Storytelling is powerful. Writing is a form of spellcasting. Books? They are quite literally magic in its truest form—using words to change the world.

As authors, we get to become writing alchemists.

You might think of alchemists as ye olde chemists, laboring over a bubbling beaker of bright green liquid, attempting to turn lead into gold or discover the elixir of eternal life. That was part of it, sure.

But a huge part of an alchemist’s work was developing a personal gnosis: a deeply individualized knowledge base about their ways of working, what they’d tried, and the things they learned from it.

That’s the model of alchemy we can use to inspire our own writing lives.

I love thinking about writing as alchemy. It keeps a central tenet of my coaching at the forefront: The only approach to writing that will work for you is the one that works for you.

Not the one that works for Stephen King, or Anne Lamott, or Julia Cameron, or your friend who just finished their book in a seemingly record-breaking amount of time (good for them, but also kind of rude, you know?).

The truth is, your personal gnosis is the only thing that matters here.

The only way to build that knowledge base is to gather your materials, follow your intention, run some tests, and see what happens. At the end of it, you might end up with something worth even more than gold: A writing practice you actually love.

As a writing alchemist, you’ll be working with three major components: Mindset, practice, and craft. We’re going to talk about these components all week, but I’ll kick us off with a quick definition of each.

• Mindset: The foundational mental part of writing. How do you respond to challenges? How do you cultivate positive habits of mind?
• Practice. The persistent pattern of returning to the page and putting words on it. How do you build, adjust, and rebuild your practice? What do you like, what do you need, and how do you bring those elements into contact with reality?
• Craft: Treating writing like the learnable skill it is. How do you read like a writer? How do you write with the intent to improve your craft?

In my one-on-one Get Unstuck Sessions (which are going on sale soon—keep an eye out!), mindset is often the biggest component we tackle.

Writers tend to arrive at coaching thinking they have a practice problem: “I just can’t make myself write, even when I find the time!” The root issue usually starts much further back in the process, though, and it involves the magic of storytelling I mentioned earlier.

The stories we tell ourselves are also a form of magic, and they are incredibly potent, especially when those stories aren’t part of our conscious awareness.

Part of the work of any coaching session is identifying which area we need to focus on—mindset, practice, or craft—and devoting our attention to it.

So today, let’s talk about mindset and why it’s such a crucial consideration for your writing alchemy.

Mindset work has two key components, although one of them gets the lion’s share of attention.

Dealing with challenges (like writer’s block and creative shame) is incredibly common. Less commonly discussed, although equally important, is the work you put into building positive habits of mind.

Integrating Challenges

A major part of mindset work is integrating challenges into your writing life. Note the word choice here: integrating challenges. Not overcoming or defeating or eliminating.

I would love to tell you that you’ll never experience writer’s block ever again once you get your mindset right, but that would be untrue. I’d love to tell you I have the cure for the “wanting to write → not writing → beating yourself up about it” shame spiral, too, but again: I’m not here to lie to you.

Writing is going to involve its share of challenges. The more we focus on beating those challenges, the more attention and power we give them.

Successful mindset work is much more about integrating those challenges by recognizing them for what they are and having a game plan available for when they arrive.

Writer’s block, shame, impostor syndrome, and other writing difficulties are information, often about a story we’re telling ourselves that we haven’t fully dealt with. What’s going on underneath all those challenges tends to be fear, guilt, or some other sticky, unpleasant emotion.

I hate to break it to you, but feelings like fear are never going to totally go away. No matter how much you write or how successful you get, you’ll always be working at the edge of your capabilities—and that is scary!

Our nervous systems want to protect us from things that feel scary, so they throw up (writer’s) blocks to warn us away from them.

Attempting to beat that challenge often looks like trying to brute force our way through unpleasant emotions and sensations, and then wondering why writing doesn’t feel fun anymore.

Integrating that challenge looks like sitting with the feeling of being blocked and listening to our intuition, instead. We might pull some cards or journal on some questions. “What is this block telling me? What do I need to work on here?”

Integrating a mindset challenge protects your energy, respects your body’s wisdom, and, ironically enough, often points you toward a much faster route to resolving the problem.

The more you practice this, the more resourced you will be the next time such a challenge arises—you’ll recognize the signs earlier and have more tools at your disposal for taking care of yourself and your practice.

Cultivating Positive Habits of Mind

In contrast to navigating more negative-feeling aspects of writing, we also get to work on the things that make our writing practices fun, sustainable, and magical.

“Habits of mind” are practical, intellectual orientations to writing that contribute to our success as writers. (There’s quite a bit of research on habits of mind—including my dissertation! If you want to geek out super hard about this stuff, let me know.)

Many, many different habits of mind can support our writing. I focus on eight: Curiosity, openness, engagement, creativity, persistence, responsibility (which I like to call devotion), flexibility, and metacognition.

I’m writing a whole series of articles about these habits over on the Writer’s Fun Zone, so if this topic is interesting to you, head over there and read up!

Instead of digging into all eight habits of mind I work on with writers, though, I want to talk about why these habits matter so much.

Our mental orientation to the world—including our writing practices—shapes our engagement with it.

A curious writer will seek out new information and experiences, enabling them to deepen their knowledge and draw more interesting connections. A writer who works on metacognition will be more in tune with their intuition and aware of their patterns, allowing them to make more thoughtful choices about their writing practice.

Building positive habits of mind is just as important as integrating writing challenges. Engaging with these habits opens up a whole new world of tools you can use to adapt your practice and improve your craft.

Our habits of mind can also create a positive feedback loop in our writing lives. The stories we tell ourselves are magic, after all, and we have the power to change those stories. What we focus on tends to grow (or at least dominate our field of attention).

Bringing the habits of mind into focus can lead to a writing practice that feels more enjoyable, more sustainable, and quite a lot more fun.

Plus, the more we cultivate those habits of mind, the more intuitive they become. Having creativity become second nature, rather than something you have to force or hunt for, is a powerful feeling.

Mindset work often involves slowing down, sitting with our feelings, and reflecting. Tarot and oracle card pulls are excellent tools for doing mindset work—so I pulled a card to see what’s in the air, creatively speaking.

Here’s what I pulled for this week: The Oyster.

Oyster mushrooms are one of the most commonly cultivated mushrooms in the world (I have grown them myself!). They grow quickly and they're delicious.

The Oyster card in the Mushroom Spirit Oracle deck focuses on regeneration.

It’s fall where I am and nature is slowing down, preparing to hibernate through the cold, dark part of the year. Even death, which we talked about last week, is part of an endless cycle of regeneration.

Nutrients get recycled into new life when we let go of the old—and growth can happen quickly when we do.

Becoming a writing alchemist doesn’t have to mean building your writing practice from scratch.

Your personal gnosis and your intuition are already there, waiting for you to tap into them. When you do, you’ll be amazed at what you already knew to be true (and what happens when you allow yourself to act on that knowledge).

As you go about this week, think about the oyster mushroom. Ask yourself:

• What old mindset challenges can you stop fighting and start integrating?
• What might happen if you turn your attention to positive habits of mind?
• What do you already know to be true about what works for you as a writer, even if it goes against the grain of standard writing advice?

You can use these questions as journal prompts, or reply to the emails I send! Tell me what you’re learning about yourself as a writer.

I’ll be back in your inbox soon to talk about writing as a practice—and how to figure out your own approach to building it.