No please subscribe buttons… no please share buttons… no marketing and no “ask” involved… just a (not so) simple message.

This isn’t a “taking a break” post.

This isn’t a “reimagining my content strategy” post.

And it certainly isn’t an “Pay attention to me because I’m mad and leaving this FB group - good day… I SAID GOOD DAY, SIR!” (LMAO) 🤪🤣

This is a goodbye letter.

Part 1: What This Actually Was

I need to say this plainly now, because looking at it now, I don’t think I ever said it plainly enough:

Authors Mojo was never really a business to me. Not underneath.

Yes, I needed it to pay bills — just like everyone else, I am an actual human being with cats to feed, and a kid-in-college to keep in French fries and snacks, and a roof that demands a rent payment, and trying to do that all almost entirely on my own two self-employed feet.

I operated Mojo in the red, out of my own pocket, for 85% of the years it was running — so, I won’t pretend money didn’t matter.

But that was never the point of it.

In fact, if you’ve been with me over the near decade of doing this… then you already know the reasons it started was:

1. I was disgusted by people/companies who were taking advantage of authors - charging exponentially more money for tech work / web sites / formatting, than was even close to fair market value.

2. Authors — the real human behind the keyboard — shouldn’t get dumped off on the side of the road when they don’t bring “big enough money” to the table — and that is part of the reason this decision has been so extraordinarily difficult to sit with — and if you’re one of the ones who’s been with me this whole time… then you already know exactly what I’m alluding to on this specific point.

3. I had a wealth of tech experience (30+ years of it at the time of this writing in July 2026 — yeah, I’m that old! lol) that I wanted to use to help other authors bring their stories into the world… even if they were tech-scared, had no idea where to start, or even had zero-to-very-little budget for it — because getting more people’s stories -into the world mattered more to me than trying to make “big money”.

So, yeah, the point — the whole reason I built this thing in the first place — was two things: helping authors get their stories into the world and building real friendships along the way while I did it.

Not “audience.” Not “community” as a marketing term.

Friends.

People I hoped would still be here, in some form, even if the courses and the content changed shape a hundred times over the years.

I pictured something almost embarrassingly simple, if I’m honest: a group of people who’d still be checking in on each other’s word counts five years from now. People who’d remember each other’s cats’ names and bad first drafts and the times launches flopped (or soared!), and times when everything fell apart, and the times royalties were better than expected, and new books came into being… the wins, the losses, and all of it… and still keep showing up.

That was the whole dream, dressed up in course modules and Substack posts and almost a thousand live group web-meeting calls — because that was the only shape I knew how to build it in

— and frankly, “selling” has not always been my strong suit. lol

That was what I was actually building toward every single time I sat down to write a post, build a new course, record a lesson, or answer a question in a comment section or frantic, panicked private message at midnight when I should’ve been asleep.

Part 2: The Honest Accounting

Here’s the part that’s harder to say, but I’ve always tried my best to promise you honesty, so here it is.

In recent months — and more specifically this past week in earnest — I started sitting with the possibility of closing Mojo down.

I mentioned it — more than once — in both the free posts and the paid ones.

Days went by.

Silence.

Not from everyone, and not because anyone did anything wrong. But close enough to everyone that it told me something I’d been circling for a long time and not quite ready to land on.

I assigned a depth to a lot of these relationships that wasn’t actually there on the other end… and Authors Mojo became a part of who I saw myself as.

(and that is 100% on me, period, full stop)

Not because any are bad people, or because anyone owed me anything they didn’t choose to give — they didn’t.

But I built this hoping it was mutual in a way that, for most of you, it just... wasn’t.

And that’s not a character flaw on me or anyone else.

I think it’s just the truth of what this actually was, versus what I hoped it would become.

For a long time, I started feeling like a dancing circus bear — showing up, performing value, earning applause, and telling myself the applause meant something deeper than it did. The moment I stopped dancing — stopped producing in those ways, stopped trying to prove, just sat still and shared what was actually happening in my life and my head about this decision — the silence answered a question I’d been too afraid to ask directly for a long time.

That’s not me being dramatic. That’s not me looking for pity or being overly emotional about a rough week. That’s just data.

Numbers don’t lie the way stories do, and I’ve been staring at this particular set of numbers long enough now to stop making excuses for what they’re telling me.

I think I failed at the friendship part of this dream — the part that mattered most to me — far more than I ever succeeded at it.

I tried to build something with real care, consistently (as best I could), for years. And most were never really here for that. Most folks were here for the free thing or only for the ROI, and that’s allowed, and it’s not a crime.

But what Mojo became never aligned with and coalesced into what I dreamed — and needed — it to be …

— and because I’m someone who doesn’t lightly walk away from anything — it has taken me longer than was healthy to admit that to myself and to willingly acknowledge the hard-data numbers that supported that truth.

Part 3: What I’m Choosing Now

So, I’m closing the doors on this version of Mojo.

Not the content — the content and the courses I’ve built over the years will likely find a new home eventually — maybe — somewhere quieter, somewhere that doesn’t ask me to keep performing beyond the value provided in the courses/content itself, just to earn a place in anyone’s inbox.

But, as of today, the live, relational version of Mojo — the version where I show up hoping for and trying to build real connection and mutual investment… the version where I answer everyone and anyone’s questions that pop into my private messages or inbox — that part is ending.

This isn’t bitterness. I want to be really clear about that. I do not regret a single minute of the tens of thousands of hours I spent trying to build this.

📚I got to help some of you finish books you were scared to finish.

📣I got to watch a few of you find your voice.

🏆I got to be a small, behind-the-scenes piece of some real triumphs that you all accomplished.

(and I thank you for that - because I’ve always said, from the very first day a decade ago of this crazy adventure that I may never be a world-famous best-selling author, or change the world with my stories… but just maybe I can be a small part of someone else’s who does)

Those wins were real, even if they were fewer and smaller than I’d hoped for.

I’ll always be glad I tried.

And “not bitter” doesn’t mean pretending this doesn’t hurt — (it does—a lot) — it means I get to grieve it honestly and still walk away with my hands open instead of clenched.

But I also love myself enough now — and I’ve fought hard to get to a place where I can say that and mean it — to stop pouring my whole heart into a room that mostly stayed quiet when I needed it to talk back.

Part 4: Goodbye

So — thank you. Genuinely, to all of you, but most especially to the few of you who were real friends through this, who showed up, who talked back, who made this feel like it was working the way I’d hoped. You know who you are, and I hope you know how much you meant to me.

And to the rest — I don’t say this with any anger, not one single ounce — I hope you find whatever you are looking for in your author lives. I hope your stories get written and get out into the world and hit every goal you’ve set for them — mine or somebody else’s help notwithstanding.

This is the “Mojo Mama Bear’s” and Authors Mojo’s last chapter. Thank you for the last decade. Thank you for reading this far — even that, at the end, means something.

And if you’re reading this, even months or years from now — maybe you took a course from me once, maybe you’re just curious where I went — this page isn’t going anywhere. I’m leaving it up on purpose. No dead link, no generic placeholder, no version of me pretending this never happened.

Just this. The truth, same as it’s always been with me.

If you want to know what became of me, the AVHQ is still running, and you can find me writing fiction under Sadie Brent, Morigan Shaw, and EF Jamison (and a coming soon new pen name I’m not ready to share just yet) — still telling stories, still building things with my whole heart, just pointed somewhere that loved it back.

With a well-worn but tired heart, and an honest, warm hug goodbye,

🐻 (just)Stacy

☮️💖🤗

Now… before I take a few fully unplugged days to properly feel sad & grieve all this…

One last piece of Mojo Mama Bear wisdom from my heart...

We writers pile a lot upon ourselves... trying to do and be everything that is required of us PLUS trying to chase down our own dream on any spare energy that’s left over... or on fumes... keep chasing those writing dreams, I know I certainly will be — but give yourself some grace, because don’t forget, we’re Only Human:

(my absolute favorite version of this song, btw)

On the sacred balance between what you pour out and what you keep close — and why receiving is not the opposite of generosity.

🖊️ Part 1: For the Writers

The Six of Pentacles is a card about hands. One hand extends outward, open, a single coin falling from it like a small golden star let loose into the world. The other hand holds several coins close to the chest — not hoarded, not withheld, just kept. Both hands belong to the same bear. Both gestures are true at once.

This is the card of balanced exchange, and for writers it shows up at a very specific, very sneaky moment: right when you’ve been giving your work away freely — the newsletter, the free chapters, the generous behind-the-scenes posts — and some small anxious part of you starts asking, but when do I get to keep something for myself?

Share

Both hands belong to the same bear.

Here’s what the Six of Pentacles knows about the creative life: writers are taught, subtly and constantly, that generosity means emptying your hands completely. Give the free sample. Give the newsletter. Give the vulnerability, the behind-the-scenes honesty, the teaching content, the encouragement in every comment section. Keep giving until there’s nothing left to give.

But look at the card again. The bear giving the coin is also the bear holding four more against her chest, wrapped in that rich purple robe. She is not empty-handed. She gave from abundance, not depletion. And that is the whole secret this card is trying to teach you.

Subscribe now

You cannot pour from a hand with nothing left in it. The coins she’s still holding aren’t selfishness — they’re what makes the giving sustainable instead of a slow bleed.

• Where in your creative life have you been giving until your hand was empty, instead of giving from what you could actually spare?

• What would it look like to keep a few coins close — energy, time, unfinished drafts, quiet — before you open your hand to anyone else?

• Who taught you that “good” meant giving until it hurt?

🌿 Today’s Practical Magick

Before you give anything away today — your time, your energy, your labor, your last good idea — pause and check your other hand first. Is it still holding something? If yes, you’re free to give. If it’s already empty, the kindest thing you can do — for yourself and for whoever’s asking — is to say “not right now.”

That’s it. That’s the spell. 🪙🐾

🔒 The personal pull is below — for paid subscribers — This is where The Mojo Mama Bear gets bear-bones honest about what the card stirred up this morning and what it looks like in a real, unglamorous, unsexy Tuesday in the life of a working author rebuilding her life and career one day at a time.

Read more

On the review that guts you, the gut that already knew, and why resilience was never about growing thicker skin.

Last time, I promised subscribers a lesson about the woman I became after my “great implosion” — the one I said deserved its own space. This is that space. But before I hand you the story, let’s talk about the thing resilience actually is, because it’s almost never what we’ve been told.

Subscribe now

Resilience Isn’t a Thicker Skin

We talk about resilience like it’s armor — like the goal is to eventually stop feeling the sting of a bad review, a rejection, a comparison spiral at 11pm scrolling someone else’s launch numbers. I want to gently push back on that, because I don’t think that’s actually true, and I don’t think it’s even the goal worth spending your finite energy chasing.

I’ve been doing this writing thing a long time. I’ve also survived decades of things that taught my nervous system how to keep functioning under real pressure and threat. And I still feel the sting. A hard review still lands. A comparison thought can still creep in on a tired day. Resilience didn’t remove the sting for me. It changed what I do with it once it arrives.

That’s the whole pillar, actually. Resilience isn’t about becoming numb. It’s about becoming quick to recover — and recovery has a shape you can actually learn.

Share

The Two Voices You’ll Hear After Hard Feedback

Here’s something I’ve noticed, in myself and in every writer I’ve ever talked honestly with about this: after a piece of hard feedback lands, two different voices show up, almost at the same time, and they sound nearly identical at first.

Voice one is shame. It says you’re not good enough. You never should have published this. Everyone can see it now. Shame is loud, it’s global, and it’s almost never actually useful — it’s not trying to help you write better, it’s trying to make you small enough to stop being seen at all.

Voice two is instinct. It’s quieter. It doesn’t attack your worth — it points, calmly, at something specific. Something didn’t fit here. You already half-knew, didn’t you? Instinct isn’t cruel. It’s just honest, and it arrives at almost the same moment as shame, which is exactly why the two get tangled together and mistaken for the same voice. And also why — many times — instinct will get written off instead of leaned into.

The skill of resilience is learning to separate them. Shame gets thanked for showing up and then firmly shown the door. Instinct gets a chair at the table, because instinct is the only one of the two that actually has something worth telling you.

Think of the last time hard feedback landed on your work:

• Can you separate what was shame — global, cruel, unspecific — from what might have actually been your own instinct, quietly confirming something you already suspected?

• Where has comparison to another writer’s path cost you more than it ever taught you?

• What would it feel like to let feedback change your next project instead of demanding it invalidate the one you already finished?

🔒 My own recent “instinct already knew” story — and the pressure-valve discovery that came out of it — is below for paid subscribers. (Psst — this is also exactly the material I’ll be teaching live in our very first Tech-with-Soul workshop on August 3rd, included free with your subscription. No pressure, just a heads up. 💜)

Read more

On holding the whole harvest in one paw and still reaching for the flowers with the other — and why abundance sometimes looks like $3.11 and a plan.

🖊️ Part 1: For the Writers

The Queen of Pentacles doesn’t have her hands empty. Look at her — robed in deep magenta and gold, crowned in her own soft starlight, seated on solid stone in the middle of a garden that’s clearly hers. In one paw, a glowing pentacle, the literal symbol of material abundance. In the other, cradled against her like it’s precious (because it is), an overflowing pot of blooms. She is not choosing between the practical and the beautiful. She’s holding both. At the same time. Without dropping either one.

Subscribe now

That’s the whole card, honestly. That’s the whole lesson.

Writers know this tension intimately, even if we don’t always name it: the business side and the soul side of this work, sitting in the same lap, demanding to both be held. The invoice that hasn’t cleared yet. The royalty statement. The Kickstarter spreadsheet. And also — the story that’s still trying to be born, the flowers that need tending just because they’re beautiful, the part of you that writes not for the coin but because you’d wither without it.

The Queen of Pentacles doesn’t resent the pentacle for not being a flower. She doesn’t resent the flower for not paying rent. She just holds them both, steady, because she knows — deep in her bear bones — that they’re not actually in competition. They’re the same garden.

She is not choosing between the practical and the beautiful. She’s holding both.

Share

Here’s what this Queen knows that panic never lets you remember: a garden that looks bare in one section is often just a garden mid-season. Roots you can’t see yet, doing quiet work underground. The harvest isn’t cancelled just because it hasn’t arrived on your exact preferred Monday.

Where in your writing life are you treating the business side and the creative side as enemies, when really they’re just two things you’re allowed to hold at once? What would it feel like to trust that something is growing, even in a week where the bank account doesn’t show it yet? What’s the “flower” — the pure-joy, non-monetized part of your creative life — that you’re still making room for, even now?

🌿 Today’s Practical Magick

Next time the scarcity spiral starts up — that tight, buzzing, “everything is about to fall apart” energy — try this:

Physically cup both hands together, like you’re holding something round and solid. Picture it glowing gold, right there in your palms. Say quietly: I tend what is mine. What I’ve planted is growing. I don’t have to force the harvest today.

Hold it for three full breaths. That’s the spell, love. 🪙🌸

🔒 The personal pull is below — for paid subscribers — This is where The Mojo Mama Bear gets bear-bones honest about what the card stirred up this morning, and what abundance actually looked like today in the real, unglamorous, gorgeously imperfect life of a working author.

Read more

On shipping a book with an infected tooth, watching my backlist prove something real, and finally asking the question I’d been avoiding for a year.

I want to tell you about things that happened in the same seven days, because I don’t think either one makes full sense without the other.

The first thing: I finished the final review and uploaded Forged in Ruin to Amazon and Draft2Digital this week. On a day when the right side of my jaw looked like I was smuggling a plum in my cheek. On a week when I was counting cans of cat food compared to number of days because the money for a big new tech project hadn’t landed yet, on a month when a big chunk of the budget had gone to doctors and meds/antibiotics instead.

I want to be honest that I almost didn’t tell you that part, because it feels like the kind of thing you’re supposed to have already solved by the time you’re brave enough to write about it publicly. But this whole newsletter has always been about showing the real shape of a life/author career rebuild, not the tidied-up version, so: that’s the shape. A launch and a scarcity and a swollen jaw, all stacked on top of each other, and the book still shipped anyway.

The second thing happened a few days later, and it’s smaller, and it took me longer to actually look at (and it still hurts my eyes to look at too closely).

My backlist had its best week in months. The read-through road I’ve been quietly building for over a year on one of my pen names — the thing where each book is supposed to hand the reader to the next one — actually worked. In the real world. While I wasn’t looking. While I was mostly thinking about my tooth.

I sat with that for a minute, because it’s a strange kind of proof. Nobody emailed me to say “hey, I read your books back to back, thanks.” I just found it in a spreadsheet, days later, doing the unglamorous data-review part of my Sunday ritual. But it’s real. People somewhere, cared enough about the story to keep going. That’s not nothing. That’s actually the whole point of everything I’ve been building.

And that’s the thing that cracked something else open for me, because I’d been sitting on a much heavier question for a while, about a completely different corner of my work — and I finally let myself actually look at it instead of stepping around it again.

I’ve been running Authors Mojo, in one form or another, for almost ten years. Teaching calls. A little academy. Lifetime memberships I sold years ago for what feels, now, like almost nothing. And for a long time, I told myself a story about it that felt generous and warm: that the people in that space were close friends, that I’d go out of my way for them, that the relationship was mutual in the way real friendship is.

This week, I looked at the actual data instead of the story. Views in the teens and twenties. Zero new subscribers on any post, five weeks running on a new writer-teaching-centered blog series, on a deliberate pivot I tried in good faith. Two people — out of a list that’s been with me for years — who still show up when the call isn’t an “official” teaching session anymore, just a hangout. And some of the people I’d quietly called friends in my head, the ones active on Substack every single day, liking and sharing other things? Not mine. Not once, in about six months, that I can find.

I want to be really careful here, because this is NOT a “why don’t people appreciate me” letter, and I don’t want it to land like one. This is something closer to: I assigned a depth of relationship that, when I actually checked, wasn’t reciprocal — and the checking itself is the growth, not the disappointment. I spent over a decade mostly a hermit, by my own choice, healing from things that needed healing. It makes complete sense that I might have overweighted the connections I did have, because there weren’t many, and I wanted them to mean to them what they meant to me. That’s not a character flaw. That’s just what happens to a person who spent a long time alone and finally let a few people in.

But wanting something to be true doesn’t make the data say something different. And the data, this week, was very clear, in the same clean, sharp way that Ace of Swords energy tends to be clear when it finally lands: I have spent, conservatively, over a year writing something like a thousand+ words a day into a room that mostly isn’t there.

I haven’t made a final decision about all of it yet. I’m sitting with it for another week on purpose, because ten years of anything deserves a closing that’s chosen, not a closing that happens out of exhaustion in the middle of a hard week recovering from an infected tooth that almost spilled over into something worse.

But I wanted to tell you the shape of the question, because I think a lot of you know exactly what it feels like to keep showing up for something, faithfully, past the point where the evidence stopped supporting the hope.

🔒 The rest of this letter — the actual numbers behind both halves of this week, the invoice that finally “proved my worth” in dollars instead of just theory, and a journaling exercise on telling the difference between a quiet room and an empty one — is below, for paid subscribers.

Read more

On the moment clarity arrives like starlight — sudden, sharp, and impossible to unsee.

🖊️ Part 1: For the Writers

The Ace of Swords doesn’t ease you into anything. Look at her. A bear on a rocky outcrop at dusk, wildflowers pushing up through stone, and she’s not holding the sword down at her side like it’s a burden to carry. She’s holding it straight up, blade catching a burst of starlight so bright it looks like the sky cracked open just to hand it to her. There’s a shooting star in the corner, too — because apparently one miracle wasn’t dramatic enough today.

This is not the card of “maybe.” This is the card of oh.

The Ace of Swords is the moment a truth lands that you can’t argue your way out of. Not a slow-building realization. Not a gentle nudge. A single clean cut through the fog — and suddenly you see the thing exactly as it is.

Subscribe now

The truth doesn’t whisper. It arrives already lit.

Here’s what this card knows about the creative life:

Writers spend an enormous amount of energy managing uncertainty. Is this scene working? Is this the right book to lead with? Am I actually ready to launch this, or am I stalling dressed up as “prepping”? We live in the swirl of maybe, might, we’ll see.

And then — every so often — the fog just lifts. Not because we worked harder at figuring it out, but because clarity has its own timing, and when it decides to show up, it shows up fully. No half-measures. No “here’s part of the answer, come back later for the rest.” The whole sword, blazing, right in your hand.

The trick with the Ace of Swords isn’t earning the clarity. It’s trusting it once it arrives — instead of immediately trying to talk yourself back into the fog because the fog, at least, felt familiar.

Share

• Where in your creative work has clarity already arrived, and you’re still checking twice because it feels too simple to be true?

• What would you do today if you fully trusted the thing you already know?

• What’s the one clean cut you’ve been avoiding making — not because you’re unsure, but because you’re sure, and that’s scarier?

🌿 Today’s Practical Magick

Next time you catch yourself circling a decision you’ve genuinely already made — in your writing, your business, your life — try this:

Hold both hands out flat in front of you, like you’re presenting something. Take one breath. Then close them into a single fist, like you’re taking hold of the sword’s hilt, and say quietly: I already see it clearly. I don’t need to ask again.

That’s it. That’s the spell. ⚔️🐾

🔒 The personal pull is below — for paid subscribers — This is where The Mojo Mama Bear gets bear-bones honest about what the card stirred up this morning, and what clarity actually looks like on a tired, storm-pressured, porch-clearing Sunday in the life of a working author three days out from a launch.

Read more

On carrying something finished toward the people who need it — and why the best marketing you’ll ever do doesn’t feel like marketing at all.

🖊️ Part 1: For the Writers

The Knight of Cups is not shouting. He’s not standing on a hilltop with a megaphone. He’s not doing a countdown timer or a “3 DAYS LEFT” banner. He’s on a horse, moving at an easy, unhurried pace, cape catching the night wind, one hand loose on the reins — and the other hand is raised. Offering a cup. Glowing, gently, on its own light.

He isn’t looking at what he’s holding. He already trusts it. He’s looking ahead, toward wherever — or whoever — it’s going.

This is the card of the finished thing being carried forward with an open hand instead of a clenched fist.

He isn’t looking at the cup. He’s looking at who it’s for.

Subscribe now

Here’s what the Knight of Cups knows about the creative life:

We spend so much energy building the thing — outlining it, drafting it, revising it, formatting it, fixing the widow lines nobody else will ever notice — that by the time it’s ready to actually leave our hands, we’re running on fumes. And fumes make for bad marketing. Fumes make us either go silent (too tired to say anything) or go loud and desperate (please, someone, buy this, I need this to have mattered).

The Knight doesn’t do either. He rides forward, cup raised, calm. Not because he doesn’t care if anyone drinks from it. He cares enormously. But he’s not gripping it like it might get taken from him, and he’s not hiding it either. He’s just... offering it. Steadily. To whoever is ready to receive it.

That’s the whole secret hiding in this card: the offering doesn’t need to be an announcement. It just needs to be extended.

Share

• Where in your creative life have you been either white-knuckling your offer, or hiding it out of exhaustion?

• What would it look like to hold your work up the way the Knight holds his cup — open palm, steady pace, trusting the light is already doing its job?

• Who is this specific offering actually for? Not “everyone.” Who?

🌿 Today’s Practical Magick

Before you send, post, publish, or hand anything off today, try this: hold your hand out, palm up, like you’re literally offering the cup. Say quietly — This is for the ones ready to receive it. Not everyone has to drink. Just the ones who are thirsty.

That’s it. That’s the spell. 🐴✨

🔒 The personal pull is below — for paid subscribers — This is where The Mojo Mama Bear gets bear-bones honest about what the card stirred up this morning and what it looks like in a real, unglamorous, unsexy Saturday in the life of a working author rebuilding her life and career one day at a time.

Read more

On standing at the edge of everything with your hands already full of what you need — and why this leap was never blind.

🖊️ Part 1: For the Writers

Look at her. She’s not stumbling toward the cliff’s edge. She’s not distracted, wandering, oblivious to the drop. She’s standing right at the threshold, cloak catching the wind, wildflowers crowding up around her paws like they came to see her off — and she is looking up. Past the edge. Past the drop. Straight at the sun.

In one paw: a small glowing moon, cupped like it weighs nothing at all. In the other: an old leather suitcase, worn soft from being carried before.

She didn’t arrive here empty-handed. She packed for this.

This is the truth about The Fool that the “reckless leap” reading always misses: the Fool isn’t foolish because she doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s called the Fool because she trusts something the rest of us have been trained out of trusting — that the ground doesn’t have to be visible for the next step to be right.

For writers, this card shows up at a very specific moment: not at the idea, not even at the first draft — but at the edge of hitting publish. Uploading the file. Sending the newsletter. Opening the preorder page and finally, actually, letting the thing be real and out there and no longer just yours in private.

Share

That’s a cliff. Every single time, no matter how many books you’ve already sent over the edge.

I did not come to the edge to look down. I came because there was a star.

Here’s what the suitcase is telling you: you already have what you need for this leap. Not someday-you, not more-experienced-you — the you standing here right now, cloak and all. The moon in her paw isn’t a promise of the destination. It’s proof she’s already carrying her own light with her. She’s not leaping toward the sun hoping to become someone who can hold light. She already can. She’s just walking toward more of it.

Subscribe now

• Where in your creative life are you standing at an edge, positive you need one more thing before you’re “ready” to jump — when the suitcase in your own paw is already packed?

• What would change if you trusted that the next step doesn’t need to be visible to be right?

• What’s the “star” you’re actually walking toward right now — not the fear you’re walking away from, but the thing pulling you forward?

🌿 Today’s Practical Magick

Before you do the thing you’ve been circling today — the upload, the send, the leap — try this:

Stand for one breath. Feel your feet on solid ground, wherever you actually are. Say quietly: I am not falling. I am arriving.

That’s the whole spell. 🌟🐾

🔒 The personal pull is below — for paid subscribers — Where The Mojo Mama Bear tells you what actually happens on the morning her whole life quietly turns a corner, and why a 1982 song about a fictional movie romance decided to show up in her dreams about it.

Read more

On why “just get back on the horse” is terrible advice for a burned-out writer, and what actually gets the engine turning over again.

Last time, we talked about ritual over force — building small, repeatable cues instead of white-knuckling a schedule. But there’s a question underneath that one I haven’t answered yet, and it’s the one I get asked more than almost anything else:

“Okay, but what if I’ve been stopped for so long that I don’t even remember how to start?”

That’s not a consistency problem. That’s a momentum problem. And they are not the same thing, even though they get treated like the same thing constantly.

Subscribe now

Burnout Doesn’t Care About Your Outline

Here’s the thing nobody tells you about burnout: it doesn’t just steal your time or your energy. It steals your relationship to the work.

You can have a fully outlined book, characters you love, a deadline you set yourself — and still sit down and feel absolutely nothing. Not resistance, exactly. Just... static. A dead engine that used to purr.

And the advice the internet hands you in that moment is almost always some version of “just start, momentum builds momentum, get back on the horse.” Which, respectfully, is advice built for someone whose engine is merely cold — not someone whose engine burned out entirely and is currently sitting in a ditch somewhere with smoke coming out of the hood.

Those are different repair jobs.

A cold engine needs a turn of the key.

A burned-out one needs you to actually get out, pop the hood, and see what’s wrong before you try to drive anywhere.

Share

The Difference Between Resting and Restarting

This is the pillar people skip past, because resting feels like the “acceptable” thing to talk about and restarting feels like the scary unknown after it. But here’s what I’ve learned: rest doesn’t automatically turn into restart. You can rest for months and still not know how to find your way back in, because resting and restarting are two entirely different skills.

Rest is stopping the bleeding. Restart is relearning how to walk.

And the walking-again phase needs something most burnout advice completely skips: permission to be bad at it for a while. Permission to write badly. Permission to not recognize your own voice on the page at first. Permission for the return to feel clumsy and foreign, because it will — and that clumsiness is not proof you’ve lost it. It’s proof you’re using a muscle that’s been resting, which is exactly what muscles that have been resting do.

• Where have you been treating “I’m not ready yet” as a character flaw instead of an honest, valid stage of recovery?

• What would it look like to expect the first attempts back to be clumsy — and let that be okay instead of alarming?

• If you didn’t have to be “good” at writing again immediately, what’s the smallest possible way you could touch the work today?

🔒 The personal story, the exercise, and this week’s easy-tech ease-bringer are below — for paid subscribers. (Psst — this is also exactly the material I’ll be teaching live in our very first Tech-with-Soul workshop on August 3rd, included free with your subscription. No pressure, just a heads up. 💜)

Read more

He’s not waiting for the trail to be lit. He brought his own fire.

🖊️ Part 1: For the Writers

Look at him. Mid-stride, cloak already catching the wind before his foot even lands. That torch isn’t decorative. He’s using it.

The Page of Wands shows up when you’ve got an idea that’s a little too excited to sit still. Not a fully formed plan. Not a five-year strategy. Just a spark, and a bear who’s already three steps down the mountain before he’s even thought too hard about whether he’s ready or not.

Here’s the thing about this card that trips a lot of us writers up: they think the Page is telling them to chase something new. Start the next project. Follow the shiny thing. And sometimes, yeah, sure, that’s exactly right.

But just as often, the Page of Wands is asking you to bring that same eager, torch-in-hand energy to something you’re already in the middle of. The manuscript that’s almost there. The scene you’ve read forty times.

The project that’s stopped feeling new but hasn’t stopped needing you.

Share

He didn’t wait for the trail to be lit. He brought his own fire.

That’s the real message. You don’t need the path to already be glowing before you’re willing to walk it with enthusiasm. You can be the source of the light. Even on the boring parts. Even on read-through number forty-one.

• Where in your work right now have you been waiting for excitement to show up on its own, instead of just... bringing it?

• What would it look like to meet a task you’ve already started with fresh curiosity, the way this bear meets an entire mountain range he hasn’t walked yet?

• What’s your torch — the thing that makes even the tedious stretch of trail feel less like a slog?

Subscribe now

🌿 Today’s Practical Magick

Before you sit down to whatever’s on your list today — the exciting part or the tedious part, doesn’t matter — light an actual candle if you’ve got one handy. Not for ceremony. Just so there’s real fire in the room while you work.

Say something simple, out loud if you’re alone, in your head if you’re not: I bring my own light to this.

Then go do the thing. That’s it. That’s the whole spell.

🔒 The personal pull is below — for paid subscribers — This is where The Mojo Mama Bear gets bear-bones honest about what today’s card actually stirred up, and what a real Thursday looks like when you’re stitching a launch, a kid’s visit, and a jaw that’s still holding a grudge into one day.

Read more

On the difference between chasing abundance and simply standing in the middle of it.

🖊️ Part 1: For the Writers

The Nine of Pentacles doesn’t hustle. She stands hooded in purple-red robes at twilight, in a garden thick with foxglove and greenery, one glowing coin resting easy in her open palm — not gripped, not guarded, just held. A second coin hangs from a cord at her side, low and unhurried. And at her feet? Six more, scattered loose in the leaves like they grew there. Because they did.

Above her, one star burns brighter than all the rest.

Subscribe now

This is the card of the writer who has already done the work. Not the writer dreaming about doing the work. Not the writer who thinks she needs one more course, one more tool, one more perfect system before she’s “ready.” This bear built her garden coin by coin, book by book, and now she’s simply standing in it, under her own bright star, deciding what to do with an evening.

She isn’t gathering. She’s arrived.

Here’s what trips writers up about this card: we mistake rest inside abundance for laziness, and quiet enjoyment of what we’ve built for not doing enough. We think Nine of Pentacles energy has to be earned fresh every single day, when really — some days, the whole task is just to notice the coins already at your feet.

Look closely at hers. A couple are worn soft at the edges. She kept them anyway. Abundance doesn’t require pristine conditions or a body that’s stopped aching. It just requires that you built something real, and you’re allowed to hold it exactly as it is.

Share

• Where in your creative life have you been gathering more, when what you actually have is already enough for today?

• What would it feel like to stand still in your own garden instead of scanning the horizon for the next thing to grow?

• Which of your “worn” or “cracked” coins — imperfect wins, messy chapters, unfinished projects — deserve to stay in your collection anyway?

🌿 Today’s Practical Magick

Light a gold or amber candle if you have one. Hold both hands open, palms up, and name — out loud or silently — three things you’ve already built that are still standing. Not goals. Not hopes. Things that exist right now because you made them exist.

Then say: I am not waiting for my garden. I am standing in it.

That’s the spell. 🌾🐾

🔒 The personal pull is below — for paid subscribers — This is where The Mojo Mama Bear gets bear-bones honest about what the card stirred up this morning, and what it looks like in a real, unglamorous Wednesday in the life of a working author with a healing jaw and a full heart.

Read more

On the difference between gathering wisdom and receiving it — and why some days call you to close the book.

🖊️ Part 1: For the Writers

The Hierophant sits enthroned on old stone steps, in front of a temple that has clearly stood for a very long time. He wears deep magenta robes, a golden staff in one paw, an open book in the other. Above him, a scatter of pink, glowing cards drift through a starlit teal sky like they’re arriving from somewhere he can’t quite see.

And his eyes are closed.

That’s the detail that undoes the whole “stuffy old teacher” read of this card. He isn’t lecturing. He isn’t even reading anymore. The book is open in his hand, but his face has gone soft and still, like he stopped needing his eyes the second the real information started arriving.

The book is open. But the wisdom is coming in through a different door today.

The Hierophant gets misread as “tradition for tradition’s sake” — rules, structure, the old ways because they’re old. But look at this bear again. He’s not clutching the book like a shield. He’s holding it open and loosely, because he already knows the deeper truth it took him a lifetime to learn: information lives on the page, but wisdom arrives when you finally stop scanning the lines and let yourself be taught.

For writers, this card shows up at the exact moment we’re tempted to muscle through something alone — plot problems, craft questions, a body that’s telling us something — instead of letting an expert, a mentor, or our own quieter knowing do the telling.

• Where in your creative life are you white-knuckling a problem you could simply ask someone about?

• What would it feel like to close the book for a moment and just receive the answer instead of hunting for it?

• Who is the “Hierophant” in your life right now — the person whose counsel you trust enough to actually follow?

🌿 Today’s Practical Magick

Sometime today, find one moment to close your eyes the way this bear has — not to disappear, but to actually receive. Before you ask your next question (of a doctor, a mentor, your own gut), take one slow breath and silently say:

I don’t have to figure this out alone. I only have to listen for the answer.

That’s it. That’s the spell. 📖🐾

🔒 The personal pull is below — for paid subscribers — This is where The Mojo Mama Bear gets bear-bones honest about what the card stirred up this morning and what it looks like in a real, unglamorous, swollen-jawed Tuesday in the life of a working author rebuilding her life and career one day at a time.

Read more

On why “just be more disciplined” has never fixed anything, and what actually keeps a writer showing up when willpower runs out.

Somewhere along the way, we all absorbed the same lie about consistency: that it’s a character trait. That some writers just have it — steady, reliable, gold-star-sticker types who never miss a day — and the rest of us are simply too undisciplined, too scattered, too much to ever be one of them.

I believed that lie for years. I want to gently take it away from you today.

Subscribe now

Discipline Was Never the Missing Ingredient

Here’s what I’ve learned the hard way, more than once: forcing yourself to be consistent through sheer willpower works right up until it doesn’t — and then it doesn’t work spectacularly. You white-knuckle a streak. You feel proud. You feel like you’ve finally “fixed” yourself. And then life does what life does — illness, a bad week, a schedule earthquake — and the streak breaks, and suddenly it doesn’t just feel like a missed day. It feels like proof you were never really a “real” writer to begin with.

That’s not a discipline problem. That’s a design problem.

Willpower is a finite resource. It runs on decision-making energy, and every single day you’re already spending that energy on a hundred invisible things before you ever sit down to write — work, family, health, the general exhausting task of being a person in the world right now. Treating consistency like something you white-knuckle through sets you up to fail the moment your tank runs low, which for most of us is... often.

Ritual doesn’t run on willpower. Ritual runs on cue.

Share

What Ritual Actually Means (No Candles Required)

I want to be really clear about something, because “ritual” is a word that can send certain brains running for the hills — especially if you’ve been burned by advice that assumed you had unlimited time, spoons, and a Pinterest-worthy writing nook waiting for you every morning.

A ritual, in the way I mean it, is just this: a small, repeatable cue that tells your brain “this is the writing thing now.” That’s it. It doesn’t need incense. It doesn’t need an hour. It needs to be small enough that you’ll actually do it on the bad days, not just the good ones — because the bad days are exactly when you need it most.

The magic isn’t in the ritual itself. It’s in the fact that it’s the same small thing every time, so your brain stops negotiating and starts recognizing.

Some real, unglamorous examples:

• The same playlist, every single writing session, no exceptions

• Re-reading your last paragraph before you write the next one

• One specific mug, used only for writing time

• Opening the document and typing today’s date before anything else

None of these require discipline. They require repetition. And repetition, unlike willpower, doesn’t run out.

• Where has “just try harder” quietly failed you, over and over, in a way that was never actually your fault?

• What’s one tiny, repeatable cue — not a whole routine, just one small thing — that could tell your brain “we’re writing now”?

• If you stopped trying to build a system and just tried to build a doorway, what would that doorway look like?

🔒 The personal story, the exercise, and this week’s easy-tech ease-bringer are below — for paid subscribers.

Read more

On watching the cosmos spin, reaching toward it anyway, and why some cycles complete without you lifting a paw.

🖊️ Part 1: For the Writers

The Wheel of Fortune doesn’t ask permission before it turns. In this card, Mama Bear stands at the edge of a stone cliff, wrapped in deep purple robes, one paw outstretched — not gripping, not grasping, just... reaching. Above her, a massive wheel spins in the star-strewn dark, glowing gold and pink at its center like a heartbeat made of light. It looks part clock, part galaxy, part old, old magic. Beside her, four cubs sit along the rock ledge, faces tilted up, watching the same light she’s watching.

Nobody in this image is turning the wheel. Nobody’s cranking a lever or straining against gears. They’re witnessing it. Reaching toward it. Trusting its motion.

That’s a hard lesson for writers, especially the ones who built their whole survival strategy around control. We plan the outline. We chart the launch. We build the spreadsheet with the perfect release-week numbers already penciled in. And then life laughs, tilts its head, and reminds us: some things turn on their own timeline, not ours.

Subscribe now

The Wheel of Fortune isn’t telling you to stop reaching. Mama Bear is still reaching — that outstretched paw matters. It’s telling you that reaching and controlling are two different postures. One is open-handed. One is a fist.

• Where in your creative life have you been white-knuckling something that’s actually already in motion?

• What would it feel like to keep your paw extended — engaged, ready, present — without needing to be the one spinning the wheel?

• Who’s sitting beside you on the ledge, watching the same light, whether you’ve noticed them or not?

Share

🌿 Today’s Practical Magick

Next time you catch yourself trying to force an outcome — sales numbers, a launch date, a body that won’t cooperate — try this:

Open your hand, palm up, like Mama Bear’s. Look at something bright, even if it’s just a lamp or the sun through a window. Say quietly: The wheel is already turning. I don’t have to spin it alone.

That’s it. That’s the whole spell. 🌀🐾

🔒 The personal pull is below — for paid subscribers — This is where The Mojo Mama Bear gets bear-bones honest about what the card stirred up this morning, and what it looks like in a real, unglamorous Monday in the life of a working author whose jaw had other plans for today.

Read more

On why I used to think I hated tech work — and what a $10,000 invoice taught me about what I actually hated.

I want to tell you about a sentence that rearranged something in me this week, because it came out of my own mouth before I even realized I believed it.

I was talking about the local tech company I had done some work for, about the unexpected hour cuts, about that whole stretch of feeling like a dancing circus bear who only ever got claps and never got peanuts — and I heard myself say: I don’t hate tech. I resented work that didn’t feed my spirit and pay me well.

Stop. Rewind. Say that again.

Subscribe now

Because for the better part of two years, I’ve been telling myself (and probably some of you) a tidier, simpler story: I’m soft-retiring from tech. Writing is the real dream. Tech is the thing I’m tolerating until the words pay enough to let me quit.

And that story isn’t wrong, exactly. But it’s not the whole truth either.

It flattened something that actually has more shape to it than “I don’t like this industry or work anymore after almost 30 years in it.”

Here’s the shape, once I finally looked at it straight: it was never tech. It was the specific kind of tech — the four-hours-a-week, feast-or-famine, undercharging-because-it-circumvents-procurement, one-off-favor-grinding kind of tech.

The kind where I was giving my actual skill away for scraps because I hadn’t yet learned I was allowed to charge for the whole of what I bring, not just the line-item task.

And then this week happened.

Share

I sat down with a customer— a client relationship I’ve actually gotten to build slowly, on my own terms, with real trust in both directions — and I sent an invoice for more money in a single line item than I have ever asked anyone for (on a single invoice) in my entire freelance life. Five figures. And he didn’t blink. He got excited. Wanted to talk timeline. Wanted to talk about what’s next.

That is not the same job as all the years I spent in the corporate 9-5 grind, or even helping out a local tech company. It never was. I just didn’t have the language yet to explain why it felt so different in my body, until this week handed it to me.

Here’s the language: heart-capacity and time-capacity are not the same resource, and I have spent a very long time treating them like they were interchangeable.

Share

Time-capacity is the hours on the clock. It’s finite, it’s measurable, it’s the thing every productivity app wants to help you optimize. Four hours a week. Twenty hours a week. A sprint. A deadline.

Heart-capacity is something else entirely. It’s how much of you — your actual attention, your care, your creative problem-solving, the part of you that gets genuinely curious about a gnarly bug at 11pm because you want to solve it, not because you’re clocked in — you have available to bring to a piece of work. And it doesn’t scale on the same axis as time at all. You can have four hours and zero heart-capacity for a task. You can have forty minutes and an overflowing well of it.

I had plenty of time-capacity for tech jobs, most weeks. What I never had — and what I quietly starved for years without naming it — was heart-capacity for it.

The work was meaningless to me in a way that had nothing to do with the actual technical content and everything to do with the container it lived in — undervalued, underpaid, treated as an afterthought, never quite mattering to anyone including, eventually, me.

This new chapter in my tech work is the opposite container. A new project we’re lovingly referring to as “The Portal” project — is infrastructure that will actually affect and make a real difference in real people’s lives. It’s work I want to be good at. It matters. My customer treats it like it matters. And so, my heart-capacity for it is enormous, even on weeks when my actual clock-hours are thin.

And here’s where this turns into a writing letter, because with me it always does — the personal and the creative are the same river, they always have been.

I think readers can feel this exact same distinction in a manuscript, and I don’t think I fully understood that until this week either.

You can tell — you can always tell — when a writer showed up with time-capacity only. The scene technically happens. The plot beat lands where it’s supposed to. But there’s a flatness to it, a going-through-the-motions quality that no amount of competent craft fully disguises.

And you can tell, just as clearly, when a writer showed up with their whole heart in it — even in a rough draft, even in a scene that needs three more editing passes. Something underneath the sentences is alive.

Readers can smell disengaged work from three rooms away, same as clients can. I used to think that was just a “quality” problem — write better, edit harder, fix the craft issue.

But some of what readers are actually responding to isn’t craft at all. It’s presence.

It’s whether the person who wrote this was actually here, heart fully in the room, or just clocking hours until the word count hit its mark.

🔒 The rest of this letter — the real ledger from a quiet week, the specific numbers behind that invoice excitement, and a journaling exercise on where you might be confusing heart-capacity with time-capacity in your own life — is below, for paid subscribers.

Read more

On the difference between being stuck and choosing to hang still — and why some of the clearest seeing happens upside down.

🖊️ Part 1: For the Writers

The Hanged Man doesn’t struggle. That’s the detail everyone misses. He’s suspended — one leg roped to the branch, arms loose, robe pooling around him like it has nowhere urgent to be — and there is not one ounce of thrash in him. No gritted teeth. No white-knuckled grip. Just... stillness. A small light glowing gently just out of reach, and a willingness to hang there and simply look at it, rather than scramble for it.

Writers are climbers by nature. We are always reaching for the next branch — the next chapter, the next deadline, the next launch, the next metric that will finally prove we’re doing this “right”. And the Hanged Man doesn’t say “stop climbing forever.” He says: hang here a minute. Let the blood rush to your head. Let the world turn upside down. See what you can only see from this angle.

He didn’t fall. He chose the pause.

Subscribe now

Here’s what the Hanged Man knows about the creative life: some insight will not arrive while you’re upright, moving, producing. It arrives in the suspended moment — the walk with no destination, the shower where the plot unknots itself, the morning where you simply sit in a feeling instead of naming and filing it.

The story isn’t done cooking. And that’s not the same thing as being stuck.

Share

• Where in your work right now are you trying to force clarity that actually just needs time hanging quietly before it will show itself?

• What would happen if you let an idea stay soft and unlabeled a little longer, instead of rushing to pin it down?

• What’s the glowing thing just out of reach that you don’t need to grab yet — only look at?

🌿 Today’s Practical Magick

Next time you feel the urge to solve something before it’s ready to be solved — the reach-for-the-branch, name-it-now, fix-it-immediately impulse — try this instead:

Go still. Let your arms go loose at your sides. Breathe out slower than you breathed in. And say: I don’t have to climb yet. I can just hang here and look.

That’s the whole spell. Upside down is a valid vantage point. 🌙🐾

🔒 The personal pull is below — for paid subscribers — This is where The Mojo Mama Bear gets bear-bones honest about what the card stirred up this morning, and what it looks like in a real, quiet, unusually still Sunday in the life of a working author mid-threshold.

Read more

On the difference between an ending and an amputation — and why some blades exist to catch the light, not swing it.

🖊️ Part 1: For the Writers

Death is the card everyone flinches at before they’ve even looked at it properly.

But look at ours. This bear isn’t crouched over a battlefield. She’s standing on a rock outcrop in a field of pink wildflowers, cloak snapping in the wind, scythe lifted — not down, not swinging, up — into a sunburst so bright it’s throwing sparks across half the sky. This is not a card about destruction. This is a card about a weapon that got repurposed into a torch.

Subscribe now

Here’s what that means for the creative life:

Every writer carries old tools they built during harder seasons. The scarcity pricing. The “grateful for whatever crumbs of work show up” mindset. The manuscript you keep small because a bigger version of it feels too exposed, too loud, too “who do you think you are.” Those tools got you through something real. They were never stupid. They were survival.

But a scythe held low, swinging at shadows, just keeps cutting the same field over and over. Nothing new grows there. The bear in this card figured something out: eventually you have to lift the blade. Point it at the light instead of the threat. Let it become an instrument of harvest instead of defense.

The scythe was never for cutting you down. It was for cutting you loose.

Share

• Where in your creative work are you still gripping an old tool built for an old danger — long after the danger’s actually passed?

• What would it look like to lift that same tool toward something you want, instead of something you fear?

• What “small story” have you been pricing, writing, or building around — that the evidence in your actual life has already outgrown?

🌿 Today’s Practical Magick

Next time you catch yourself shrinking a number, an idea, or a sentence down to fit an old fear instead of your current reality — pause. Put a hand on your sternum. Say quietly:

I am allowed to lift the blade toward the light.

That’s it. That’s the spell. 🌾🐾

🔒 The personal pull is below — for paid subscribers — This is where The Mojo Mama Bear gets bear-bones honest about what the card stirred up this morning, and what (finally) letting go of an old story actually feels like in the body, not just the journal.

Read more

On the difference between speaking loudly and speaking clearly — and why the second one is the only one that actually lands.

🖊️ Part 1: For the Writers

The King of Swords doesn’t lean forward in his throne. He doesn’t need to.

Look at him — settled, upright, one paw resting easy on carved stone while the other holds a blade that’s already lit from within. He’s not gripping that sword like he’s about to swing it. He’s holding it like a man who has already won the argument and is simply waiting for the room to catch up.

That star above his head isn’t decoration. It’s confirmation. The universe already agrees with him. He doesn’t need applause to know he’s right — he needs you to listen.

Subscribe now

Here’s what the King of Swords knows about the writing life, and about the business of being a writer:

There is a very specific kind of exhaustion that comes from over-explaining yourself. From padding an email with six apologetic qualifiers before you get to the actual ask. From writing “just wondering if maybe possibly you might have thought about” instead of simply asking the question. We do this because somewhere along the way we learned that taking up space — clearly, plainly, without cushioning — was dangerous. That someone might push back. That someone might not like us for it.

The King of Swords has never had that problem, and it isn’t because he’s cold. Look at those robes — that’s not armor, that’s royalty. He is warm and clear at the same time. Those aren’t opposites. That’s the whole lesson.

The blade doesn’t waver because it already knows what it’s for.

Share

• Where in your creative or professional life have you been softening a clear truth into mush because you were afraid of how it would land?

• What would it feel like to state the thing once, plainly, and then let it rest — the way he lets that sword rest upright in his hand, no white-knuckling required?

• Who in your life actually needs your clarity more than they need your comfort right now?

🌿 Today’s Practical Magick

Before you send that email, walk into that meeting, or have that hard conversation — try this:

Write the one true sentence first. Not the padded version. The bare-bones one. Say it out loud once, alone, before you say it to anyone else. Then bring it with you, tucked in your pocket like a blade you don’t need to draw — just to know it’s there.

That’s it. That’s the spell. 🗡️🐾

🔒 The personal pull is below — for paid subscribers — This is where The Mojo Mama Bear gets bear-bones honest about what the card stirred up this morning and what it looks like in a real, unglamorous, unsexy Friday in the life of a working author rebuilding her life and career one day at a time.

Read more

On why “only real writers write every day at 5am” is a lie that’s been quietly wrecking you — and how to build a process that fits your actual brain.

Last time, we found your True North — the why underneath the writing. If you’re just joining us, go back and start there, because everything we build now sits on that foundation. 🧭

Today we build the how.

And I want to open with the single most freeing sentence I can offer you, so let’s just get it on the table right away:

There is no such thing as the “right” writing process. There is only the process that fits the writer you actually are.

I know. I know. It sounds too simple to be true, and it flies in the face of roughly nine thousand blog posts insisting that Real Writers™ write every single day, preferably at dawn, preferably 2,000 words, preferably in a tidy little ritual with a scented candle and a color-coded outline.

Let me tell you what that advice did for me for years: it made me feel broken.

Subscribe now

The Lie That Was Quietly Wrecking You

Here’s the trap, and I fell all the way into it. The productivity advice we absorb isn’t neutral — it’s built almost entirely by and for a specific kind of brain. The linear, consistent, same-time-every-day kind. The kind that finds a routine, clicks into it, and runs.

And if that’s your brain — wonderful! Genuinely. Go forth and dawn-write.

But a lot of us — the neurodivergent, the ADHD, the trauma-carrying, the chronically-ill, the sensitive — do not have that brain. We have brains that write in bursts. Brains that need novelty. Brains that can hyperfocus for four glorious hours and then need three days to recover. Brains that do their best plotting in the shower and their best drafting at 11pm and absolutely nothing useful at 5am no matter how many alarms we set.

And when a burst-happy-brain tries to force itself into a metronome-brain’s process, here’s what happens: it fails, feels ashamed, calls itself lazy or undisciplined, and slowly starts believing it’s not a real writer.

You are not undisciplined. You’ve been handed the wrong instruction manual. 📖

Share

Process Is a Framework, Not a Rulebook

This is where I part ways — again — with the guru model. 🤣 I’m not going to tell you my process and call it the answer. My process is mine; it’s shaped like my brain, my body, my chronic pain, my ADHD, my life. Yours will be shaped like yours.

What I can give you is the framework for building your own — and permission to let it change. Because here’s the second freeing truth: the process that works for you this season may not work next season, and that’s not a flaw in you. That’s just being a living human whose life keeps moving.

A process is a tool, not a vow. When it stops fitting, you’re allowed to set it down and build a new one.

If you’re building a house and the hammer breaks, you don’t shame the hammer and quit — you get a new hammer and keep going.

(well, you might swear at it for a few minutes first… but that doesn’t count! LOL) 🤪🤣

No shame, no starting-over guilt. Just gentle re-tooling.

The writers who last aren’t the ones with the most rigid discipline. They’re the ones who learned to notice how they actually work — and then stopped fighting it.

Below the line: the story of how I finally stopped forcing a process that was never built for my brain (and the burnt-out season that made me figure it out), plus the actual exercise for mapping YOUR real process, the one easy-tech trick that makes it effortless to follow, and your prompts. That part’s for the folks building the whole framework with me. 🐾

Read more

On holding the reins loosely instead of gripping them white-knuckled — and why the light you’re chasing doesn’t need you to sprint toward it.

🖊️ Part 1: For the Writers

The Chariot gets misread constantly. People see the wheels, the confident posture, the forward motion, and they think: go faster. Push harder. This is the hustle card.

It is not the hustle card.

Look again at our bear. He’s not hunched over the reins in a white-knuckle grip. He’s not cracking a whip. One paw holds the lines loosely enough to guide, not choke. The other paw is raised — not toward the wolves, not toward the road ahead, but up, toward a small sphere of pure light, steady in his grasp like a compass he already trusts.

Subscribe now

That’s the whole secret of the Chariot: the direction is decided before the wheels ever turn.

The two wolves pulling this chariot aren’t fighting each other. They’re not straining against opposite instincts the way the card’s traditional black-and-white sphinxes so often are. These two are matched — same color, same posture, same forward-leaning stride, same ears pricked toward the same horizon. They’ve already agreed on where they’re going. The bear’s job isn’t to referee a tug-of-war. It’s simply to hold the light high enough that they can all see the same star.

For writers, this is the card that shows up when you’ve got two (or six) competing projects, timelines, or identities all wanting your attention at once — and you’ve been treating that as a problem to manage instead of a team to align.

The wolves aren’t fighting. They’re already running the same direction. Your job is just to hold the light.

Share

• Where in your creative life have you been white-knuckling the reins on something that’s actually already moving the right way?

• What would it feel like to trust that your different projects — the ones that seem to pull in different directions — might actually already be running in formation, if you stopped bracing for the fight?

• What’s your version of that small, steady light? The thing you don’t have to question, even in the dark?

🌿 Today’s Practical Magick

Before you sit down to write today, try this: hold both hands loosely in front of you, like you’re holding reins that don’t need choking. Take a breath. Ask yourself — not urgently, just honestly — what direction am I already moving?

You don’t have to invent the answer. You already know it. The Chariot doesn’t ask you to find a new path. It asks you to stop second-guessing the one you’ve already chosen.

That’s it. That’s the spell. 🐾✨

🔒 The personal pull is below — for paid subscribers — This is where The Mojo Mama Bear gets bear-bones honest about what the card stirred up this morning, and what steady direction actually looks like on an unglamorous, smoke-hazy Thursday in the life of a working author rebuilding her life one loosely-held rein at a time.

Read more