I’m working on a few projects: doing homework for an astrologer training program I’m taking, writing for my new Sleuth Hero Alien newsletter, and planning the future of my life coaching business.

I started a new blog this week! It’s called Sleuth Hero Alien: A bookish blog about cozy mysteries, cozy fantasies, and quiet sci-fi. Over the past couple of years, it’s become clear that all I want to talk about is my reading life. I love reading, and I especially love taking part in bookish communities. I’m all about the online book clubs!

I don’t know about you, but I have a way of making writing either really fun for myself or a total drudgery.

It’s early Sunday morning. I’m sitting on the couch in my office, with the window cracked open. Outside, I hear the patter of rain, the whistles of juncos and robins, and a rooster in the distance.

My husband woke me up last night around 11pm. “The lights are amazing!” I put on my fuzzy bathrobe, and we stepped outside onto our deck. It was a quiet, dark night in the woods.

I got slimed this week. I can’t talk about what was happening, but it was a toxic situation in my personal life. During this situation, my energy felt so blah. I felt like I was covered in a thin coating of grease. I felt disempowered, less-than, anxious, and exhausted.

I love my writing practice. Every Saturday morning, I wake up, make a rich cup of hot cacao, and sit down to write to you. I don’t plan what I’m going to write about. Instead, I pull oracle cards to get inspired, and I write in stream-of-consciousness until something hooks me.

I’m tired this morning. It’s been a big month for me. I started the spring session of Cacao + Writing Coven, which is an amazing group of folks this season, and my whole life has changed at home

I fell in love with reading the summer after first grade. My teacher called my father and me in for a meeting, and she told my dad I was behind in my reading skills. Then she gave me a book of stories I needed to read over the summer…

I don’t know about you, but this eclipse season has me asking a lot of “Who am I?” and “What am I doing here?” questions. This past lunar eclipse was in Libra (my Rising Sign), and the upcoming solar eclipse is in Aries (my Moon Sign).

It’s March, and I’ve already read a few great books this year. I’m sharing three of them with you today. These are all 5 star reads for me, and I highly recommend them!

Almost twenty years ago, I ended up in a career that was killing my soul. This was unfortunate, because from the outside looking in, it was the “right” career. I was making a good salary. I was doing a respectable thing that other people understood when I talked about it at a party, and I had promotions coming my way.

I have a new practice I want to commit to for my personal development in 2024, and that is taking regular Days of Leisure. Here’s how it works. I’m going to pick one weekend day each week to not manage anything, be in charge of anything, or plan anything.

I quit social media in January 2023. The impact of social media on my emotional health wasn’t great. I was constantly waiting to be validated by total strangers, and this did not work well for me. So I finally let it go, deleted my apps, and waited to see what would happened.

I live in a really quiet place. I moved here about three years ago, from the heart of Silicon Valley. That place was not quiet. It was loud and buzzy. There was the constant noise of cars and the constant presence of people. I loved the weather, and I loved it when we could get out of town and go to the redwoods or to the ocean or to the chaparral. But most of my days I spent working from home in a little apartment, feeling the zing of all the energy of busy life around us.

The nights are long right now. The midpoint between autumn and winter is long past. Daylight Savings has started, and now the days are shorter and shorter and the nights longer and longer. And I find the whole rhythm of my life changing. I need more sleep now. I need heartier food. I need more alone time to read and craft and think.

One of my tried-and-true ways to get my writing inspiration going is to sit in nature and describe the world around me. What birds do I hear? What kinds of trees are around? What flowers are blooming? Sitting with nature to prompt my writing always helps me connect to my feelings and uncover topics I couldn’t have thought of otherwise.

I need a lot of variety to keep myself motivated in my ongoing writing practice. This is the writing I do when I show up regularly to the page to play with thoughts, characters, and story. It’s when I engage my inspiration with no agenda. It’s when I play around to keep my writing life active and thriving.

Have you ever felt bad because you haven’t made progress on your book, article, or essay, but you have spent long and wonderful hours writing in your journal? Have you been taught the only valid way to be a writer is to finish a writing project, and that the writing you do for play and fun has no purpose?

Have you ever wished you could finally figure out why you’r’e so blocked with your writing? Why can’t you just sit down and get words on the page? Like me, when you’re blocked, the first thing you might think is that you’re lazy, frivolous, or procrastinate too much, but I’m wondering if you’re block might be something different…something deeper…than that.