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Dear Writerly Woman,

As Halloween approaches and the days grow ever darker, I've been drawn more and more to the magical side of myself.

This is the part of me that loves picking oracle cards, engaging in magical meditation, and doing cacao ceremonies.

A couple years ago I wrote a piece on Samhein, which is the Celtic pagan festival that happens on October 31.

I just re-read the piece and had to share it here (below). It's a sweet invitation to experience the magic of the thinning veil...

Dear Writerly Woman,

I feel sad today, and I don't know what I'm sad about.

Does that ever happen to you?

Some days I wake up and sadness is flowing through me.

I hardly ever know what I'm sad about.

But here's what I do know.

I learned from Karla McLaren in The Art of Empathy that the gift of sadness is it helps you release what no longer serves you.

I also learned from Martha Beck in Steering By Starlight that there are two types of pain: clean pain and dirty pain.

Clean pain is when...

Dear Writerly Woman,

Do you wonder if you'll ever write?

Like, you probably wrote stories or poetry when you were young, and you always thought you would write when you were older, but it just hasn't happened?

And maybe you're starting to think it will never happen?

I want you to know that I know this particular pain, or, rather, I know it as a sense of dried up, withered numbness.

That's how it was for me.

A few years back, when I had a Dull Gray Cubicle job and I wasn't doing any creative work at...

Dear Writerly Woman,

I took a week-long break from social media a couple weeks ago. During that week, I emailed a series of letters to you about writing in peace, but I didn't post anything on my social media pages.

And you know what?! It was the best. thing. ever!!!

Writing to you without posting more online gave me a sense of inner quiet I haven't experienced in a long time.

It felt like the quiet you experience in the woods on an autumnal day, or the soft quietness...

Dear Writerly Woman,

Listen closely.

Draw yourself closer to the fire, dear one.

It is time to speak some truths of hearth fires and fairy tales.

In all of us there are the beating heart, the yearning, and the light.

Sink in.

Sink down.

Go way down into your belly.

It is there that many truths abide.

The truths of candle light and darkness and torture and breaking free.

Our bellies hold our deepest stories.

Imagine your belly as a bowl, it is full of all the vastness of life.

And...

Dear Writerly Woman,

I went to the redwoods last week to take a deep creative inhale.

Have you ever done this?

Here's how it works:

In the middle of a creative process, when you've been writing and putting a lot of yourself onto the page, you stop what you're doing, go outside, and purposefully take in the world around you. You Inhale.

I walked around the redwood trail, letting my thoughts flow freely, instead of focusing on sentences and words.

I said hi to the trees. I drank a cup...

Dear Writerly Woman,

This week's post is a mini-pep talk for when you're scared your writing idea isn't good enough, doesn't qualify as real writing, or is doomed to fail because it doesn't follow expert opinions.

Here is what I want you to know:

When it comes to your authentic self expression, there is no one more qualified than you.

You are the expert on your own voice, your unique point of view, and your writing style.

You are the only one who gets to decide if your writing is...

Dear Writerly Woman,

Do you ever find yourself sitting down to write, but instead going to the kitchen to grab something to eat or to the couch to turn on the TV?

Do you ever beat yourself up about this, wishing you could stop procrastinating and start writing?

Today, I want to share my best suggestions for how you can break free from this cycle, because I know how painful it can be.

I hate feeling like a failure because once again I watched an hour of Netflix instead of writing.

I hate the...

Dear Writerly Woman,

Writing my first blog post was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.

Up until that point, writing had always been on the periphery for me. 

Yes, I loved literature and was a devoted English major.

Sure, now and again a story would fly through me, get recorded on a Word Doc, and end up lost somewhere on my computer.

And, yeah, my bosses always complimented me on my ability to write a clear and concise email.

But writing, like the kind of writing I...

Dear Imaginative & Writerly Woman,

When I was a kid, I talked a lot. Like, a LOT.

I didn't get great feedback about this.

Mostly there was a lot of sighing and "Emma, please stop talking," and "I'll seriously PAY you if you just PLEASE STOP TALKING!!!"

I couldn't do it. I loved talking way too much!

Looking back, I can see what I loved was expressing myself.

There were so many interesting things to think about, to notice, and to see.

It was invariably interesting to me to talk...