I’m starting something new in Word the Wise, so it’s funny that I drew an oracle card all about death and endings this morning.

But we’ll come back to that.

I’m beginning an experiment—one I plan to run over the next several weeks. You’ll be hearing from me more often, and what I talk about is going to be a bit different from what you might be used to. I hope you stick around for it.

It’s going to be weird, and it’s going to be a lot of fun. Are you ready for a journey?

It’s fall, finally. The days are getting shorter and cooler, and we are well into the witchy season. The veils, as they say, are thin.

Let’s step through and see what we find.

When writers get stuck, we often get one prescription for fixing it: Discipline. Shut up, sit down, build stronger habits, quit whining.

The writers I’ve been coaching recently have all been stuck, some of them for a painfully long time. They’ve all been trying to discipline themselves into “better” writing habits.

And it hasn’t been working.

Instead, it’s pushed most of them even further into a doom loop of stuckness, shame, and self-blame.

My approach to coaching stuck writers does not involve punishing self-discipline. One of the most common things I say is, “I can’t tell you what to do, and I won’t tell you to do what I do. What I can do is provide you with a lot of tools and things to try.”

Even so, I have a tendency to reach for the most obvious, practical-sounding things. Research-backed writing strategies. Different methods of organizing a schedule. A new process for customizing your writing practice.

All very yummy stuff, to be sure—but never quite the full picture.

There’s a tool I haven’t focused on as much, and it’s one that’s becoming increasingly important in my own creative practices. It’s what we’re going to talk about a whole heck of a lot for the next few weeks.

Intuition.

Intuition is one of the most powerful (and, oddly, most practical!) tools for getting out of a writing rut and developing a practice you actually love.

The truth is, the writers I coach already know what they need. Their intuition has been telling them all along. It’s just buried under all the layers of should and shame.

My job is to help you excavate it, listen to it, and point out ways of putting it into practice.

I had a dream a few weeks ago that I was helping someone clean out an apartment. The other person hefted a garbage bag onto their back and started trying to climb down the side of the building, clambering over ducts and staring queasily at the drop below them.

I tapped them on the shoulder and said, “Hey, did you know there’s a staircase over here?”

That’s often what happens to writers who are stuck: We’re carrying so much trash around in our heads and we’re so desperate to get to our destination that we start an arduous, miserable climb—and completely miss the open pathway we could take instead.

Intuition is one of the tools that can help us put the trash where it belongs and find a path that isn’t painful. Writing isn’t going to be as easy as walking down a flight of stairs, sure, but it also doesn’t have to be as miserable as we sometimes make it.

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to dive into what intuition is, how it interacts with creativity, and how you can start accessing it to unlock your creative power and write with more ease, flow, and fun.

We’ll start by returning to that oracle card I pulled this morning.

Each week, I’m going to pull a card and share my reading, along with some prompts for you to reflect on.

Here’s what I pulled today: The Death Cap.

The death cap is (as you might be able to guess) an incredibly poisonous mushroom. That might seem like an ominous start to the experiment. Maybe—maybe not! Let’s dig a little deeper into some of the meanings.

The death cap is a sign of something ending, something dying.

Summer has turned to fall; the dark seasons draw near. The woods around my house have gone from a dozen shades of green to yellow, red, and brown as the leaves change and die.

But endings aren’t always negative.

Clinging to what’s familiar can keep us stagnant, sinking deeper into the lifeless mire of—for example—a writing practice that isn’t working.

The leaves die and fall from the trees, where they rot and return their nutrients to the soil. In the spring, all sorts of plant life will burst forth.

Old patterns have to die to make room for new growth.

Letting go of old approaches to writing can fertilize your practice in the same way, showing you what no longer serves you and helping your creativity to blossom.

As you go about this week, think about the death cap. Ask yourself:

• What part of your writing practice—a habit, a way of thinking—might need to die off?
• What old beliefs about writing are you ready to shed?
• What might happen if you let go of some old expectations about your writing practice?

You can use these as journal prompts, or reply to the email and tell me what you’re discovering.

I’ll be back in your inbox soon with some thoughts on what intuition even is—and why it matters so much for creativity.