feasting and harvest, and a season to begin to prepare for the winter. There is balance between the light and the dark.
It is the first official day of autumn. In the northern hemisphere, Mabon falls between September 21 and September 24. In the southern hemisphere, it takes place around March 20th. (Note: Google will let you know the exact time of balance for this year!) When it is Mabon in the northern hemisphere, it is Ostara in the southern hemisphere and vice versa.
Mabon is the second harvest, situated on the Wheel of the Year between Lugnasadh (the first harvest) and Samhain (the last harvest). It is the height of harvest season. We are reaping what we have sown this year, and feeling the abundance that has come as a result of our hard work.
Meaning of Mabon
“Mabon” is a relatively new holiday, the term being coined in the 1970s(!). It was named after the Welsh god Mabon ap Modron, which means “great son of the great mother.” Legend has it that Mabon was stolen from his mother, the earth goddess, and held prisoner. This is a story which resonates with the tale of Persephone, who is taken from her mother in fall, held in the underworld through winter, and brings spring back to the land when she finally returns.
That being said, many cultures celebrate, and have celebrated, the autumn equinox. There is a lot to celebrate at this time of year. And when you live as far north as I do, it seems like something that you have to mark. The tilt toward winter has begun. It’s time to harvest, slow down, and prepare.
Mabon is a day of balance: there are twelve hours of light and twelve hours of darkness. On this day when the sun fleetingly finds equilibrium, we can begin to take stock of where we are out of balance, and what we can do to bring more harmony into our lives.
This is a time of gratitude because we are harvesting the fruits of everything we’ve worked for through the previous seasons. But as the earth tilts closer toward darkness, we are also called to think about which of our plantings we are going to harvest and preserve (metaphorically), and which we are going to let wither. It’s a time of looking at whether we’ve done enough to make it through winter or whether there is more to do.
It’s time to harvest, but it’s also time to preserve the harvest. How can we set ourselves up for future success? Mabon is an opportunity to turn inward and reflect on what is working and what isn’t.
Because of this, we have to think more seriously about how to prepare for winter. Mother nature is getting ready for the season: seeds are dropping, leaves are changing, and fruit is coming ripe. These are all signs that we, too, should be thinking about how to get ready for the cold.
When we look around us, we can see the trees letting go, telling us to do the same. As the wheel turns this time of year, we are in a prime position to let go of those things that have not served us, give thanks to those things and let them fall away to make space for next year’s growth.
Mabon Correspondences and Symbolism
Mabon is a celebration of the sunny side of fall. It’s a time to honor the beauty that comes when the sun begins to wane: autumn leaves, mushrooms, late summer flowers, and the abundance of the garden. All of these make excellent symbols of the season.
Any of these correspondences and symbols can be used to decorate your workspace, as your desktop or phone background, or even as something to wear. You might pull some of these correspondences into your Mabon altar, your desk, or the colors of pens you use.
Colors of Mabon
The colors of Mabon are the colors of autumn: red, gold, orange, brown, and a deep, dark green. This is one of the times when the earth is screaming out in the colors of the season, bursting with the hues of a setting sun. You only need to look out your window this time of year to decide which colors you can use to celebrate Mabon. Bring those most beautiful fallen leaves inside, decorate your home and yourself with the gilded forest.
Foods for Mabon
Berries! Apples! Grapes (And wine!)! In fact, a whole cornucopia. No, actually. Cornucopias are symbols of Mabon too. This is the height of the harvest season. Everything is coming ripe. Apple pies, cider, berry cobblers, any kind of food that uses what’s coming ripe in the world around you would be a perfect celebration of the season.
Crystals for Mabon
You might have guessed that many of the crystals that correspond to Mabon also correspond to fall colors. Yellow citrine, amber, tiger’s eye, ruby, and jasper can all be used to honor this time of year. You can connect with these stones by wearing them, or setting them on your writing desk or on your altar. Sometimes a little bit of sparkle that catches your eye can be a powerful recurring reminder of what you are trying to cultivate this season.
Mabon Rituals for Writers
There are quite a few writing-oriented ways that you can use the energy of the autumn equinox to further your writing practice, and especially to hone your craft as an artist. It’s a great time to practice gratitude, take stock, let go, and set yourself up for the rest of the year. Here are some ideas for Mabon rituals that can also support your writing and creativity.
Get balanced. Take some time to think about the balance (or lack thereof!) in your life. Do you have a good balance between your creative life and your practical life? Do you have balance between time to work and time to play? How can you bring more balance into your writing practice? Make a plan to make it happen.
Take stock. What had you hoped to harvest by this time of year? What have you harvested that’s unexpected? What worked well and what didn’t help as much as you’d hoped? Take some time to journal for Mabon reflecting on what you are harvesting, what you still wish to harvest, and how the direction of your writingmight have changed.
Let go. Autumn reminds us that there is beauty in letting go. What do you need to let go of so that your creativity can thrive? Have you been holding on to fear? Excuses? Bad habits? Write about what you want to let go of. Write key words on leaves and burn them in a fire. Let your own leaves turn as bright as you can and let them go.
Clear out your writing space. Just like spring, fall can be an excellent time for a general clear-out. While you are letting go of what you don’t need, you can also spruce up your writing space. Clear out that desk so you have room for new ideas. Make your space cozy so you can get yourself ready to dig in for the winter and get writing. Making a writing space that’s your favorite place to be will draw you to the desk as winter starts and put you in the mood for creativity.
Finish Projects. (This one is particularly hitting me this year, as I am trying to finish a book by Mabon!) It’s time to tie up loose ends before winter. How can you get the most from the next harvest? How can you finish the year strong? Which projects can you complete and how can you re-apply yourself? Which projects might have to wait for another time? Get clear on what you want your writing life to look like and focus on that.
Make a writing simmer pot. This one is especially for all of you who are writing at the kitchen table. Fill a soup pot with some water and your favorite scents. You can use apple, cinnamon, and/or sage for seasonal scents. You could use creativity-boosting scents like lavender or lemon. Or any essential oils you like. Write your writing wishes on bay leaves. Simmer the water and scents on low and let the steam send your wishes to the heavens.
Host a literary feast. The autumn equinox is a time for celebration and gratitude. What better way to honor all the things you have to be thankful for than a thanksgathering with your nearest and dearest? Invite your friends and family to bring wine and something to share—maybe the piece of writing they feel most grateful for.
Mabon Writing Prompts
Here are 30 Mabon writing prompts to help harvest your ideas. I have created these prompts to be interpreted in many ways, so don’t worry about “what it means.” Just let yourself write and see where your creativity takes you.
Many of these fall writing prompts are intended as inspiration for creative projects like poetry, short stories, or memoir. However, I’ve tried to leave them open-ended enough that they can also function as autumn equinox journal prompts. How can you explore yourself through these lenses? Have fun with it!
Savor your favorite food. Treat yourself to your favorite food and eat it slowly, paying particular attention to the details of what eating it is like. Write about it in detail. Make it our favorite food, too.
Write about gratitude for something unexpected.
Write about something gained by letting go.
Go on a nature walk and collect what sparks your interest: acorns, pretty leaves, even human-made debris. Write a piece in which one of these features prominently.
Write about a child being held in the underworld.
Write about the longest sunset.
Create a recipe for getting through winter.
Write about using the first artificial light.
Write about what’s hidden under the fallen leaves.
Choose one of the crystals associated with Mabon. Research its properties. How is it formed and transformed into the stone it is? Write a character undergoing the same transformation.
Write about harvesting a forbidden fruit.
Write about being stuck in the middle.
Mine your memories. Think of a time when everything felt in perfect harmony. Start your story there.
Write about something blossoming too late.
Write about a god making their exit.
Find a place with a lot of fallen leaves and explore in the detritus. Write about what you find.
Write about the takeover of pumpkin spice.
Write about a harvest that’s not enough.
Research a mushroom. Use its properties to develop a character personality. Is it deadly? Beautiful? Parasitic? Psychedelic? What would this mushroom be like as a character? What would they do? How would they act?
Write about someone tilting toward the dark side.
Find several colors of one kind of leaf and order them from newest to oldest. Describe the change that the leaf goes through in detail, from the perspective of the leaf.
Check out the Justice tarot card (if you don’t have your own deck, here are a ton of images of the Justice card). What is the story that you see in the picture of this card? What is the meaning? Show us how this relates to balance, to equinox.
Write a story about perfect timing.
Write about the biggest blessing of the year.
Write about something that needs to be preserved, and how to do it.
The sun is setting noticeably earlier, which also means there’s more chance of seeing the aurora borealis. We are using the lights more, and seeing the stars more. There are plants that need to go outside and will die, because it is clear they are not going to fruit. There are plants that need to come inside and will be nurtured, because I can’t get through a winter without greenery.
If we can live in the harmony and the balance of the present moment, we can see just how beautiful the cycles of the seasons are. The way each one can leave us with new fruits and new wonders. But there’s also a call to look inward, to prepare yourself and your writing for the changes to come. There is so much to be grateful for, so much to preserve, and still so much work to do.
If you are looking for more prompts and rituals based on the Wheel of the Year, you can find them here. For more creative writing prompts, look here. For more ideas about how to deepen your writing practice with rituals, check out this post. And if you’re in the southern hemisphere, you can find the
Litha, the summer solstice, is a time when the earth is bursting with creativity and a time when writers can get inspired by the sun and let their writing shine. This post has ideas for how to connect with the summer solstice, also called midsummer and Litha. It includes an explanation of the holiday, Litha correspondences, summer writing ideas, summer solstice rituals for writers, ideas for how to celebrate Litha, and creative writing prompts that can also be used as Litha journal prompts.
Summer Solstice
The summer solstice is one of my favorite times of year. In truth, I never noticed the turning of the Wheel of the Year until I moved to Alaska. Here, you can’t ignore the changes of the seasons. You don’t just notice them, you plan your life around them. In a matter of weeks, our yard went from several feet of snow to wildflowers. These kinds of transitions beg to be marked and celebrated. It feeds the soul to take a look outside and let yourself sync with the seasons, to let go when the trees let go and shine bright when the sun does too.
This post is an ode to those brightest of days, summer solstice. In our yard, roses, dandelions, and strawberries are just starting to bloom. The garden is taking root and it doesn’t get dark anymore. The air is abuzz with sunshine, mosquitoes, and bees. I can feel the energy all around and I want to connect with that energy, to infuse my writing with that energy, to let the heat of the sun light my words on fire.
Here are some ideas about useful ways to think about Litha, writing rituals to help embrace that potent longest day of summer energy, and a month’s worth of creative writing prompts inspired by the summer solstice. I hope they help you find calm, connect with the world around you, and create something beautiful.
What is Litha?
Litha is the pagan celebration of the summer solstice. The summer solstice is the longest day of the year. Astronomically, the summer solstice can hit its peak any time between June 20th and June 22nd in the Northern Hemisphere, while the Southern Hemisphere will feel the full strength of the solstice between December 20th and 23rd. When it is Litha in the northern hemisphere, it is Yule in the summer hemisphere and vice versa. It’s a time when the sun seems to stand still, frozen at the pinnacle of its strength.
This holiday is all about the sun. Litha is a time when everything reaches its peak: the sun, summer, the flowers, the trees. The world is bursting with life. The goddess is at the height of her pregnancy, ready to bring forth the fecundity and harvest of the earth.
But there is another side to the summer solstice that is often overlooked. It’s also the day that the power of the sun will begin to wane. As all things happen in due time, so too does the sun begin to cede its power to the night.
Litha Correspondences
One of the easiest ways to celebrate any holiday is to bring out the colors that correspond to that day. For Litha, think anything sun-like or fire-like: red, orange, yellow, gold, and brown all fit the bill. You can think of crystals in the same way. Many of the crystals that correspond to Litha are fiery, solar colors: carnelian, tiger’s eye, citrine, and sunstone can all help represent that height-of-summer energy.
All flowers are midsummer appropriate, in my book. To get especially deep into the holiday, you could use flowers that look like the sun: dandelions, daisies, marigolds, chamomile, and of course sunflowers are good examples. Also, the flowers that are currently in bloom locally are always a great choice.
There is a legend that summer solstice is the day that the Oak King gives up the throne to the Holly King, marking the turn into the darker time of the year. Because of this, oak and holly are both great to work with at this time of year.
All kinds of herbs might also be ready to be harvested around this time, and the peak of the sun’s strength is also associated with the peak of the herb’s strength. It’s a beautiful time to forage herbs or pick the herbs in your garden. If you don’t know your local herbs, summer solstice, when the herbs are at their most vibrant, is a lovely time to get to know them.
For feasting, honey is the quintessential Litha food. Edible flowers are perfect for that midsummer feel (We love deep-fried dandelions in our house, but I assume they are not traditional!). Citrus fruits and strawberries also taste like the height of summer. This is one holiday where fresh herbs will never go amiss.
Litha Rituals
Suncatcher
The summer solstice ritual I am most excited about starting this year is to make a suncatcher. Making one and hanging it in your space on the longest day helps to act as a reminder of the light of our nearest star, even on dark days. It can help spread more light and joy around your home as it reflects sunlight through your window.
Flower Crown
This Litha ritual is almost instinctive. The pull of the flowers in midsummer is irresistible and they beg to be made into a crown. I, and countless others, have probably made flower crowns without thinking of it as a summer solstice ritual. There is just something primal and beautiful about adorning your crown with the bounty of the summer. Let the beauty of the flowers inspire your thoughts and your words.
Bonfire
Though Litha is not one of “the” pagan fire festivals, fire features prominently. It’s hard to celebrate the fullness of the sun without celebrating fire. Traditionally, Litha was sometimes marked by a whole-night-long bonfire, from sunset the night before solstice (Midsummer’s Eve) to the sunrise on the morning of the longest day. Even if this bonfire-marathon is not available to you, you can have a BBQ, light a candle, or turn on your salt-lamp. Even small things can remind you of the light and life-giving power of the sun.
Mandala
This is a particularly personal summer solstice for our family. This is a Litha ritual that we actually have done every solstice — summer and winter — since The Surfing Novelist and I got together. In our own family solstice ritual, we collect the bounty of the season: flowers, rocks, catkins, whatever speaks to us. Then we use those things to create a circular mandala pattern. When we are done, we let the mandala stay where it is outdoors, letting the birds pick away at it and the flowers wilt as a reminder of the seasons passing.
Mandalas of years past
Why Litha Matters for Writers
Solstices are incredibly powerful times and intense turning points. Summer solstice especially so. The world around us is bursting with its fullest potential, and you can be too. If you have been feeling like you want to step into your power, to live up to your potential, to really shine, then Litha is a great time to harness the energy of the growth happening all around you. Follow nature’s lead and let yourself be bursting: confident, creative, shining!
Sometimes as writers, we really need that push to get our work out there, that boost of confidence that our words matter, even if it is only to us. Litha is a great time to hone your inner sun, to step into your potential and let your stories shine.
Litha also represents the height of creative potential. The creativity of the land is blossoming all around us, and asking us as artists to blossom as well. Now is the time to let the fire within you burn, to follow your nature and express your true self.
How to Celebrate Litha as a Writer
Here are some ideas about how to use the power of the summer solstice to connect more deeply with your writing practice. Use the one(s) that speak most to you. Intuitively, you know what will help spark your creativity and inspiration, so feel free to tweak these ideas and make them all your own.
Reconnect with your goals. The wheel of the year has turned halfway. If you set goals at the beginning of the year, look back and see the progress you have made. Give yourself some love for how far you’ve come, even if it’s not as far as you might have wanted. What about the plans for the rest of the year? Do you need a new direction? Are there goals that you are ready to go after? Or goals you are ready to let go of?
Build your confidence. The sun shines confidently and powerfully, especially on Litha. It’s an opportune time to work on shining confidently and powerfully as well. Think about things you could do to help you build your confidence. I’m not talking about things that are dependent on others, like getting accepted to a magazine. I’m talking about things you can do. Share your poetry with friends, publish a story on Wattpad, start or join a writing group. What are some things you can do to make yourself feel more confident about your writing? Make a list and start doing them!
Write from sun down to sun up. It’s the shortest night, and one way to mark that is to write until the sun comes up. Where I live, the time is about two and a half hours between sunset and sunrise. Find out what the times of sunrise and sunset are, grab some wine, and let your fingers dance all night.
Write in a fiery place. If any day of the year is one to be outside, this is it. Jumpstart your creativity by writing in a new place or new situation. Particularly midsummer-y ideas are to write by bonfire, in the forest, or while sunbathing.
Do a writing ritual to connect with your creativity. Y’all know I love my writing rituals. Here’s one especially designed to boost your creativity.
Charge your writing. Use the energy of the sun to give your current WIP or your writing tools a boost. Find something that represents your writing: a copy of your manuscript, your favorite pen, a new notebook. Leave this item in the sun from sunrise to sunset, so it can absorb the entirety of the sun’s power. Make sure it isn’t something too precious (For the love of goddess, do not put your only copy of your manuscript or your laptop outside all day!). Alternatively, you can leave it inside next to a sunny window.
Let go. Like the sun, we all need to ebb and flow. What is holding you back from reaching your fullest potential? Are there people, situations, or beliefs that are standing in your way? As the earth begins to tilt away from the sun, you can use this energy to move closer toward your most potent self by letting go of those things that no longer serve you. Write them on a paper. Throw them in a bonfire. Let them go.
30 Litha Writing Prompts
Here are 30 summer solstice prompts to help get your creative fires burning! I have created these prompts to be interpreted in many ways, so don’t worry about “what it means.” Just let yourself get writing and see where the little jog of your creativity takes you.
Many of these prompts are intended as inspiration for creative projects, like poetry, short stories, or memoir. However, I’ve tried to leave them open-ended enough that they can also function as summer solstice journal prompts. Imagine yourself as the main character. How would you react in these new or different situations and what can your behavior tell you about yourself?
Write a story about a character whose fate is changed when they jump over the fire.
Write from the perspective of bees.
Go for a walk and note the first yellow thing you see. Use this in your first sentence.
Write about what happens when the sun doesn’t set.
Find a flower that calls to you. Do a bit of research about its reproductive processes. Write about people who undergo these processes.
Write something that features a medicinal herb.
Craft a story that centers around something that has stopped growing.
Write a story that takes place over the course of the shortest night.
If you were an herb, what sort would you be?
Write what happens when the fairies come out.
Create a character who starts their story at their peak. It all gets darker from here.
Write from the point of view of the sun.
What’s the first word that comes to mind when you think of the summer solstice? Type this word into relatedwords.org and use as many of the words that come up as possible.
Write about the freshest feast.
Create a narrative that takes place entirely in a ‘tween-time, when everything is standing still but also in transition.
Write about the sunrise after the longest day.
Let yourself go skyclad and write about it.
Write about a pregnant goddess on the eve of giving birth.
Pull the Sun tarot card. (If you don’t have a deck, you can find pictures of the sun card online. I particularly like this one.) Looking at only the picture (Don’t use the description!), write everything that comes to mind. Don’t stop writing for ten minutes.
Craft a piece that centers around a meal that has been foraged.
Write about a dance that never ends.
Listen to fire. Light a candle or a small (safe!) bonfire and watch the flames. What do you see? Make a list of everything you see in the fire (Think looking for shapes in the clouds — but with flames!). When you feel you have a good list, create a piece that includes everything you saw.
Open a book to the exact middle page, and find the exact middle sentence on that page. Use this sentence to begin your own piece.
I hope you enjoy these writing prompts for summer solstice and that these seasonal writing rituals help you connect a little more, create a little more, and let your inner light shine. Litha is summer, it is light. It is the full flowering of the fecundity of the earth. This is the time of year to spread your arms to the universe, or at least to your backyard, and let yourself burn as bright as you can. Collapse on the earth and contemplate the universe, then sleep deeply and wake up to the year’s next moment of change.
Do you have summer solstice traditions that you observe? How are you going to celebrate? Our family will be making our traditional mandala, and this year I am hoping to introduce the little one to suncatchers. I personally am hoping for the chance to write through the shortest night. If you use any of these prompts or rituals, please let me know how it goes.
If you are looking for more prompts and rituals based on the Wheel of the Year, you can find them here. For more creative writing prompts, look here. For more ideas about how to deepen your writing practice with rituals, check out this post.
Teach Your Daughters to Love the Moon is a mother’s manifesto about how to raise daughters who burn, flow, hunt, sow, bare, howl, and shine. Now more than ever, we need to raise strong women who are in touch with nature and themselves.
Teach your daughters to burn. Teach them to fly their flaming chariots across the sky, even in daytime when the sun can see.
Teach them to turn their faces toward the light even when it is dark, and that the darkness can help them see the stars and allow them to appreciate the smallest specks of light.
Teach them that if they dare to glow the ocean will reflect their light, sending ripples in all directions.
Teach your daughters to flow. Teach them to allow for phases, for cycles, for the way everything waxes and wanes.
Teach them to sway toward the moon’s pull like the tides, to follow the oceans and currents, to move with the rhythms of the earth and the stars so they can take part in the dance of creativity.
Teach them to love the ebb and flow, to know that sometimes they will be more or less full, but that they will never be stagnant. Every phase is passing and there will always be more growth.
Teach your daughters to hunt. Teach them to learn to listen to the wild inside and around them, and to find their own sustenance so they can survive.
Teach them that even if they are small, they can eclipse much greater forces, for life is all about perspective and sometimes everything will align.
Teach them to embrace their dark side, to know that part of being whole is embracing the fault lines, the craters, and deep seas.
Teach your daughters to sow. Teach them they are always on time, always right where they should be, because time is measured by the way they grow. Teach them that there is a time for planting seeds and a time for letting go. That they can feel that time and reap the harvest.
Teach them that they can be harder than rock and break to pieces in catastrophe and still pull themselves back together into something brighter and more beautiful than before.
Teach them that night is necessary, that dreams and rest and destruction are the things new life is made of.
Teach your daughters to bare. Teach them to be unafraid of moonlight on their skin and comfortable with shadows, comfortable with shades of gray and reflection.
Teach them that they don’t have to be perfectly round or smooth to be beautiful, that even pockmarked and stretched, people will stare in awe, and they will be sublime.
Teach them to love the wax and wane of Luna’s body, the way it grows full and round and the way it becomes a sliver, at just the right times, so that they can also love the wax and wane of their own bodies.
Teach your daughters to howl. Teach them to call their kin and gather beneath the moon’s light, to know that they are more powerful together than they can ever be alone, and that the gravity of a group can support so much more beauty than a rock floating alone.
Teach them to look up, that there are worlds outside themselves, outside their houses and cities and countries. That no matter how small they feel, their actions send ripples across space.
Teach them to search the sky for answers and allow the moon to light the answers within. To know that everything they need is within themselves, precisely because they are part of the whole.
Teach your daughters to shine. Teach them that the world needs their light, their pull, their words, their movement, for life is fuller and brighter with their influence.
Teach your daughters to love the moon because you have shown them how.
Beltane, also known as May Day, is the beginning of summer and a great time to connect with your creativity. This post includes 30 creative writing prompts for Beltane, an explanation of what Beltane symbolizes, some Beltane ritual ideas, and how to celebrate Beltane as a writer.
What is Beltane?
Beltane is a pagan holiday that celebrates the coming of summer. This sabbat takes place around the halfway point between the spring equinox (Ostara) and the summer solstice (Litha). In the Wheel of the Year, it is even considered the first official day of summer. It is a celebration of fire, flowers, passion, romance, and creativity. It is the time of year when the outside world begins to teem with life. Reproduction is on display, from the birds to the bees to the flowers and trees.
Beltane is usually celebrated around May 1, though the exact date of the astrological middle between equinox and solstice can vary quite a bit. Beltane is also known as May Day or May Eve and shares similarities with Walpurgis Nacht and Floralia, the Roman celebration of the flower goddess.
Beltane Rituals
Beltane Fires
Beltane is a fire festival, and bonfires are central in celebrating the holiday. My favorite Beltane ritual is the idea of lighting your hearth from the communal fire. Traditionally, all hearth fires would be put out and people would light their home fires from the larger communal Beltane bonfire. Fires were also used for cleansing and protecting livestock. Fire, even in the form of a candle or small fire in a fire pit can be a great way to mark this day.
May Pole
Perhaps the most famous ritual of May Day is the May Pole. The most recognizable image of the May Pole is that of a large pole with ribbons strung around it. Often in the celebration of the May Pole, participants will erect a large pole or branch and dance around it. Beltane is a time of gathering after the harsh weather of winter, when everyone can finally come together outside and dance.
May Bush
One of the most beautiful traditional rituals for Beltane is the ritual of the May Bush, which is a small tree or even just a branch decorated with flowers and ribbons. The participants could decorate the tree to represent their wishes by writing them on ribbons, decorating the tree with something symbolic of the wish, or making the wish while they decorate. This ritual is easy to adapt to an at-home practice. Anything from decorating a tree in your front yard with ribbons to tying a wish on a favored houseplant will do the trick. Let the life and fertility of the plants around you help you find your own vitality and creativity.
Beltane Symbolism and Correspondences
Beltane is especially known for flowers. Celebrants make wreaths and crowns and adorn themselves, their houses, and their beloved ones in flowers. White, red, yellow, and orange flowers are perfect for celebrating the strength of the sun and the arrival of summer. Hawthorn, birch, and rowan are also associated with this sabbat.
Oats, wine, and dairy are all foods associated with Beltane, so eat some oatmeal cookies after your wine, or drink some oat milk. But also, it’s an ideal holiday for feasting in general, so invite over some friends and be merry.
In case all the fires and phallic poles and vulvic flowers didn’t tip you off, this particular sabbat is also associated with romance and sacred sex. Beltane is often seen as the time of year that gods and goddesses come together to copulate and marry, so it can be associated with weddings, love, lust, and new unions.
Colors associated with Beltane are green, silver, white, and the fiery romantic colors: red, pink, yellow and orange. In the same vein, crystals of these colors can also be used around Beltane. Emerald, malachite, carnelian, rose quartz, garnet, and bloodstone are all excellent crystals to celebrate this time of year.
How to Celebrate Beltane as a Writer
For writers, Beltane offers new, exciting ways to connect with the creative energies around us and inside us. As the landscape bursts forth with new life, so too can we find these fertile forces in ourselves and our own writing practices. If you have felt stuck as the winter dragged on, or are looking for something new and inspiring to light your writing fire, Beltane is the ideal time to act on those impulses. Here are some ideas for how to bring the celebratory, fiery, creative energy of Beltane into your writing practice.
Experiment. Beltane is an excellent time to let yourself play, let yourself dance around the metaphorical fire of your writing. Try new prompts. Try a new form. Draw your story. Beltane is a great time to try something new and see where the fires of creativity take you.
Honor your ancestors. At Beltane, like at Samhain, the veil between worlds is thin. This is an ideal time to think about your literary foremothers. Who has inspired you and your writing? Reread the things that lit your literary fires and let yourself reconnect to what got you writing in the first place.
Lose yourself in music. Have you been wanting to create a writing playlist? To find music that helps you write? To create your own background music? Beltane is an optimal time to immerse yourself in the ecstasy and rapture that music can add to your writing practice.
Let nature guide you. Take your writing utensils outside and let nature be your muse. Find a flower, animal or tree to inspire you. You could use this prompt about plants, or just allow a nature bath to renew your writing.
Light your candle from the communal fire. As we all begin to come outside and rejoice in the warmth of the sunshine, it’s an excellent time to connect with other writers. Join or start a writing group. Attend literary events or conferences. Find community that will inspire you and get your creative juices flowing.
Start a union. Beltane is also a fortuitous time to hook up with other writers (did you see what I did there?). Find an artist or another writer whom you’ve always wanted to collaborate with and ask! Beltane will be supporting the endeavor!
Adorn yourself. Perhaps you are the kind of writer who is inspired to wear flowers in their hair. Ahem. Or perhaps some bright red lipstick, a new scent, or a particularly special piece of jewelry might help you connect to a different side of yourself as a writer.
Adorn your space. If your writing space is a little on the tired side, this is a great time of year to introduce plants, flowers, and fire elements. Buy a bouquet for your writing space and see if the beauty of the flowers rubs off on your writing. Get a new candle or a new plant to help transform your office (or kitchen table) into a place where magic can happen.
Explore your sensual side. If ever there were a time of year to explore the more sexual side of your writing, this is it. If you’ve wondered about spicing up your stories or trying your hand at writing romance or erotica, Beltane is ideal.
Creative Writing Prompts for Beltane
Write about a marriage that happens when the veil is thin.
Write about two characters whose hands are fasted together.
Use music as inspiration. Put on something entrancing and just let yourself write whatever comes to mind.
Write about a sexual fire being rekindled.
Start a collaboration. Find another writer or artist who inspires you and create a story, poem, or work of art together.
Write about a romance that sets the world on fire.
Write about a union that starts at the May Pole.
Write about a dance that changes everything.
Spend time in a wooded area and listen for nature spirits or fairies. What do they tell you? What are their stories?
Write about a sexual ritual.
Write about what happens when the spirits of nature come out to play.
Use your favorite line from a song as the premise for your own piece of writing.
Write about your wishes.
Create a character who is transformed when they adorn themself with flowers.
Write about an old woman decorating a may bush.
Listen to a tree (bonus points for birch, hawthorn, or rowan, which is also known as mountain ash). Find one particular tree and connect with it. What are its stories? Write what the tree knows.
What are you doing to celebrate? If you use any of these prompts or rituals, please let me know how it goes! Your work could be showcased here.
If you are looking for more prompts and rituals based on sabbats, you can find them here. For more creative writing prompts, look here. If you’re interested in reading creative work based on some of these prompts, they are here. To deepen your writing practice with rituals, check out this post.
The Writer’s Moon is a journal and planner for writers that helps you sync your writing practice to the phases of the moon. It’s a 30-day workbook for deepening your writing practice and getting more intentional and productive with your work by using the energy the moon has on offer. In this author interview, the book’s creator, Alicia Manson discusses her inspiration, her own writing practice, and how to use writing as a spiritual and therapeutic practice.
The Writer’s Moon
The Writer’s Moon by Alicia Manson is a guide that walks you through the process of using the energy of the moon to enhance your writing practice. You all know I love planning and goal-setting and you all know I love the moon, so I was quite excited when I met Alicia Manson in the Writing by the Moon Facebook group and found she had created a book that combined them both.
The Writer’s Moon has the tagline: Harness the Power of Lunar Energy to Make the Most of Your Time and Accomplish Your Writing Goals, A 30-Day Action Journal. It includes 30 days of goal-setting and journal prompts that help you explore what’s working and what’s not in your writing, and deepen your practice. It includes ideas for incorporating rituals into your writing practice, journal and reflection prompts, and space for goal setting.
The book is designed to begin with the new moon and goes through each phase of one moon, about 30 days of structuring your writing around the lunar phases. The book begins by guiding you through creating goals and brainstorming for the new moon. The majority of the work of writing happens as the moon grows into a full moon. And then as the moon wanes into the third quarter, you are guided to finish up your writing goals, revise, and remember why you are writing in the first place.
The Writer’s Moon is formatted like a workbook or journal, with space to write and answer the questions asked each day. Each day has a little introduction of motivation that follows the phase of the moon and guides you to deepen your practice. Then there are questions that prompt you to set your goals for the day and begin with intention before you write. Finally, there are questions about how everything went, gratitude, and plans for tomorrow that are intended to be answered after you write.
Manson’s book even gives practical tips and advice for writers, whether they are adhering to the moon phases or not. She includes ways to hold yourself accountable, ways to support your writing practice, ways to practice gratitude, and reward yourself for a job well-done.
I personally found that this journal helped me reflect on my writing both before and after the actual act of writing. Prior to this, I had mostly reflected after and it was helpful to do a little bit of thinking and journaling before I got started on my creative work. Also, there were simple ideas for making your writing into more of a ritual, and I find ritualizing your writing to be very useful. There were also simple ways to stick to my writing goals. I especially loved the prompt of gratitude each day, as I found it helpful to incorporate this into my writing routine.
An Interview with Alicia Manson
Alicia graciously offered to answer my questions about her inspiration, the book, and her own writing process.
Q: How did you come up with the idea for creating The Writer’s Moon?
A: The idea for this book came from my own writing process. Like so many writers, I have a lot going on in my life in addition to writing. I want to use my time in the best ways possible. I’ve worked with business/accountability coaches, as well as productivity and organizational experts, and learned there are various strategies to get All The Things done more efficiently; however, there didn’t seem to be many experts or coaches talking about ways in which we use the cycles of the earth or the moon to work more efficiently. This journal goes a bit further than the typical goal-setting book in that it incorporates loving advice, practical tips, as well as mystical solutions to the short-on-time writer. I wanted to put something out there to help writers like me who are incredibly short on time and are open to nature-based approaches to use their time well. I also wanted to show some kindness and encouragement to the writers who are in need of a writing coach, but for whatever reason, haven’t gotten one. This book is a DIY version of a 30-day coaching program. I help the writer using the book feel supported, encouraged, and excited to write. The journal also allows the writers to express themselves and their frustrations, and obstacles, as well as how to work through them. Last, the journal guides the writer on how to utilize the changing energy of the moon to write more efficiently. Just as it’s easier to swim with the current and not against it, it’s easier to do certain types of writing during certain phases of the moon. More fun, too.
Q: Are there other rituals or practices that you incorporate into your writing practice?
A: Absolutely! And I encourage others to explore their own energy patterns and work with those; test out some rituals that may be new to them; switch things up once in a while. Some of the practices I use most are inside The Writer’s Moon. There are endless ways to enhance your writing process, and these practices are also subject to change as we grow as people and as writers. One of my favorite pre-writing rituals is to do something meditative. For me, that means walking, doing yoga, and/or showering. The most effective mid-writing ritual I’ve found is so simple and shockingly helpful: I light a candle. I keep it on my desk in my view. Maybe it’s the power of the fire, or the focus it seems to provide, but I love it. During longer breaks, I go for walks outside. All of these have cleansing and transformative powers that I find necessary for my writing process.
Q: What kinds of books do you write? What kinds of writing projects are you currently working on?
A: I write the books I like to read and use, so I’m currently writing non-fiction and journals. I have several journals I’m using right now, and am currently reading 20 or more non-fiction books. I have several stacks around my room and pick one book each day to read from. My WIPs are much like that- so, so many. If you’d like to keep up with updates, you can follow The Writer’s Moon on IG, Twitter, FB, or subscribe to the newsletter by going to www.thewritersmoon.com. I update from there as I’m coaching, writing, and editing from that space.
Q: Do you have a favorite moon phase? Which is it and why?
A: I have several, but my absolute favorite is the new moon phase. The new moon (or dark moon) is hidden and dormant, and so are we during this phase. In this state of repose, there is room to grow. There is space for ideas to take root. It’s a place where our creativity can simmer, where we can rest, and like during meditation, the universe seems to open up and, if you’re available for it, it’s a time of massive receiving.
Q: How does your writing practice intersect with your spiritual or therapeutic practice?
A: This is the best question ever. These are so intertwined that I’m not sure someone could have one without the other. Journaling has been a part of my spiritual life since I could write, and I’ve used writing as a way to get through family problems, teenage angst, deep love, shocking loss. More recently, journaling has been a way to design my life. I write out often what I plan to do, as if I’m commanding the universe to co-create my future with me. I’m not sure I would have left a friendship that was no longer healthy if I hadn’t explored it deeply by journaling and reflecting on it. I may not have gotten the fulfilling career I’m now excelling at if I hadn’t written down over and over that I’m worthy of a career full of purpose and meaning. In the past 15 years or so, I’ve used automatic writing to explore depths of trauma and heartbreak that I didn’t want to dive into previously. You and I could probably write a book on this subject alone. Writing is a powerful tool in any spiritual or therapeutic practice.
For more on using astrology and the seasons to deepen your writing practice, check here. If you’re looking for more prompts and inspiration, you can find them here. And if you want to learn more about incorporating rituals into your writing practice, you might like this post about designing your own ritual and this ready-made ritual to inspire creativity.
Alicia Manson is an author, editor, and writing coach living in Cincinnati, Ohio. She received her BFA in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University, and was an editor for a Cincinnati publishing company for over 15 years. On weekends and in the evenings, you’d likely find her spending time with her family, walking in the woods, lying in her hammock, playing guitar, or, more likely, writing.
How do you keep writing when it feels like the world is burning? This post offers some advice on how to keep writing in uncertain times. Break through writer’s block and find motivation to write when times are tough. Your writing is important even in difficult times. This post will help you get back to work.
How to Keep Writing When It Feels Like the World Is Burning
I don’t know about you all, but I am tired of living in unprecedented times. It seems like the “unprecedented” hits just keep on coming: wildfires, pandemics, hurricanes, grid failures, winter storms, political strife, and even war.
You are a writer because you feel things, because you see what is happening around you and you’re moved by it. Maybe you are particularly affected by it even, because writing takes a kind of empathy and observation that not everyone has. But this is exactly why you need to do it. It is the most important time for you to make art.
You are a writer—writing is what you are here to do. It’s not selfish of you to keep writing in difficult, uncertain times. In fact, you need to do it.
It’s not easy. Even Toni Morrison wrote about feeling the crushing weight of everything happening in the world and not being able to write because of it. There’s something comforting to me in the idea that even a writer as seasoned and accomplished as Toni Morrison also felt the difficulty of sitting down at the desk in hard times. As important and influential as her work is, she too felt the resistance to creativity when times were tough.
But her advice to herself is important for us all to remember:
“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”
Step 1: Remember Why Writing is Important
This is probably the most important step. If you take no other steps today (even writing!), take this one. Your writing is important. Remind yourself why it is important, why the world needs it. Even if all your writing does is make yourself feel better, that has made the world a better place. Peace begins within each of us. Find your peace.
There are many reasons to keep writing, even in the face of overwhelming global hardships. Here are just a few of them:
Writers bear witness. If you write about what is happening in the world or your experience of current events, you help shape the way that future generations understand the events happening around you. Write what is happening, as you see it.
Writers offer solace. Everyone is having feelings about political situations, global crises, and massive upheavals. Not everyone has the ability to put words to these emotions, but you do, my friend. When you put your thoughts onto the page, you are giving voice to others who may not be able to form their experiences into words. There are others out there who feel the same way you do; giving voice to your experience will also give voice to theirs. It is comforting when you find the words you need to express yourself. It makes people feel seen. Your writing can be a comfort.
Writers offer relief. I know it is not easy to keep writing your fantasy novel when it feels like there is way more important stuff happening in the world. Climate change. Pandemic. War, even. It can be easy to succumb to the feeling that whatever writing you are working on is trivial unless it directly addresses whatever the current problems are. But people don’t just need to be informed or enlightened about what is happening in front of them. Sometimes they also need a break. Sometimes they need to allow themselves to get lost in art so that they can come back to the world refreshed and able to do something. You can offer that break. You can give them that relief.
Step 2: Take care of yourself.
We writers can be sensitive types. This is part of why we are good at writing. But in times like these, being sensitive is not easy. It’s not all creativity and dreaming and intuition. It is also empathy and compassion and suffering at the thought of others suffering. Sometimes it is also vicarious trauma. (Here is a helpful article about how to ease vicarious trauma if you are feeling that.)
If you are not feeling up to writing, you probably need to do something to take care of yourself.
I know there’s a lot of talk these days about self-care, but it really is important. You can’t get to work unless you take care of yourself first. So do what you need to do to get yourself right. Take a walk. Meditate. Take a bath. Bake a cake. Find solace in poetry. Do something to help if that makes you feel better. Whatever you need to do to get yourself in a mindset that is grounded and safe. Here is a huge list of ideas for different ways to take care of yourself. Pick one and help yourself feel better.
You need to take care of yourself so that you can do the necessary work.
Step 3: Change your plans.
I was going to create a post today about candles for creativity, but that seemed ridiculous right now given what’s happening in the world. I am a planner. Every quarter, I make detailed writing plans and I have goals, dammit! But working on that blog post didn’t feel right.
Then there was the part of me that wanted to just have some wine and watch MasterChef and try to tune it all out.
Instead, I am here writing through tears.
It’s not easy. It’s not easy to keep going. There’s suffering and frustration and heartache and sadness and anger and injustice and all of it might be rattling around in your chest, in your brain, in your gut. So maybe writing that meet cute you had planned is simply not going to happen today.
Maybe you need to change your plan. How can you move forward given the emotions you have? Maybe it’s just journaling. Maybe you just need to get your own feelings out so you can get back to your project. Maybe you can channel those feelings into another scene, or another project all together. Or maybe you need to write about what’s happening around you in the best way you can. Give yourself the grace to let go of whatever you had planned to be working on and allow yourself to respond to what you need. That is what the world needs.
Step 4: Channel your feelings.
This brings us to a related step. Change your plans so that you can channel your feelings. Find a way to make something beautiful out of what you are feeling. That is your superpower as a writer, to take conflict and uncomfortable feelings and to make them into something exquisite. There are several ways to do this.
Journal. You might just journal to get your feelings out. This can actually be really helpful in getting yourself to a good place. Maybe it doesn’t feel important to journal, but most writers begin writing because it offers us some kind of relief. If you can get your fears and rage out on the page, they are no longer taking up space in your head. These prompts might help if you need a place to start.
Write the situation. Maybe you can’t move forward on what you had planned to work on today, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create something. Let yourself write an unexpected poem. Document the chaos from your perspective. Write a letter to someone about what’s happening. Sometimes the most important writing is not planned, sometimes it’s what wells up from within when the unexpected knocks us down. Allow yourself to let those unexpected feelings well up. It could be the most important writing you ever do.
Find the connections. Another way to channel your feelings but also move forward in your work is to find the connections between what you are feeling and the project you had planned to work on. Maybe this is the day you write that heart-wrenching scene. Maybe the wrench you throw your character is a pandemic, a forest fire, a war across the globe that somehow touches her life. Maybe you channel your anger into dialogue with the villain. Think of the butterfly effect. Everything is touched by even small actions across the globe. There are definitely connections between what you are working on and world events.
Find something that makes sense for you. How can you create something useful, something beautiful? How can you give a gift to the world formed from the chaos?
Step 5: Write.
And then, you have to get to work. Like Toni Morrison said, there’s no time for self-pity, no room for fear. There’s no more important time to be writing than now. By all means, remember your why and take care of yourself and channel your feelings and change your plans. But then, write.
Do not let yourself give in to the feeling that you are powerless or that there is nothing you can do. Do not let them fool you into thinking that creating art is not important.
As John F. Kennedy said, “Strength takes many forms, and the most obvious forms are not always the most significant… When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.”
Whatever you do, you need to sit down and write. That is how civilizations heal.
If you need help getting started, you might think about creating a writing ritual to lower the threshold for beginning. Or you might try a prompt to get the words flowing.
And if you still can’t write, go back to step one. Think again about why it matters and take care of yourself. Give yourself some grace. The words will come.
What is a writing ritual and what are the benefits? How do you create a writing ritual that boosts your creativity or your productivity? How do you find that special set of actions that will inspire you and help you beat writer’s block? This post is a deep dive into the idea of writing rituals: what they are good for, how to create your own, some examples of writing rituals to try, and how to choose the best ritual for you.
Writing Rituals
I don’t know about you friends, but sometimes it can be hard to get in the mood.
Get your mind out of the gutter. I’m talking about writing.
It can be difficult with so many of life’s distractions to find the time and the space to write. There’s dishes and the post office and three-year-olds trying to show you what they made. There’s Facebook and Netflix and nature just outside beckoning you to take a walk. How do you find the room in your day to write? The answer is you don’t. You don’t find room. You make the room.
You hear this advice all over the writing world. When I first heard it, I thought it was harsh. It seemed to imply that I needed to cut other things out of my life so that I could write. Spend less time with the kids. Sleep less. Don’t do anything for fun. Just sit at the keyboard and bleed, was what I heard every time someone lectured me about making the time and space to write.
But I am realizing I have been thinking about it all wrong. Making the time to write doesn’t have to be so harsh. What if making the time to write just means creating a special time, a special place where you can really just focus on your creativity? A special experience outside our mundane expectations where you can let yourself get lost in the words. You make the time and the space to write by creating a ritual around it.
There is a long tradition of writers needing rituals. We’ve all heard the stories of idiosyncratic writing rituals of famous writers. Fredrich Schiller reportedly needed the smell of rotting apples to write. Colette would pick fleas from her bulldog until the muse arrived. Dan Brown hangs upside down and Victor Hugo could only write nude. Creativity requires a bit of magic, a bit of being outside of ourselves and being open to a wider, larger perspective. So how do we become more creative? More productive? How do we beat writer’s block and connect with our muse? We create the right conditions.
What is a writing ritual?
A writing ritual is a particular set of actions that you do over and over again in order to better your writing. It’s something that you do time and again to make the sacred space for creation. A signal that you are leaving all your worries and cares about the mundane behind and giving this time over to connection and grounding in your practice. It doesn’t have to be magical or woo-woo. It just has to be something that works for you. That special sauce of things you know you can do that will help you get in the mood.
Why do a writing ritual?
What are the benefits of creating a daily writing ritual that works for you? There are actually quite a few. You can think of it on a magical level, as if you are calling your muse, or you can think of it as something scientifically proven to help you get into the flow. Either way, there are clear benefits to having intention in the actions and atmosphere around your writing. Here are some reasons to create a ritual to help your writing process:
Creates a separate space and time that’s devoted to writing. Creating a writing ritual allows you to transform yourself or your space into something special where you can let go of other distractions and concentrate more fully.
Primes your brain for writing. The little things we do can send signals to your brain that it is time to write, and therefore help you begin sooner. As Stephen King puts it, “The cumulative purpose of doing these things the same way every day seems to be a way of saying to the mind, you’re going to be dreaming soon.”
Lowers the bar to get started. Psychologically, creating a writing ritual helps you lower the bar to start. It’s easier to light a candle than it is to write the first line of your novel. But all you have to do is take that one first step, and then the next step and the next. Creating a writing ritual allows you to control that first step, perhaps even the first few steps, to make them small enough that you never have an excuse not to start.
Allows you to connect more to the process and the muse. There is quite a bit of talk of pre-writing rituals—about what to do to get started. But I think it is equally important to take stock of our actions while we are writing. Creating a ritual around your writing can help you stay more in the present moment and broaden your senses to things you don’t ordinarily stop to pay attention to.
Increases motivation by creating time to take stock. In the same way that your actions before and during writing are important, so are the actions you take right after you finish. How do you leave your writing or story in such a way that you are eager to come back to it?
Parts of a Writing Ritual
Part 1. Separation: Setting the tone
To start your ritual, you want to set the tone and mark it as a special time and place. This should be an action that helps lower the bar to starting, something that is easy for you to do and tells your brain “Ok, it’s time to write!” Here are three ways that you might begin to prepare yourself to write and separate yourself from your daily distractions.
Open and welcome. This is a chance for you to light the spark. Choose one small thing to be your opening signal, the signal to yourself and your muse (or perhaps your family) that the sacred time has begun. It’s good if this first step takes very little time, in fact, just a moment is best. Think of this as the moment that everything begins. Here are some ways to begin marking the moment: Ring a bell. Dim the lights. Light a candle. Say a special phrase that inspires you. Maybe your way of opening and welcoming is to gather with a group. Join a Discord group or plan to sit down and work with a friend. Community can be a powerful motivator.
Transform yourself. You can transform your state of mind, by meditating, taking a walk, going outside, doing yoga, having coffee, etc. What puts you in the right mindset? Or you can transform your outer appearance. Maybe you throw on your most comfy sweater to settle in, or your most sassy lipstick. It could be as simple as taking a shower, or saying a prayer. Or it could be as ornate as getting all dressed into your “author” costume. Say affirmations to get yourself in the right mindset. Maybe you even free write for a few minutes. Get all those other pesky ideas out of your head so you can concentrate on the creativity in front of you. Have a glass of wine, even. Whatever you need to do to get yourself in the right frame of mind to write.
Create a sacred space. What could you do to make the space special, to make it different than your living room or kitchen table? Or the place where you do your schoolwork? Sometimes it only takes a very small thing to transport you to a sacred space. Lay out a cloth. Put on white noise or ambient sound. Change the way the space smells with essential oils or candle melts.
Part 2. Liminal Space: Doing the Work
You’ve welcomed the muse. You primed your pavlovian writer-dog. You’ve set the stage for writing. It’s time to do the work of the ritual. Make it happen! The universe is supporting you. All the conditions are right. Then make it so. This is the part where you write! You have transformed your space to make it sacred, made yourself sacred. Now manifest it. Get writing!
Set intentions. What are you going to make manifest while you are writing? Is your intention just to write the most authentic piece you can? The most beautiful? Maybe you want to finish the next chapter, or write a certain number of words. Maybe you are editing, and your intention is to transfigure the rough draft you have into something beautiful. Maybe your intention is to spend some time looking within, or to connect with someone or some truth. What’s your purpose for this session? Write it down. Say it out loud. Keep it in mind. Hold it close.
Be mindful of your time and your actions.Set a goal—an amount of time, an amount of words, finishing a chapter. You might do writing sprints, taking mindful breaks. Or write until you reach your daily goal. You might set a meditation bell timer to ring every fifteen minutes to remind you to stay on track. How can you keep yourself focused on the work at hand?
Engage your senses. Play music that inspires you. Light incense. Lay out crystals that help empower you. Use your favorite pen. Pour a cup of your favorite tea. This is about keeping yourself in the experience. The more you engage your senses, the more present you will be in the moment, and that’s exactly how you get into that beautiful state of flow.
Part 3. Reassimilation: Coming Back
Honestly, I think this is one of the most important parts, but also one of the most overlooked. You need some way to bring the power of what you’ve created and the sacred time and space you created back into your everyday life.
Though ritual creates a special space, the idea is that the work we do in the ritual continues to impact our daily lives. Maybe we leave the writing at the desk, but the growth we’ve experienced because we have created, the ways we have been changed by our characters, by the worlds we build, the lessons we force our characters to learn because we also have to learn them ourselves: these are the things we need to bring back with us as we re-enter the world of laundry, mac and cheese, and finally cleaning the oven.
This makes the symbolic return to the world pivotal part of the ritual. This is the step that carries us through until the next time we get to visit the sacred space. Here are some ways you might honor that closing time.
Give thanks. Once you’ve done the work, it’s important to recognize what has transpired and to give thanks for it. Find ways to be grateful for the work you’ve done. Wherever you think your creativity comes from, any beauty that we can create is a gift, and sometimes all we need is to recognize that we are creating and give thanks for that. Find your favorite line and share it with someone. Thank yourself, or your muse, or the universe or your creator or whatever source you feel your inspiration comes from.
Recognize your progress. Sometimes progress with writing can be slow. It can help keep the motivation up to celebrate every win, to recognize that every word you wrote was a step in the direction of your dreams, or of your work getting out in the world. You might keep a short journal of how you felt each day. Or back up your draft and make it so! Check your goals from this writing session off your list. You might even give yourself a reward of chocolate or stickers.
Plan to be back. Blow out the candles and promise to return. Set a goal or intention for the next session. Do one very small thing to let the universe (And yourself!) know that you are finished, but only for now.
How to Create a Writing Ritual
I am not suggesting that you do all of these things every time you write, of course. Some of these will work for you and some will be a waste of time. Think of this list as a menu. Choose one bit from each “course” to try.
See how the music affects you. See if you are drawn to certain smells. And then choose the ones that seem to make an impact on you and the way you feel about your writing.
It’s important to make sure that your writing ritual supports your writing and does not take away from it. The elements of the ritual shouldn’t take so long that it eats into your writing time. You want these to be things that support your writing, not procrastination, and it’s important to keep that in mind.
The point is not for it to be something stereotypically “magical.” It just needs to be transformative to you. You are creating this experience for yourself. You are conjuring this other world and these other people in your writing. You are creating the magic. What makes sense to you?
Daily Writing Ritual Examples
This post is all about creating the perfect combination of actions to get you in touch with your creativity as quickly as possible. My advice is to choose one from each of the above parts of a ritual that feels like it speaks to you and give it a try. That being said, here are a few examples of writing rituals that might help spark your creativity or give you more focus:
Light a candle. Do pomodoro sprints for a preset amount of time. Track your progress and thank your muse and/or yourself for showing up.
Put on your favorite writing outfit or article of clothing. Set your goals for this writing session. When you’re finished, read through what you have written and choose your best line. Express gratitude for that line.
Lay out a cloth. Play some music that inspires you while you write. Set an intention for the next writing session, committing to show up for yourself.
How to Choose a Writing Ritual
Here is the thing about us writers: none of us is quite the same, which is why we all have something peculiar to say. This also means that finding yourself as a writer is in large part a journey of finding your process.
Writers give all kinds of advice: You must write every day. You must write by hand. You must write first thing in the morning. You must write drunk and edit sober. I call bullshit on this kind of advice. Some of us are binge writers, and write best one day a month. Some of us have overzealous inner editors when we are too loud when we’re by hand. And I, for one, felt like I never wanted to write at all when I tried writing first thing in the morning.
Your writing ritual is going to be the same. You have to find what works for you. This may sound counterintuitive, but I think we should treat our creativity, our inspiration, our magic, and our connections to our muses like science. Try different things. See what works. Record how you feel, or how much comes out.
So here is my advice: try anything that speaks to you and record how it affects your work. Maybe you want to put on your sassy writing lipstick before each writing session for a week. Record how it goes. Then try a ritual with lighting a candle and some music. How does that go? Use what works for you. But in order to find out what works for you, you have to do some trial and error, so definitely find some way to keep track.
So much focus on craft (both the craft of writing and the craft of magic) is about doing things the “right way” and places value on what’s received. But connection with the past isn’t the only reason to do a ritual. People pass on this kind of wisdom because they find it works for them. Try things that have worked for others, but also try things that feel right to you.
You know what resonates with you. Are you a person inspired by goal-setting and planning? Choose a ritual that speaks to that. Do you know that you respond to sensory experiences? Maybe a candle and music is right for you. The best person to craft a ritual for you is yourself.
Remember, Edith Sitwell used to lie in a coffin to get ready to write, so you do you.
Do you already have a writing ritual? What other things help you reach that state of flow? What do you do to inspire your creativity?
