With Venus moving into Libra at the beginning of the month, I thought it would be the perfect time to do my deep dive on Venus placements for writers, authors, and us aspiring authors. (yew!)

Venus represents the sacred feminine, romance, love, passion, and playing with the martial world through the lens of the divine. It takes our raw desires and turns them into a sort of spiritual devotion.

Where Mars is the planet of action, it represents how you pursue what you want…

Venus is the planet of allowing and receiving; it represents what you pull towards YOU naturally.

And when you align with the traits of your Venus placement, you stop chasing and start attracting.

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Venus teaches us that we do not have to struggle or force to receive and be loved. True alignment with this planet means stepping into our highest expression by knowing that we inherently deserve peace, abundance, pleasure, harmony, and anything our soul desires.

Here, beauty is the medicine - arts, luxury, aesthetics, music, nature, dancing - these all activate our inherent Venusian energy, that attraction factor.

And while I often see Venus described as the planet of love, although that’s true, I think it’s an oversimplification.

Venus is the planet of love, but it’s also the planet of MAGNETISM…what you're naturally drawn to and what is naturally drawn to you based on your own frequency.

It's the essence behind your magnetism and how you're cosmically wired to attract. It’s the place in your life where, when you add in a little bit more pleasure, you become instantly rewarded.

It’s where life wants to make you the most magnetic.

Where Venus is in your chart and what sign it’s in is your own personal little attraction spell. It’s how you catch someone’s eye, how you get noticed, and then draw that person or thing in.

As writers who will eventually step onto the world stage of publishing, regardless of whether you’re going the indie or the traditional route, knowing your Venus will help you turn on that magnetism so that attracting the right people and opportunities will feel effortless.

Becuase this is really about allowing, receiving, and radiating the energy that pulls your desires directly to you.

As you build your author brand, market your book, and call in your dreams of becoming an agented, published author, ask yourself this…

How can I make my energy so irresistible that they find me?

You don’t need to be a hunter to find your agent or readers; you can finally stop chasing, because when you step into your Venusian magnetic energy, you naturally attract everything soul-aligned to YOU.

Some light housekeeping before we begin…

I consider myself a psychic astrologer. I combine the chart-based study of astrology with my intuition and psychic abilities. I like to say I scan people’s charts for planetary placements and then read the energy after that, absorbing whatever comes forward intuitively. I am self-taught and learned by reading other people’s charts — friends, family, my boyfriend, strangers at the bar after two margaritas, and yes, I had them text their mom for their birth time. I have been studying astrology for 8 years and have been into it since high school. These are my credentials.

I currently don’t do private readings, but I love sharing this information because I genuinely enjoy it. This type of information is behind a paywall because I do all my astrology by hand, through my own wisdom and understanding. I don’t use AI, and I don’t get my astrology information from other astrologers. Basically, it takes a long ass time to channel and output all this information and make sure it is digestible for you to use in your daily life.

As I said, astrology is deeply personal. I did my best to share information below that will be valuable and helpful to you, while not knowing your full chart. This information is meant to be inspirational and helpful, but without knowing the rest of your chart, the reading will always be slightly incomplete, and that’s okay. What’s below will be immensely helpful — I know it is, because when I did this for myself, it was so valuable for me and gave me a better understanding of where I need to shine more brightly.

My goal with merging astrology with writing is to help us creatives step into our highest potential and highest form, and I know astrology can do just that. We each have access to our own cosmic map, a blueprint of our soul written in the stars, and this very blueprint can act as the stepping stone to YOUR dream life.

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We are deep in August now, and after the many weeks of sticky heat here in Southern California, I can confidently say I am ready for fall. I am one part pink princess, one part Pumpkin King — I love running around in my bikini just as much as I love putting on a nice jumper and smelling the shit out of fall-scented candles at Target.

Give me fall outfits, pumpkin-flavored everything, and rotting in bed while rewatching Twilight and Gilmore Girls because the weather outside is weather.

And although I am ready for Fall, this Summer did not let me down. I rode my bike to the beach every week, went camping in Big Sur with my bf and our dog Louie, ate three corn dogs at the OC fair (in one sitting, please hold your applause), and grew grass in our backyard for Lou dog.

I also started re-reading The Lord of the Rings, re-watched the TV show The OA (fucking hell, why did they cancel this show?!) and drank more sugar-free Long Drinks than I care to admit.

But most importantly of all, I started plotting and outlining my book, my Untitled sci-fi (ish) fantasy book, which I’m now working on the logline and pitch. (Why is it so hard to do these?!)

In the spring I told you all I would start drafting my novel in the summer. The lie detector test determined... that was a lie.

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I've written about ten pages of the first chapter. I still keep hitting the brakes on this whole writing part of writing my book because I'm still unsure of the messy middle. BUT I also know I just need to barf out words onto my pages and that once I get violently ill, metaphorically speaking, things will begin to click.

I have Scrivener, I have my index cards, my notebooks, and I have a fair idea of what I'm doing and where I'm going; I just need to start writing.

And as summer comes to an end, I want to share the top accessories that got me through this summer and the wildness of writing a fantasy novel.

But first, here are a few things that are on my accessory wish list…

ONE: A new desk. We are about to turn our garage into our office and turn our spare room into a bedroom, as we have my bf’s friend coming out from Scotland at the end of August. Also, we have the bf’s family coming out at the end of September AND at the end of October. Plus, we are in the process of trying for a baby (bow Chicka bow wow), so we’ll need a baby room too.

All of that being said, I hate my current desk. It’s black, synthetic, from Ikea, and I firmly believe it's some long-lost Horcrux trying to steal my soul. It’s the opposite of aesthetic, and I already struggle in that area enough as it is.

I also can’t sit crisscross applesauce in my chair because there’s no room for my knees to go with this desk. So there.

I found this free desk on FB Marketplace (pictured above), but Steven, the dickhead, had the audacity to ignore my messages and give it to someone else. Now I have to hire an Etsy Witch to hex him for not selling me his free desk and giving it away to someone who messaged him first.

Nothing crazy, just a very mild curse so he knows he did me dirty.

TWO: I want a dragon statue. We just went to the Orange County Fair, and if you walk through the arts and crafts center, there are a bunch of dragon statues. I didn’t get one then because, well, I just didn’t, and now I really regret it, ok? And I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m like, should I get a dragon tattoo? Or maybe just the statue? Should I try to find a dragon egg and grow my own? Do we even have the space? Do we have the time and energy to train a dragon right now, let alone add another animal to our pet insurance? It’s a lot to process when considering a new pet. Does Louie even want a dragon playmate? Things to consider…

ok now onto the good stuff…

5 Writing Accessories Getting Me Through the Summer

One: This yellow chair. Specifically, this yellow chair at this specific location at the table. I like to write at The Lab in Costa Mesa, which is this anti-mall with a communal indoor/outdoor “living room” and a coffee shop called Nook. I’m fairly certain The Lab is the birthplace of the Hipster in the early 2010s, but don't fact-check me. Anyway, the baristas at Nook, they know me, they know my order. They know my dog, they know my dog’s order. They also know I’m working on a book, and I get really red in the face whenever they ask me about it.

I usually sit inside Nook, but if I’m being a serious writer, I go out to the communal living room. They just got new furniture, and let me tell you, I used to have an old table and an old chair in a different location that was my perfect writing spot. Then they got all this wacky doodle furniture, and I had to test out a bunch of different spots until I landed on this yellow chair.

I know what you’re thinking: This yellow chair looks horrible. It doesn’t look comfortable. It looks like an artisan woodworker took some acid and had a bad trip. I thought the same thing, at first. But this chair is actually quite comfortable. It’s the right elevation; I’m not too low at the table and also not too high. I just feel at home when I sit in MY chair.

It’s my new and more colorful writing spot for when I leave the house, acid trip not included. And I have trained my mind to know that as soon as we sit down, it’s go time, baby. We're locked in; the writing session has started.

Fun fact: In Human Design, I have Wet kitchens as my Environment, so being in places that feel like a busy hub really work for me. If I could write in Hell’s Kitchen, just sit in the corner while it’s hot and humid, with Gordon Ramsay screaming at people, I would get so much work done.

Two: This Hat. I only joined Book of the Month to get this hat. If you NEVER see me again because I had to go into witness protection for such a heinous crime, you know what happened to me. The reality is I’m a huge denim girl. I could wear denim top to bottom every single day. I would wear denim socks and denim chonies if the opportunity presented itself.

This hat gives me major street cred. Nothing screams I’m a writer, take me seriously, like a hat that says Book Person.

I’m a hyperfixation kind of gal, so I pretty much wear the same thing or eat the same thing or drink the same thing, whatever that flavor-of-the-month thing is, and this year it’s been this hat. I also like wearing the hat when I go out into the wild to write becuase I can keep my head down and hide my eyes, so in case I run into someone, I can pretend like I can’t see them.

This hat is also a great conversation starter. One time I ran into a girl, and she was like, Oh my God, I love the Book of the Month! And my kneejerk reaction was to lie and be like, Yeah, me too. I still do it, blah blah blah. Then she was like, Yeah, my aunt is in the industry. I asked what she meant, and she said, “Oh, she works for one of the Big Five publishing houses in New York.” I had to do everything with my mind, body, and soul to not scream in her face and say, Get her on the phone! Let’s FaceTime her! Give me your aunt‘s phone number, street address, and Social Security number right now! Let’s be best friends!

So yeah, this hat has helped me a lot.

Three: This bikini. Now I know what you’re thinking: what does a bikini have to do with writing? Let me tell you, everything.

I accidentally bought this bikini a size too small. It’s so freaking tiny my butthole pretty much hangs out. At first, I was nervous to wear it. As a 38-year-old woman, I’m in that process where your body just gets a little bit bigger for no reason. I’ve always been pretty much the same size since high school. Now, I’m noticing in your late 30s you kind of get to a point where you’re just 10 pounds heavier and two jeans sizes bigger, and no matter what I do, I can't change it.

So wearing this bikini despite it being too small and despite my body getting bigger has been a big boost in my confidence and self-acceptance. Because I really like this bikini and I'm starting to really like this body. And having confidence in all areas of your life is important as a writer.

Plus, life is about having fun and enjoying yourself. When I'm out there splashing in the waves and pretending to be a mermaid in my tiny ass bikini, I’m reminded that life is not that serious and we all deserve to have fun.

Four: My notes app. I have exactly 200 notes in my notes app, and about 190 of them are about my book. I’m not sure if I would consider this a normal process, but I use talk-to-text in my notes for every single idea that comes to me. It’s gotten out of hand for sure, and I probably need to go through and organize and delete some of them. (You can see I recently deleted 202 wtf!) But I love having every single idea that has ever come to me in one place. It’s like this sick and twisted little archive of dumb and smart thoughts that have passed through my very large brain.

In the summer, my notes app is the single hottest accessory I can have as a writer, because for the most part, I’ve been on the go. Dinners, boat rides, bike rides, fair time, beaches, drinks at bars, late-night dinners, all of it. The high-activity of summer has required me to leave the comfort of my home, take off my introvert cape, and step into the world of you extroverts. You little freaks.

But having my notes app has allowed me to keep working on the go, even when I’m two margaritas deep.

Five: My book notebooks. I'm still figuring out my process as a first-time author and writer. I’m 100% an idea gal. I always have so many ideas flooding out of me…As I said above, my Notes app has about 190 notes filled to the brim with ideas. So for me, being able to take those ideas, digest them, and figure out which ones are ready to follow through on has been a huge and hard process.

I have the index cards, and I have Scrivener for when I have my actual foundational pieces in place. But I found that taking a notebook and writing what happens next, beat-by-beat, has been really helpful for me, especially if I can fit it into one to two lines. For example, I’ll write something like, first she’s doing this, next this happens, next this happens... It's simple, but this has helped me so much because when I can open the pages and see all the beats and scene breakdowns in one place, it’s helped me picture it all so clearly.

Where if I’m trying to do that with index cards, you’re flipping through them, they can get jumbled, and then you have to number them. This notebook method works really well for me.

From there, I start visualizing my book scene-by-scene in my imagination, without all the crazy details. I can begin watching it in my mind so that I get used to the flow and pace of the story. It’s almost like I’m watching the movie before I write it. That way, when I do sit down to write, it feels completely natural because I’m like, oh yeah, I know what happens next. I know I need to include this and this.

This is probably my favorite thing I do and has been the most helpful for my own process as I untangle all my ideas and get the outline sorted.

I'm curious to know if you have any absurd or out-of-the-box accessories that have been helping you write this summer? Let me know in the comments below!

Goblins unite,

I want to make this a quick one for you, as it just came to me on my walk. I also got back from camping in Big Sur yesterday, so I’m all over the place as I leave the magical fairy land of the redwoods and come back to reality. Pictures of our trip below. Also, we took Louie camping for the first time. Watch this and let me know if you think he loved it or hated it.

Also, I have a quick poll for you all. I think this is my 19th Substack post, so I'm seeing what feels good to share in this space and what you're liking the best.

Ok, back to the post. I had another topic planned for this week, but when I was on my walk this morning, this idea just completely downloaded into me. I think it’s mainly because there’s been a lot of author drama lately and I found myself getting sucked into it, and becoming a bit of a judgy bear myself.

I’ve also been really in my head in this space. When I launched this Substack, I had a post go viral and got like 1000 new subscribers and paid subscribers in a matter of hours, plus had multiple videos go viral on Instagram. It felt like the Universe was giving me a nudge to say Keep going sis, this is it. But now the spark has died down a bit, and it’s hard to keep going when that initial new project spark has burned out. Basically, I'm in my head about whether I'm doing this right or if this is my right path.

I’m also a Sagittarius sun with Aries in my third house of ideas and writing, and both of those placements love the initial fire and spark of a new idea but have a hard time sticking around once the flame has gone down to a simmer. Anyways, if this speaks to you or you feel like it's so hard to keep going when your posts aren't hitting the numbers you hoped for, we are in this together, and we just have to keep going despite the lack of external validation. (which I would really love right now!)

But anyways, today I want to talk about shadow work as a writer. The author world is full of criticism and judgment and lots of eyes on us, and I think it’s easy to fall into the trap of judging and criticizing others, but there’s an opportunity for deeper inner work here. So let’s dive in.

Maybe you’ve heard of shadow work, but if this topic hasn't crossed your desk before, shadow work is the practice of getting to know the parts of yourself you’ve rejected or down below…the traits, emotions, or actions you learned were unacceptable, unsafe, or too much, so you buried them. But those buried parts don’t just disappear. They show up in your external world, in who irritates you, who bothers you, and even who you idolize. And there is usually an intense emotion surrounding these people and situations.

It’s based on this idea that what we judge in others is something we have rejected and disowned within ourselves. Basically, if you spot it, you got it. And part of coming back home to our authenticity and living from our highest alignment is seeing and owning all parts of ourselves. (Even those parts we have learned to reject for safety.)

This topic came to me when I found myself judging another author who has something going on in the media right now. I found myself saying how difficult they must be, how annoying they are for causing this drama, and that they just like attention.

I found myself ruminating on this and realized something. I don’t know anything about them, the situation, or have insight into their actual life. I’m just judging them based on very little information I do have, and it’s coming from my own lens of perspective.

And by lens of perspective, I mean these judgments I have toward them are not based on truth but rather something that exists inside of ME.

Once I realized that, I knew I had some inner work to do.

As I said above and as the saying goes…if you spot it, you got it. So what we judge in other people is something that’s either been repressed within ourselves or something we don’t want to acknowledge as an aspect of ourselves. Or it might not even feel safe to own these parts in the outside world.

Judgment is often a projection. You’re seeing a piece of yourself in someone else, a piece you have disowned, that you don’t like, and you’re putting that dislike on them so you don’t have to feel it in you.

So you don’t have to deal with it within yourself.

The thing is, when we don’t own every part of ourselves, the light and the dark, the dark ends up running the show. Your ego and fears are so desperate to be validated that they take the wheel in the background and create situations to validate their own experience.

The key here is once you do own these aspects, they can no longer run the show; they can no longer keep you small and limited.

And there’s a really easy process to begin unlearning and deconditioning so you can own all parts of you, even your shadow.

For this author I was judging, I had to look within myself and see: where did I pick up that it’s not safe to be difficult, that I need to be easy-going in order to be loved? When did I learn that when I cause “drama” (like crying as a child), people get mad at me or upset with me? Where did I learn that wanting attention to feel loved actually just brings negative attention, and that it’s not safe for me to take up space and shine my light?

Everything I thought about this author was just a projection of my own fear of taking up space, not being validated in my anger or big emotions, and feeling like I just need to stay small to keep others happy.

Fuck.

Can you see why this work is so powerful? Now I know what to do in macro and micro moments when these feelings stir again, which the medicine is usually the opposite of what our fear tells us.

Let’s say you judge someone like Taylor Swift. I actually love reading the comments on videos or images of hers because everyone is just outing themselves.

I’ll see comments that say she’s so full of herself, or she should be speaking out more on current political issues.

The reality is that the person making those comments probably feels very uncomfortable owning their own light and shining it. They judge someone like Taylor, who is confident in the spotlight, as being full of herself. What this person could do is begin looking back to where they learned it was not safe to take up space and shine their light.

Or speaking out on political issues. Even though I agree with that statement, for me personally, if I found myself judging someone like Swift for that, I would ask myself: okay, so when do I speak on political issues, when I’m using my voice and my privilege to help others? The rejection of her is most likely that I judge myself for not doing enough in our current political climate.

You can begin to see how this work can be applied to small moments throughout the day becuase remember if you spot it, you got.

How to do this process in real time

An easy thing to do is find an author or writer you feel negative about and write down everything you dislike or hate about them. This is just for you, so go buck wild.

Now try to find how you might reject those elements within yourself, or how it might not feel safe to welcome in these elements.

A common issue here is you might judge someone for being really rude, let’s say. You’re like, okay, I don’t like this author because every interaction I see online with them is really rude in the comments. You feel big emotions about this, but you don’t necessarily think you’re rude.

When you don’t immediately recognize an element as something you’ve rejected in yourself, it’s worth looking a bit wider than the exact trait. Rudeness might not live in you as rudeness, but it might live in you as bluntness you’ve never let yourself use, or honesty you’ve kept quiet about to keep the peace, or anger you’ve never allowed yourself to express.

Ask yourself where have I wanted to say the blunt thing and didn’t? Where have I stayed quiet instead of setting a hard boundary because I was scared of being seen as harsh? The thing with shadow work is the shadow doesn’t always show up as the same thing you're judging; it’s more of a theme underneath or a pattern.

But this also works for our Golden Shadow

The same also goes for positive aspects. This is called your golden shadow…the traits, gifts, and qualities you admire in others but haven’t claimed as your own because somewhere along the way you learned it wasn’t safe or acceptable to be that big, that talented, or that seen.

Find an author or writer you adore and write down everything you love about them. See how you feel when you assign that attribute to yourself. Do you feel unworthy, undeserving, unattainable? Or do you feel excited, inspired, and magnetic? The truth is those positive attributes already exist within you too; you just haven’t owned them within yourself yet. Because love and admiration for someone else are often just a version of you waiting to be witnessed by yourself.

And the reason we hide our golden shadow is usually the same reason we hide our dark shadow…we learned somewhere along the way that it wasn't safe. You might have been told you were too much when you got excited about your own accomplishments. Or someone in your life made you feel small when you outshined them, so you learned to shrink instead of shine brightly. Maybe you watched someone get punished for being confident, and you decided it’s better to be liked than to be seen. So you tucked the brightest parts of yourself away.

For me, and I’ve talked about this already, but I did the Be Seen challenge form TBM, and a memory came up from elementary school. I had two friends who were more insecure and shy than I was; I was a very vivacious and vibrant child. I was loud as fuck. They started rejecting me and would kind of tell me I was being too loud, that I was annoying. I knew they didn’t mean it to be mean, but I could tell that I made them feel insecure, and I didn’t want to lose my friends. So I started to dim my light in elementary school to make others feel more comfortable.

But through this work, I noticed how much I admire people who are so confident in being themselves and being loud and shining their light and taking up space. And these are the exact elements I am ready to activate within myself.

It’s this reminder that every person you judge, envy, or admire is a mirror. The work isn’t to stop having reactions to people. It’s to get curious about what those reactions are showing you about yourself, and the unclaimed parts of YOU ready to come to light.

Until next week,

We just had a full moon in Aquarius on July 29th, and let me tell you, this last month of transits has me so tired and feeling a little coo coo bananas. And I think this full moon was the icing on the cake of it all.

Aquarius is all about freedom, independence, rebellion, being super conscious, and being revolutionary. This moon was asking how you can move forward from what's traditional? How can you break free from the conventional and become more of your authentic self? But becoming your authentic self requires a delayering which can feel uncomfy for most of us. And Aquarius loves to make everything unique and separate, which is more of the energy we will encounter as we move into the New Paradigm.

I’m seeing a lot more creators sharing about the New Paradigm. I see some talking about it simply as a collective shift, as we move from the old and into the new. I’ve also seen it discussed through the lens of Human Design, which is what I want to touch on briefly before we dive into today’s post. The New Paradigm in HD is a major shift in human consciousness and society that’s meant to happen around the year 2027, moving humanity from a collective group structure toward more individual sovereignty.

And we can already see so many of these changes occurring on an individual AND collective level.

I first heard about this 2027 shift back in 2017. Back then, I can remember wondering what my life would look like ten years from now. In 2017, I was about to move to Australia, I was entering a new relationship, starting my first spiritual business, and I didn’t even have Louie yet.

Flash forward ten years, and I’m living in California again after a four-year stint in Aus, with my now partner, a tall, handsome, and hilariously funny Scotsman who I will hopefully soon call my fiancé (go Greg!), and I’m writing my first fantasy novel. Also, Louie is here with us too, duh. (I rescued him as a puppy while in Aus.)

The last ten years for me were all about walking into a layer of identity I THOUGHT I wanted, or needed, to feel good about myself. Then having the rug pulled out from under me…several times. (There’s nothing like ending a nearly five-year relationship in another country and having to move home with no money, let me tell you.)

But what these last ten years have given me is a mountain of delayering and deconditioning. I feel I am closer to my most authentic self than I’ve been since I was a kid, and I can say with absolute confidence that a lot of that is thanks to Human Design. (and deep, deep inner work like To Be Magnetic)

Okay, back to the New Paradigm. Things will begin ramping up. I see this energy moving pretty quickly for those who are ready, and I say that word tenderly, because sometimes we don’t feel ready, but life still pushes us off the ledge into readiness anyway.

It’s said that 2027 marks the end of a 400-year cycle ruled by the Cross of Planning (which focused on tribal identity, institutions, and working together for survival).

We’re going to see (and already have) a decline and fall of traditional systems like large corporations, nine-to-five jobs, mainstream politics, and organized institutions. These outdated systems will face massive collective doubt, and their inherent structures will effectively fall apart. (These systems represent outer authority.)

What we’ll see instead is a rise in inner authority, which can look like success and safety coming from your inner self, how YOU operate in the world, and following your intuition instead of the collective blueprint. (Which is exactly what HD teaches, by the way, how to follow your own unique Human Design type, strategy, and inner compass.)

Reconnecting to your True Self, your Higher Self, will then create a ripple effect within society and the collective consciousness. We’ll begin to see businesses and communities moving away from conformity and traditionalism, and instead move toward a collective truth, personal responsibility, and absolute transparency for the highest and greatest good for all.

I want to say that these are just projections of how we think this energy will play out… how it actually unfolds may be slightly different. We often compare current transits to past ones and use that as the base point for what we think will happen. For example, when Pluto moved into Aquarius, I remember seeing a lot of astrologers comparing this period to the 1700’s and the French Revolution, since that was the last time Pluto was in Aquarius. But what humans were dealing with in their daily lives then can't really compare to the modern human. We have to remember that societal norms, pressures, and expectations are drastically different now than they were back then. So keep that in mind…we'll be watching this energy play out, but we have to stay open to how it actually unfolds in this modern world.

Another thing, I truly believe we are born as whole, pure beings of light, and over time, whether intentionally or unintentionally, we are conditioned by our parents, our friends, society, and the schooling system, etc. Each time, we were forcibly shaped to fit into these neat little boxes that society deemed acceptable, which led us to then drift farther and farther from our own light. So much of our inner healing work, especially as we enter the New Paradigm next year, is about coming back to that light, peeling back the layers of inauthenticity to find the part of ourselves that are not ours to begin with.

But remember, we’re not adding anything in. You are already born whole and worthy. In your highest form, deconditioning just means removing layers; that’s all we’re doing… removing and deconditioning so more of our own light can be revealed and shine in this world.

I like to imagine us all as a ball of light covered in mud, cement, dirt, layer after layer. And we’re slowly chipping away at it, allowing more and more of that light to shine through, until we have a fully polished ball of light. That’s how we’re meant to be in this world, and one of the reasons why I love HD so much becuase its whole job is to help us delayer and come back home to ourselves.

Let’s talk about your Authority in Human Design

Whether you’re writing a book for the first time or you’ve been in this field for years, I’ve been learning firsthand that this process always comes with a lot of questions and uncertainty.

How do you know if this is the book you’re supposed to write? If this agent is the one? If you should take this deal, pitch this idea, publish this piece, or share this story?

Most people do what I did…go online, scour social media, and try to see how other authors did it. We find a successful author, follow in their steps, because logically that makes sense, right? But then, when we don’t get the same results, all it does is reinforce the limiting belief that I’m not good enough or I’m not gifted enough or there’s something wrong with me.

Some people over-research to feel busy, make pros-and-cons lists to gain a false sense of security, or even ask everyone around them what they should do next. They overthink, overanalyze, and constantly look outward for the answer.

But what if there isn’t actually anything wrong with you…and you’re just meant to approach decisions differently than the people around you?

Human Design offers something completely different. It says the answer isn’t in your head and it never was. Your mind was never meant to be the one deciding. Your mind is meant to process, to reflect, to talk things through, to make sense of a decision after it’s been made. But how you come to that decision is completely different.

Becuase the answer that’s right for you will arrive through your own body intelligence, unique to your design.

This is your Authority.

So what exactly is Authority?

In Human Design, your authority is your inner decision-making system…the specific way your body is designed to know what's true and right for you, as opposed to deciding with your mind.

It’s your inner compass, your internal north star for making the best, most aligned decisions for YOU.

While the mind’s job is to reflect and make sense of things, your authority is the body-based mechanism that knows the answer already. It taps into physical sensations, gut feelings, or emotional waves instead of mental awareness or logic.

When you make decisions from your authority, something shifts…you stop fighting against the rhythm of your own life and align with your inner essence. And that’s what finally lets you step onto the path that was always meant to be yours.

The resistance just disappears. You're not trying harder or forcing your way through anything…you're finally listening to that inner system that already knows. Which then leads to more room for your aura to expand, for your consciousness to take the wheel, for your overall well-being to take up more space.

And remember, your body already knows what's correct for you before your mind even gets a chance to chime in. There's no right answer to chase after, it already exists inside of you.

There are seven different types of Authority, depending on your Design, as not everyone is guided by the same mechanism.

For some of you, the decision only comes once a full emotional wave has moved through you. For others it's instant, straight through the body, no waiting required. Some types get one signal hit before it's gone, and some types run on pure will and desire. Some people need to hear themselves say it out loud before it clicks, others need the right room or the right people before anything becomes obvious. And then there's the type who needs a full lunar cycle before the answer arrives.

None of these are better or worse than each other. They’re just different operating systems.

Which is why I believe so many writers may feel like failures... they've been trying to make decisions like someone else. But once you know your authority, you stop asking How do I know if this is right for me? And you start checking in with the part of you that already knows.

How to find your Authority in Human Design:

To generate your Human Design chart, you will need your exact date of birth, time of birth (to the minute), and birth location. (Just like astrology!)

I really like Jenna Zoe’s My Human Design as it is user-friendly and simple to read. Plus, it offers other in-app benefits. You can download your chart for free, but other app features will cost a monthly fee.

You can see below for my Human Design chart, from Jenna’s app, that to the right of my Bodygraph chart it says under Authority that I have Splenic authority.

What if I don’t know my exact time of birth?

If you don’t know your exact birth time, you can still find out what your Human Design Type, Strategy, and Authority are. It helps if you knwo around the time you were born, like morning, afternoon, or evening. And then you can test out different times of day to see what shifts.

Also, if you want to get really wild, you can request your birth certificate from the hospital where you were born.

Below are the seven Authority types in Human Design, and what they mean for writers and their decision-making process:

PS I did all my graphics in Canva without AI like a fucking legend.

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I found myself playing Titanic with my boyfriend Wednesday night.

There we were at the bow of the ship, my arms stretched out like a bird with him standing behind me, his arms loosely tangled with mine. But we didn’t feel the sea breeze in our hair or the gentle splashes from the waves below…no, instead we were blinded by a bright pink studio light that hung in front of us, lighting the small makeshift boat.

As you probably guessed, we weren’t on the Titanic or even a real ship, but a small set as a part of REWIND: A VHS Comeback, a retro pop-culture exhibit located at the OC Fair this year.

The bf discovered the exhibit on his way to the bathroom and knows Titanic is one of my favorite movies, followed by Hook, which is then followed by The Lord of the Rings and then The Mummy. (Just fyi in case you're a bit curious) He made sure we saw all those posters and was buzzed enough to hop onto the fake boat to play Titanic with me. What a champ!

After our brief drunken “I'm flying” moment, we walked around for a bit. I immediately found myself imbued with that specific nostalgic feeling where you almost mourn a part of time because you know you’ll never get that feeling back. Seeing all the VHS tapes created that exact nostalgia. I felt sad and happy, so heavy and so light at the same time…so emotionally charged seeing VHS tapes for movies like The Great Mouse Detective and Forrest Gump.

Movie posters filled the walls…Kill Bill, The Birds, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Mummy…all from a simpler time we can never return to, and our only way to visit is through rewatching these stories.

There's a running joke between my boyfriend and me where I’ll ask him if he’s seen a movie and he always replies with a big fat NOPE. He hasn’t watched many movies; I’ve watched them all.

I’ve always been a big movie buff ever since I was a child. I love storytelling; I love falling in love with the characters. It was the reason why, when I was a kid, I thought I was going to be a movie director one day, because movies, the cinema, these films — they live in my heart and always have.

And as I continue working on my book, I'm reminded of these stories and their characters and how they made me feel. We’re all chasing a certain feeling when we watch something or read something, and I think the same goes for us writers on the other side of these stories where the creation part happens

We want our readers and audience to feel something, anything…but something BIG.

For me, it comes down to the characters on the screen or on the page, and how they react and interact with the world around them. My BIG feelings come from seeing myself in them or seeing a part of me I’ve rejected in some form or another.

Becoming so consumed with someone else's journey, taking it on as your own and having as much stake as them in the game…that’s the magic of storytelling.

And because of this, the characters of my book have been on my mind a lot lately. I was so plot-focused, so book-outline-focused for a while that my characters have taken the back seat. I was losing sight of my cast, the living, breathing beings who make this whole book possible.

And I think it's because I was unsure of HOW to make all of you care about them the way I do. But a good starting point for this problem is to first make ME care about them. So today I'm going to share my process for creating characters that I wholeheartedly care about, that goes beyond their appearance, their strengths and weaknesses, and even their main goal.

Here’s My Personal Process:

1. Let them reveal themselves to you first: When I first decided I was going to write a book, my FMC was already a living, breathing entity. I knew exactly who she was. She showed herself to me without me even trying. She showed me she was tall and strong, a warrior princess vibe, who also was a bit of a spoiled brat with a chip on her shoulder. She had anger issues and used humor to deflect her pain. She also had a habit of holding onto that pain from her past. Her character arc isn’t about being weak and becoming strong…she is already strong. She is on this journey of learning how to break down her walls, be less selfish, and learn how to soften.

All of this poured out of me the moment I knew I was writing a book. At first I tried to make her more dynamic or change things because that's what I thought I should do, but then the story fell apart. So I'm letting her just be. She's strong, confident, but also maybe a bit arrogant, and I love that for her. And I think my point here is that our characters are already living inside of us…at least a few of them are…and when they reveal themselves to us, we must listen. I almost feel like our subconscious already knows the whole book before we put it down on the page, and our subconscious also already knows who our characters are and why they need to be this way to fulfill the main themes of the book and the overall story.

If I go into this with the notion that my subconscious already knows the book, my body already knows what to do, and I just trust that instead of trying to edit or change anything…I have a feeling when I get to the end of writing my book, it’s going to make so much sense why my FMC is this arrogant but slightly humorous, strong person who’s also really angry and has a lot of trauma she needs to work through. I maybe can’t see it right now, the bigger picture, but I just have to trust this process as it unfolds.

2. What characters do I love and why: When I first sat down to write out my book idea, I made a list of the characters I thought would be in it…what they’re like, how they fit into the plot/story, and what their arcs will be. Then I made a second list of all the characters I love, and why. What characters from movies or books have stood out to me over the years, and stuck with me long after?

My intuition told me there would be a through line, a certain theme running underneath all of it, and I was right. I think for newer, aspiring authors, it’s hard to see how all the puzzle pieces fit together, especially early on when everything still feels like a hodgepodge of ideas. For example, by doing this exercise, I was able to see that I’m drawn to funnier, more humorous characters, even when the movies themselves are serious. And once I saw that pattern, I could suddenly see that same thread in my own characters, even though I didn’t have the words for it yet.

My point is, I believe we all have natural ways of writing and storytelling already built into us, and the movies, books, and characters we’re drawn to will inevitably show up in our own work, whether we realize it or not. This exercise helped me see more clearly how I like to approach my characters based on what I truly love in the stories I consume. And I think the real value of it is not just cataloging your favorite characters, but using them as a mirror to understand your own instincts as a storyteller.

3. Take inspiration from everywhere you can: When it comes to creativity, I think our brains are always in the background working out a problem or trying to find a solution. I had been having this issue with my main side character where I couldn’t really visualize him; I couldn’t see how he would play out on the pages. Initially, I had this idea where he’s incredibly intelligent, almost otherworldly with his knowledge and intellect, kind of like Vision from The Avengers. But he also has the personality of a toddler like Donkey from Shrek. As I kept working on him, I also felt like he was kind of mean and bitchy, like a teenage girl who’s annoyed with everyone.

How is this character going to work? How is this going to make sense, to have this side character that’s childlike but also incredibly intelligent but also bitchy like a teenage girl? So I just kind of put this problem in the back of my mind, trusting it would get fleshed out in some way or another.

Then I read Rachel Gillig’s The Knight and the Moth, and when I saw her character Bartholomew come onto the page, I thought, okay, there’s that gentle, childlike sidekick character who brings some lightness to the pages, who is almost unintentionally funny, causes a little bit of chaos, but is also so likable.

Bartholomew was a good inspiration to see that part of character play out on the pages, but it wasn’t quite the aha moment I was looking for.

Then I watched Project Hail Mary, which has quickly become my favourite film of the year. The characters in that movie are sooo dynamic and versatile! (Some very small spoilers ahead alert alert!!!)

Then I saw Rocky come on the screen, the perfectly lovable yet chaotic sidekick character. I saw a video of the actor and puppeteer, James Ortiz, who plays and voices Rocky, who described Rocky as a hyper-intelligent alien who’s kind of like a frustrated or anxious teenage boy who’s also a grumpy old man. And it was just like ding, ding, ding, that’s it. Being able to see Rocky, and how his intelligence and his teenage angst and grumpy old man-ness play out on screen, helped me conceptualize my side character. And I had been workshopping my character since I first started working on my book back in February 2025. But back then it felt impossible to create a character that could embody the bitchy teenage girl, the hyper-intelligent entity, and the childlike wonder of a toddler, all in one. Rocky helped me see the possibility there.

So a big part of this process that I think is really helpful is consuming other literature and media…not to rip it off, but to get that information, to see how those character aspects play out on screen, and to help you materialize your own characters more fully.

4. Create character mashups: Character mashups are pretty much like book comps but for characters…it’s the “if character and character had a baby” thing. I’m sure this is pretty common, but I’m such a visual person, so writing a book for the first time, it’s been hard for me to see how a character with certain characteristics and flaws will play out. So I’ve been thinking about what characters I love and why, and using those elements to give me a clearer sort of mind-mapping vision board of my character.

For instance, my FMC…I know she comes from a place of privilege, and she’s arrogant, but she’s also intelligent and strong. But then there’s also a lot of anger within her that makes her mean and even cruel. As I was workshipping her, it had me thinking what if Tony Stark and Nesta Archeron had a baby? What would that look like? I’m using those as the foundational starting points.

Just having those two starting points of “what if this character and this character had a baby” helps me so much with sticking to the guidelines as my character moves through the book, because it’s easy to start writing with one character in mind and then, as the book plays out, you can easily get taken away from their character path, and all of a sudden you’re like, wait, who is this person on the page?

Another way I’ve done this is with a side character who is going to play into that Gandalf or Dumbledore wizard role. I thought, I have this wizard-like character, but I’m kind of sick of seeing the same stoic archetype on the page who comes and saves the day and gives sound advice. I thought, how funny would it be to have a Gandalf meets Captain Jack Sparrow? I love the idea of having this wise, wizard-looking character, but he has the personality of Captain Jack Sparrow…maybe he’s a drunk, or he just gets into a lot of mischief and trouble, and you don’t know if he’s actually trustworthy, but then he sort of pulls through in the end in his own sort of absurd way.

In case you haven’t noticed, this process for me is very intuitive and visually guided. I’ve read a lot about how our book characters need to have a goal, a main fear, and some flaws…and I do have these things for my characters, for sure. But I find that the more emotionally in tune I get with my process, the better the result will be. Sure, I know they need to have a main goal; that’s what’s guiding the story. But I like to go deep.

I was always the kid in school who did the fun, creative parts of the school project first, and I’m no different with my book. I’d rather first look at the fun aspects of creating my characters, then do the harder work like figuring out their quirks, their flaws, and how they’ll interact within the book. I think there’s something to be said for letting the joy come first…for me, it’s what keeps me motivated to do the deeper, more structural work later. If I start with the spreadsheet version of my characters, all goals and flaws and arcs laid out, I start to lose the spark of who they are. But if I start with the feeling of them, the vision board version, the harder work feels less like homework and more like getting to know someone I already love.

Until next week my goblins,

Hello my goblins,

If you haven't read part one, you can do so by clicking here.

But first, I need to let everyone know that this current Mercury retrograde has me being the most clumsy person ever. For the last week, at least a few times a day, I will either stub my toe, choke on my water, spill my coffee, smash my finger in the cupboard, trip over my dog’s bed, break something, spill something, fall over something. Ahhhhh, I literally tripped over my own shoe yesterday and dramatically slammed into the wall, followed by me yelling to the universe, “please stop, I can’t take this anymore!”

I know mental and physical clumsiness can be a symptom of Mercury retrograde, but fuuuuuck this. I know I need to slow down, yadda yadda, which is wild because I feel sooooo slow already, exhausted, emotionally and physically drained. Anyways, thanks for listening to me vent because this RX has me feeling like I am coo coo bananas.

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It’s been a while since I’ve discussed my book on here….I mean this is why I started my Substack in the first place! Next week I’ll be doing Part 3 of my Writing a Book from Scratch series and sharing how I’ve been coming up with my characters and their character arcs.

I’m also about to begin plotting my book. Writing about astrology for writers has been so fun, but I miss having all my spare energy focused on my book, so it’ll be nice to return to it next week on here.

I haven’t given any hints about what my book is about yet either. Mainly because I’m not great at writing a synopsis or elevator pitch, at least not yet. BUT when my friends and family ask what my book is about, I usually say something like: it’s about magic that comes from the earth, but that magic is being depleted and disappearing, and our FMC joins a group of misfits who have come together to save the world. And there are dragons. But not in a “war college” kind of way…more in a “dragons are the keepers of the universe and ancient elders” kind of way. And I’m also playing with this idea of what if all the fairytales are real, but the stories/lore we hear are false. A question I'm working around is whether the stories get passed around and mixed up like a game of telephone, OR were the fairytales/lore altered purposefully to protect something?

Definitely not a synopsis in the least! And a work in progress for sure. I will say it’s hard talking about creative projects. But those are the main ideas, the main questions that came to mind when I first started this journey over a year ago. I also struggled with the middle part of my story for a while, and now that I'm over that hump, I will be outlining and plotting my book…which the OCD princess in me cannot wait for.

All hail princess perfection!

Through this process, I’ve really learned what my strengths and weaknesses are when it comes to writing a book. I am definitely an ideas gal. I can build entire worlds in my mind…I feel like I see in pictures, so I can see scenes very clearly. And I’ll do scenes in my head while I’m on a walk and then sort of talk them into my notes app. I have huge visions for this story, but the part that’s my weakness is getting it on the page the same way it’s in my little brain.

I know I’m a good writer. I think the issue is more that I have this beautiful, or crazy, or magnificent scene in my head and I don’t know how to take that intangible thing and make it tangible on the page. Something I need to work on.

I think, for me, and maybe some of you can relate, I get really stuck in my head, but in a fun way. I just want to live in my imagination because it’s so vibrant and vivacious in there. But when I go to the page, I struggle taking that vibrancy and putting it down into the physical, and it can be frustrating as heck. How do I execute it? How do I find the right words? How do I create the right sentences and string them along so it becomes one page, and then another page, and another?

I think this is why I keep pushing the brakes on actually sitting down to write this book. I’ve basically written the first chapter, but I don’t even want to continue because it doesn’t feel as exciting as it does in my own mind. At least for now. But I have to trust that once I get it on paper, that’s where the editing and refinement can happen…and that’s how I get it to the place where someone else reads it and feels the same excitement I felt when I first thought of it. Ayeeeeeee.

Okay, shifting gears….let’s talk about the 10th house, because I think this one is SOO good for writers.

Like I said in last week’s post, when we’re talking about your purpose, reputation, and your career, your Midheaven is the ENERGY behind how you achieve those things. It speaks to your ultimate life path, your overarching legacy, and the public image you’re meant to grow into over a lifetime.

It’s the direction you’re pulled toward professionally and the anchor point for your recognition. Meanwhile, the 10th House is the space of the PHYSICAL…what you actually do every day to build your career, public image, legacy, and achieve your highest potential.

I like to say the Midheaven is the peak of the mountain we’re climbing, what we’re aiming to obtain as a form of energetic enlightenment when it comes to our career and legacy. The pinnacle. And our 10th house is the actual climb, the trail we’re on, and whatever sign and planets are in your 10th house will influence how you climb that trail.

For writers, this house is huge, because when you write a book, you’re not just writing it for yourself… you’re eventually putting it out into the world for people to read and connect with. That’s very 10th house energy. It’s the difference between the story that lives in your head and the story that becomes your body of work and the thing you’re known for publicly. The Midheaven shows you the mountain peak, but the 10th house is you, day by day, actually climbing it…writing the pages, building the body of work, doing the physical work of becoming a career author.

But a question I see popping up frequently is: what if I already have a job or career, but I'm writing a book with the intention of becoming a published author?

The 10th house is not “your job.” It’s not your sales job or the freelance gig you do to pay rent, or the retail job you have while you write your book at night. Your actual employment lives in the 6th house. The 6th house is focused on your job, work environment, the daily grind…while the 10th is focused on your career and public status. And the 10th house doesn’t care about survival jobs…it cares about your VOCATION. Your calling, your life's purpose, and the action you take toward something that you love and are devoted to via your gifts and innate talents.

I just love that word, vocation. I spent some time on Word Hippo trying to find the right word, because career and purpose just weren't cutting it for me. There's something so sensual, so romantic, and expansive about VOCATION, which is why I'm using it for the 10th house. Because when we talk about career, it's easy to think we're only talking about the job you do to make money or some ladder to be climbed.

But to me, your vocation is the purpose and deeper meaning behind the work you create for the world — it’s this lifelong romance you will have with your passions and your gifts — an everlasting love that never fades.

Which is why this is so important for us as writers, because I know so many of us are working day jobs while we build toward this bigger thing. Your 10th house isn't asking what pays your bills right now. (although it can and should lead to that if you want it to) It's asking who you are becoming through your career and passions, and what will that look like when you reach the pinnacle of this all? It's your own personal blueprint for mastery and accomplishment. And for a lot of us reading this, that's the book. That's the author career and brand. That's the thing you'd do even if you never got paid for it (but obviously, would love to get paid!).

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Last week was busy in the stars! We had a full moon in Capricorn on Monday. Mercury went RX in Cancer on that same day. (sheeeesh) And Jupiter began its journey into Leo on Tuesday, opening up that portal of Leo magic that we’ll get to experience for the next 12-ish months. Jupiter’s first action item was a square to Chiron in Taurus, so there may have been some old wounds that surfaced. Again sheeesh! But remember anything that comes up right now is here for your expansion, to be alchemized and transformed.

I saw a comment on Threads that said something to the extent of Hey astrology girlies, why do you say this is a life-changing transit but like every week?! And the comments passed the vibe check. The most common answer being because we are living in unprecedented times!

The OG astrologers have had this time on their radar for decades. The thing about astrology is it's not necessarily a future-telling system in the sense of predicting exact events. It works more by tracking cycles and patterns, and often the only reference point we have for how a given transit might play out is what happened the last time these transits occurred.

July is set to be WILD and one of the most intense and transformative months of the year. Lots of stuff happening. All the slower-moving planets…Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and Jupiter…have something going on this month, which is not bad per se, but it is a busy month! Some say this will open the door to the golden age of humanity while others say it will bring cosmic plot twists that could propel us into the future.

I like to think this will be the end of the craziness that all began in 2020, cosmically speaking.

Either way, we ARE in unprecedented times. We will continue to unravel, release, transform, and decondition. And through this delayering, we will create space for more TRUTH — the truth of who YOU are on a soul level and the truth of who WE are as a collective consciousness.

Which is one of the reasons why I think my astrology posts are popping off right now. There is this deep collective desire to get to know ourselves on a level like never before. We can look around and SEE that the old way is blaringly not working anymore, and hasn’t been working for a while, IF EVERRRR. Out with the old and in with the new, but how easy is that to do when we’re talking about our old self versus our new self? I believe to heal the collective, we must first heal ourselves.

We as individuals are one string of the cosmic web, and when we heal ourselves, when we elevate ourselves, our little string begins to vibrate differently, at a higher frequency. Remember, your string is attached to this greater cosmic orchestra; as you vibrate differently, that vibration expands to the other strings you’re connected to, shifting the collective slowly but surely. Our true superpower is coming back home to ourselves, and everything else will fall into place.

This is why I felt called to do astrology, human design, and inner work for writers — because this new world, this new paradigm will be built and designed for people like us… artists, creatives, old souls, lovers of humanity.

And I’m excited to keep doing this work for you and with you.

This week we’ll be looking at the Midheaven (MC) in astrology. I’ve been working on this post for a few weeks now. I didn’t know how to tackle it. The Midheaven is so intertwined with the 10th house, but they aren’t always in the same sign or house. Was I meant to ignore the 10th house for this post? Do it all in one post? It was starting to feel really complicated.

I decided to split this topic into two parts: first covering your Midheaven through all twelve signs and what that means for your purpose as a writer and the energy you’re meant to activate to get there. And the second covering your 10th house through all twelve signs and what that means for your career and the day-to-day steps you can take. Plus, the planets that can move through the 10th house. (See, a little complicated)

Needless to say, I took my sweeeeeet time with this one. I have my South Node in Virgo, and I’m actively working on letting go of my perfectionism, which is ouchy to my soul because I need everything to be perfect to function. (a lie I tell myself)

But do you knwo what I said? I said Chelsea, shut the fuck up, finish this post, and send it out into the world. You got this, girl.

Highly recommend telling yourself to shut the fuck up when you’re dealing with the limiting beliefs and old stories of your own mind.

Some light housekeeping before we begin…

I consider myself a psychic astrologer. I combine the chart-based study of astrology with my intuition and psychic abilities. I liek to say I scan people’s charts for planetary placements and then read the energy after that, absorbing whatever comes forward intuitively. I am self-taught and learned by reading other people’s charts — friends, family, my boyfriend, strangers at the bar after two margaritas, and yes, I had them text their mom for their birth time. I have been studying astrology for 8 years and have been into it since high school. These are my credentials.

I currently don’t do private readings, but I love sharing this information because I genuinely enjoy it. This type of information is behind a paywall because I do all my astrology by hand, through my own wisdom and understanding. I don’t use AI, and I don’t get my astrology information from other astrologers. Basically, it takes a long ass time to channel and output all this information and make sure it is digestible for you to use in your daily life.

As I said, astrology is deeply personal. I did my best to share information below that will be valuable and helpful to you, while not knowing your full chart. This information is meant to be inspirational and helpful, but without knowing the rest of your chart, the reading will always be slightly incomplete, and that’s okay. What’s below will be immensely helpful — I know it is, because when I did this for myself, it was so valuable for me and gave me a better understanding of where I need to shine more brightly.

My goal with merging astrology with writing is to help us creatives step into our highest potential and highest form, and I know astrology can do just that. We each have access to our own cosmic map, a blueprint of our soul written in the stars, and this very blueprint can act as the stepping stone to YOUR dream life.

Placidus vs Whole Sign

Note that the MC and the 10th house are not always in the same sign depending on which system you use. (which is why I was on the strugglebus with this post and how to navigate it)

Placidus is a quadrant-based system. It divides the sky mathematically based on your exact birth time and geographic location, and the houses are uneven. Some can span more than 30 degrees while others might be smaller, which can cause one sign to be completely hidden inside a house. The Midheaven is always locked onto the cusp or boundary line of your 10th house.

Whole Sign is a sign-based system. Meaning the entire sign of your Ascendant or Rising Sign dictates your 1st house, the next zodiac sign rules the 2nd house, and so on. All 12 houses are strictly equal at exactly 30 degrees each, with zero intercepted signs, which means the Midheaven does not have to be on the 10th-house cusp. It can float anywhere between the 7th and 12th houses depending on your birth latitude.

Keep this in mind, but technically, all you have to do is use the system that feels most comfortable for you, look up your placement, and then read the matching entry.

How to look up your MC in your chart

To look up your Midheaven (MC) in your birth chart, you will need your exact birth date, time, and city.

Generate your free chart using an astrology site like Astro.com

On your astrology wheel, look at the top area of your chart, around the 12 o'clock position, and find the “MC” label in that area. This will look like a vertical line or an arrow pointing upward labeled MC (Medium Coeli). (Remember it can be in one of the houses before or after your 10th house)

The zodiac sign that this line connects to on the outer ring of the chart is your Midheaven sign. You’ll see a symbol representing the sign.

Take a look at my chart below for reference and see how I used this information for myself in real time.

You can see with the arrows that my 10th House is in Scorpio and my MC is in my 11th house in Sagittarius. Scorpio in my 10th brings intensity, depth, and a certain magnetism to how I show up professionally. I don't do well with surface-level work, and nothing has ever been truer; I like to go DEEP. My Sagittarius MC points to a career purpose tied to expansion…maybe teaching, publishing, philosophy, higher education, or anything that lets me share meaning, truth, or a bigger worldview with others…which is a huge aspect of the book I’m writing. All of this reminds me that my work requires me to go deep into a subject (research, investigation, transformation) but ultimately be in service of sharing wisdom or building something for a collective.

Your Midheaven and the energy behind your purpose and career in this lifetime

Your Midheaven is the highest point of your chart, acting as your astrological north star. Unlike the 10th house, which spans a whole slice of your chart, your Midheaven is an angle, a single degree, marking the exact point overhead at the moment you were born. It’s your highest potential, guiding you toward your life's greatest purpose through your career, reputation, and public legacy.

Throughout the years, I've often heard the Midheaven described as the what, and the 10th house as the how when it comes to your career and purpose. This is a true representation, but I see it more as the energy behind your career and purpose. It's the energetic blueprint, a frequency we’re meant to ACTIVATE and expand into like a metamorphosis.

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I’ve had so many new people join this space since I shared my post on Jupiter placement for writers last week. I think there are about 800 new people here, which is coo coo bananas!! Welcome, my fellow writers AND spiritual girlies. It’s funny because I was so hesitant to share that post! I was dealing with the imposter syndrome of who am I to share writing mixed with astrology? and wasn’t even sure if other people, other writers, would care about this stuff.

I had been looking at my own chart for guidance and insight for the last year of my aspiring author journey, and thought this would be something fun to write about on here. Plus, as a Projector in HD, I do see patterns and connections that others might not see so clearly, so this all tracks for me. And as I said, it was unexpectedly a huge hit! This is just a fun metric, not a brag, but two of my videos that shared this post on IG got over 100k views. I think it’s safe to say that YES writers love Astrology too and want help with their books through that lens.

I’ve also been doing the Be Seen challenge from To Be Magnetic, and so much of that work has shown me how much I’ve been hiding, playing small, shrinking out of fear of taking up space. This looked like keeping different parts of myself completely separate. When I started writing my book, I told myself I had to be a serious writer — that astrology and Human Design and mindset work lived in a totally different world. But the reality is they don’t. We’re human. We’re multidimensional. All of this is connected. So yes, I feel a little scared today sharing what I know about Human Design. But I’m doing it anyway.

Because my whole goal with this space is to help writers, aspiring authors, and even published authors understand themselves better…their patterns, their gifts, their strengths, their energy.

And I actually have a feeling that what I’m building here will be more of a symbiotic community, where we ALL help each other, sharing our writing tips, publishing tips, mindset tips, with astrology, energetics, and HD blended in.

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I will be doing a whole Astrology series, a Human Design series, and a series for shadow work and mindset work — all through the lens of being a writer. Plus, my Writing a Book From Scratch series as I continue to work on my first fantasy novel. (ayeeeee)

And no, I will not be creating some $3k course, a VIP day, a masterclass…nope, none of that. I plan to write. I want to share everything I know about these topics, and it will always be here on my Substack for all of you to access.

It’s clear to me that as we move into a new paradigm, using tools like Astrology, Human Design, and mindset work for writers and creatives will become more and more normalized AND accessible.

Next week, I will be doing 10th house placements as the 10th house governs career, public reputation, and social legacy, which is a big aspect of becoming a published author. Plus our midheaven, the highest point of our chart. Stay tuned!

But this week it’s all about Human Design.

Specifically, how to use Human Design and your Energy Type to approach writing. (more on that below)

I can remember the first time I heard about Human Design and had someone read my chart. It felt like I was seen for the first time….all those little elements I could never put into words, all the ways I knew I was meant to operate, finally made sense, the things I already knew about myself deep down, but could never explain.

I’m a Projector, and for most of my life, I thought something was wrong with me. I was always tired. I didn’t have the big bursts of energy I saw in others. I couldn’t keep up, and things always felt like they moved slowly for me.

And for a long time, that slowness made me believe I must not be excited enough about my dreams, or that I must not be good enough to pursue them. So I kept putting my desires aside, especially in my early 20s.

Once I learned that those things aren’t flaws, they’re features of my design, everything shifted. I realized that rest is my superpower. That I don’t need to DO as much as everyone else, and can actually achieve MORE. I only have a few hours of sustained energy, but massive things can happen in just those few hours. And I slowly started coming back to myself, releasing layers of fear and conditioning, and stepping into who I actually am.

This is WHY I’m doing a Human Design series for writers.

It’s easy to get caught up in the shoulds of the world…you should be doing this, you should be doing that. But what I love about Human Design is that it always asks: what is most aligned for you?

Writers are given so much advice on how to write a book…the ins and outs and all the strategy and planning. But what works really well for one person might do absolutely nothing for you. Your type and strategy, your authority, your profile: each of these pieces sheds light on how YOU are meant to move through the world. When you align with your Human Design, you stop forcing yourself into someone else’s framework and start creating from what’s actually true for you.

It’s been years of unlearning and deconditioning, but for the first time in my life, I feel closer to my authentic self and expression than I ever have. That’s something I want for you and know Human Design can help with.

Some light housekeeping before we begin…

I discovered Human Design in 2018 and never looked back. Just like with astrology, I found myself giving mini HD readings to people in my own inner circle because I found this shit so fun. It was amazing to see people’s faces light up when I shared their design with them.

It’s safe to say that I am self-taught and have learned by reading the charts of my friends and family and studying the people closest to me. I’m also a 4/1 in Human Design, so the researcher in me went hard when I first discovered HD, learning and absorbing everything I could over these last 8 years or so.

As a writer and aspiring author myself, I have naturally blended Human Design with my writing process, and my goal is to share what I know with you here.

I don’t consider myself a Human Design reader the way I consider myself an astrologer. It’s a deep passion and a years-long obsession, but I hold it more as an enthusiast than a professional. Maybe I’m a Writer Sun, Astrologer Rising, with a Human Design Moon. Either way, these are my credentials.

I like to say I read energy and can see patterns and connections that others may not. I believe my gifts are more astrologically inclined when it comes to being psychic, but I’m always working on deepening my understanding of Human Design.

I love sharing this information because I genuinely enjoy it. This work is usually behind a paywall because I do all my work by hand, through my own wisdom, understanding, and research. It takes a long time to channel and synthesize all of this and to make sure it’s digestible and useful for you.

This post will be free and available to all readers as it’s an intro to Human Design, but moving forward, most of my HD, astrology, and mindset work posts will be behind a paywall for the above reasons.

What is Human Design?

If you're completely new ot this world, let me give you a brief introduction to what HD is. Human Design is a system that blends astrology, the I Ching, Kabbalah, the chakra system, and quantum physics to create an energetic blueprint for who you are. Like astrology, you need your date of birth, place of birth, and exact birth time to pull your chart.

It was founded or downloaded by a dude called Ra Uru Hu (born Alan Robert Krakower), who had what I imagine was the craziest trip of his life in Ibiza in 1987. (that lasted 8 days)

The idea behind it is that we all have our unique way of interacting with life, and learning your own design will help you align with that. It reveals your individual potential and is a framework for understanding yourself on the deepest level possible.

HD shows you your energy type, how you’re designed to make decisions, where you’re consistent and where you’re more open and influenced by others, and what your unique gifts and purpose look like.

Like a birthchart in astrology, at the center of Human Design is your BodyGraph, which is a visual representation of your human design chart and energetic makeup.

This chart includes….

Energy Type - how your energy works and how you’re designed to interact with the world.

Inner Authority - your personal decision-making GPS.

Profile - your soul’s role or archetype.

Defined and undefined centers - where you’re consistent versus where you absorb energy from others.

Gates and channels - the details of your gifts and how you’re wired.

How to find your Human Design Chart:

To generate your Human Design chart, you will need your exact date of birth, time of birth (to the minute), and birth location. (Just like astrology!)

I really like Jenna Zoe’s My Human Design as it is user-friendly and simple to read. Plus, it offers other in-app benefits. You can download your chart for free, but other app features will cost a monthly fee.

What if I don't know my exact time of birth?

If you don't know your exact birth time, you can still find out what your Human Design Type, Strategy, and Authority are. It helps if you knwo around the time you were born, like morning, afternoon, or evening. And then you can test out different times of day to see what shifts.

Also, if you want to get really wild, you can request your birth certificate from the hospital where you were born.

Today, we’ll be going over each Energy Type through the lens of writing

There are 5 main energy types in Human Design…

Generator, Manifesting Generator, Manifestor, Projector, and Reflector.

You can see in the screenshot above of my BodyGraph chart that under Type to the right, it says I’m a Projector. (for your reference when you look up your own)

Your energy type is the most foundational piece of your chart. It’s determined by how your energy centers (those nine shapes in your bodygraph) are defined or undefined, and it describes the nature of your energy and how you’re designed to interact with the world around you.

Think of it less like a personality type and more like an operating system. It doesn’t tell you who you are, but how you’re built to function and how you’re meant to use your energy.

For example, some types have big, consistent energy, while others have more focused but limited energy. And some types are more like amplifiers, absorbing and reflecting the energy around them. Knowing your type helps you stop fighting your natural energy patterns and work with them instead. This is HUGE when you consider that we live in a society that expects us to act/live in a certain way and engage with societal norms, even if those norms don’t serve us as an individual.

And each type comes with a strategy, which is the way you’re designed to engage with opportunities, people, and decisions. Generators wait to respond. Projectors wait to be invited. Manifestors inform, then initiate. Man/Gens wait to respond, then inform. Reflectors wait a full lunar cycle.

These are never limitations but rather your own little superpower in making decisions in an aligned way. (I will go deep on this in my next HD post in a couple of weeks!!)

I think for most people, discovering their Energy Type is where everything begins to fall into place.

After what I imagine most of us have done for years — following someone else's way of living, or giving in to societal norms, but always feeling like something is off — learning your energy type is usually where things start to click. It reframes so much of what you may have thought were personal flaws or failures as actually being out of alignment with your DESIGN.

Which is why we're starting here for this series. Once you have looked up your Human Design chart and found your energy type, look below to read more on your type and how you naturally approach life, creativity, and writing.

Manifestors: The Initiators

Manifestors make up about 9% of the population, and they are the only type that is truly here to initiate. To start things. To birth ideas into the world from nothing. If you are a Manifestor, you didn’t come here to wait for permission.

Manifestors have a closed and repelling aura, which sounds hectic, but what it actually means is that you are not here to be influenced by people around you. You are here to move independently. You’re meant to get an idea or a vision and then to act on it immediately. Don’t workshop it to death or run it by ten people to see if it’s a good idea or not. And definitely don’t spend six months outlining before you put a single word on the page. You are meant to GO.

As a Manifestor, your creative ideas often come in hot and fast. You might wake up at 2am with the entire concept of a book downloaded into you. You might be on a walk and suddenly know exactly what you need to write and how. This is not random. This is your design activated. When it hits, you have to mooooooove. That window of fire doesn’t stay open forever for Manifestors, and chasing it after it’s cooled down will only lead to frustration.

Manifestors are not built for the slow and steady. You are built for bursts. Intense, focused bursts of creation followed by REST. This is not you being lazy or inconsistent. This is your natural creative rhythm, and the sooner you stop trying to write every single day at 6am like some online biohacker told you to, the sooner your writing will actually start to flow.

A Manifestor writing a book might write 10,000 words on a random Wednesday and then not touch it for three weeks. That’s ok because that is actually YOUR process. The problem comes when Manifestors try to fit themselves into a consistent, really regimented writing schedule and then feel like a failure when they can’t keep it up. Your energy is sudden and unpredictable. Stop resisting this and start flowing with it.

The best piece of advice I can give to a Manifestor writer is to stop waiting. The book inside of you is not going to get any clearer or any better while it’s sitting in your head. You are the type that is literally designed to bring new things into the world. Your job is to initiate. Write the first chapter or start the newsletter. Do it now, while that fire is LIT.

Generators: The Life Force

Generators are the backbone of humanity, making up about 35-37% of the population. And they can be some of the most powerful writers on the planet when they are in alignment. The keyword here is when.

If you are a Generator, you have a defined Sacral center, which means you have access to this deep, reliable, and sustainable life-force energy. You are built to work honey, but only on the things that light you up, on the projects that you truly love. Your aura is warm and magnetic, and you attract the right people and the right opportunities when you are open and energized.

You are not an initiator; you are a responder. And in the context of writing, this means your best creative work doesn’t usually come from sitting down and forcing yourself to create from a blank page. It comes from responding to something. Meaning, instead of initiating action, your strategy is to wait for things to appear in your environment and respond to them. And you’ll know if something is a hell yes or a hell no based on your gut reaction, your Sacral center. The answer often comes quickly and doesn't repeat itself. Your job is to be receptive to life instead of forcing it.

This can look like reading something, maybe an article online or a book, and this sparks something inside of you, and suddenly, there’s a whole essay you’re ready to write. Or maybe you’re having a conversation with someone at work, and a story comes out of you that you didn’t even know was there. Maybe you’re watching TV, and a whole book gets downloaded into you out of nowhere. That is the Sacral responding. That is naturally how you write.

For Generator writers, the practice of responding can be built into your creative process intentionally. Keep a folder on your desktop, notes app, or Pinterest board of things that spark inspiration in you, like articles, quotes, conversations, and experiences. When you sit down to write, go to your notes app and let something hit you. And when you feel that Sacral YES in your gut, almost like a gravitational pull, start writing. You can also go out into the world and have experiences to kick-start this as well.

Unlike Manifestors, Generators can sustain a consistent writing practice, but only if it’s built around work you genuinely love. If you’re working on projects you don't actually care about, start chasing trends, or writing in genres you think will sell rather than the ones that light you up, I’m telling you right now, you will burn out. You will procrastinate, self-sabotage, and stall every chance you get when it’s something that doesn’t light you up.

The best piece of advice I can give to the Generator writer is to remember that your book already exists inside you. It’s real, and your Sacral already knows what it’s going to be about. The question is, are you listening?…are you tuning in? Are you checking in with your gut? Stop trying to write the book you think you should write and start writing the one that makes your whole body say YES. That book will not only be better, but it will also be a lot easier to write as well. It will flow baby, because the work itself will be feeding you rather than draining you.

Manifesting Generators: The Multi-Passionate

Manifesting Generators are a subtype of Generators, and they make up about 33% of the population. I like to say they are a force of nature. If you are a ManGen, you have probably been told your whole life that you are too much, that you have too many ideas, too many interests, and are scatterbrained, and you move too fast. You start things and don’t finish them. You skip steps. You love a good pivot. And you can’t just pick one thing and stick to it.

This is not a limitation, and don't let society make you believe otherwise, becuase you’re the most multidimensional type, and this is your magic.

ManGens have both the Sacral response energy of a Generator and the initiating energy of a Manifestor. This means you can respond to something and then move on to it immediately, without waiting and without the slow and steady build. You are built for SPEED. You are built to skip steps (so jelly of this!), and you are built to be working on multiple things at once.

In writing, this can look like working on three books at once. Writing the middle of your book before the beginning. Working on a comedy screenplay, a sci-fi fantasy novel, AND having a side hustle of selling knitted scarves on Etsy. Your story might change after six months, and you will pivot in a completely new direction because something new inspired you. Or you might outline a whole project and then abandon the outline and just start writing instead. None of this is wrong. For a ManGen, this is the process.

The biggest mistake ManGen writers make is trying to write linearly. From chapter one to the end, one step at a time. Let me tell you, this kills your creative energy. You need to follow that “I’m so fired up” thread wherever it goes. Write the scene that’s alive in you today, even if it’s from chapter twelve of the third book in your series you haven’t even started writing yet. You get my drift? Follow your excitement and let yourself move the way you’re designed to move. (non-linearly)

ManGens are famous for starting projects and not finishing them, and in the personal development world, this is often seen as a character flaw. But I believe if you don’t finish something its because it was never meant to be finished. And maybe there was something in that process that was meant to teach you something or unlock something new inside you. The best way you can know if something is meant to be finished is by doing your body check-in, just like Generators, and seeing if the YES is still there or not. Remember, when it's quiet and nothing comes in, that is the answer. The gut’s yes will always be loud and clear.

My final piece of advice for the ManGen writer is to write it messy. Let your projects be multidimensional, genre-bending, and rule-breaking. Stop trying to make it fit a category before it’s even written. Stop letting the market tell you that your vision is too niche or too weird or too hard to sell. Remember, your power comes from being wildly unfiltered with your creativity.

Projectors: The Guides (hi, it me!)

Projectors make up about 20% of the population and are some of the most powerful voices in writing and storytelling. If you are a Projector, like me, you see things other people don’t see. You understand systems, patterns, people, and dynamics at a level that is deeper than anyone else. You have been given a gift of perception that most people spend their whole lives trying to get.

But the world has probably made you feel like you’re not working hard enough, not producing enough, not visible enough. The hustle culture of the writing and publishing world is like post every day, publish every week, produce! produce! produce! This was not designed for you. We’ve been raised in a society that isn't built for us and has left most, if not all of us, exhausted, bitter, and ready to give up.

Projectors don’t have a defined Sacral center, which means you do not have consistent access to the same sustainable life-force energy that Generators and MGs have. (major ugh, I know) You are not built to work for eight hours a day. You are not built for high-volume output. You are built for DEPTH. For quality over quantity. For the piece that takes longer to write than anyone else’s, but totally SHIFTS people when they read it.

Projectors write best when they have been seen and invited into their topic. This is a big one, and I know it may be confusing at first. The Projector strategy is to wait for the invitation, and with writing, this is not about waiting for someone to ask you to write your book before you write it. There’s almost like this internal sense of being called to something and recognizing that within yourself first, and then putting yourself out there so others can recognize that within you, too. Then they can invite you in. But you first have to know that you are someone who has something real to say.

When a Projector writes from a place of genuine recognition, meaning “I see something here that others don’t and I need to say it out loud,” the writing and creative expression is just chef’s kiss. But when a Projector writes or creates from a place of trying to prove themselves, trying to keep up, or trying to produce for the sake of keeping up with the algorithm, the work falls flat. And you, as a Projector, usually know when this is happening, and it feels awful.

Quality over quantity, always and forever. A Projector who writes one deeply researched and beautifully crafted essay a month will outperform a Projector who is forcing themselves to publish something every three days for the sake of metrics. Your value is not in your volume, and it never will be. It’s in your depth of perception and your ability to articulate what you SEE.

And the best part? Rest is not optional for Projectors; it’s a part of your creative process. There is something magical that happens when a projector rests, when they enter the liminal, and cut off from the rest of the world. You need a reset, you need alone time, quiet time, and time during the in-between to fully receive your downloads.

My final piece of advice for Projector writers is that you are a natural when it comes to writing about people, systems, and patterns. You are the bird sitting in the highest tree, and you can see it all. Your ability to see what others miss is what makes your writing worth reading, regardless of genre. Lead with that. Your book is not going to come from forcing. It is going to come from a moment of genuine recognition…first from yourself, and then from others who see your work and invite you to go deeper. Start sharing your insights at smaller levels to attract the recognition that will fuel your bigger work. And when the invitation comes, say YES baby!

Reflectors: The Mirrors

My dear, sweet Reflectors. Reflectors are the rarest energy type, at only about 1% of the population. If you are one, you already know that you experience life very differently from everyone else. You don’t have any defined energy centers (all your shapes are empty/colorless on your chart), which means you are completely open. You are taking in and reflecting the energy of the people and environments around you, hence why you are the mirrors in society. You literally reflect what the collective is thinking and feeling because you feel everything. You see everything. Which is crazy if you think about it, for someone who is a writer, you literally synthesize the world around you, especially when you finally step into your voice.

Reflectors experience the world in a cyclical way…your world is tied to the lunar cycle, and I don’t mean that metaphorically. Your energy, your clarity, and your creativity all fluctuate with the rhythm of the moon. Trying to write on a fixed daily schedule, or having consistent output while ignoring how you feel and what phase the moon is in, is working directly against your design.

Reflectors write best when they are in the right environment, around the right people, and have given themselves time to process and synthesize the world around them. And your strategy is to wait one lunar cycle, so about 28-29 days, before making any major decisions. In writing, this means you may not be able to rush the creative process. Things may take longer to write/create or not, depending on the above factors.

But your biggest gift as a writer is your limitless perspective. You have been taking in the energy and experiences of everyone around you your entire life. You are a vessel containing the multitudes of the human experience, and when you write, you are not writing from your individual, limited lens…you are literally writing from ALL OF IT. You have the entire spectrum of human emotion and experience available to you as a creative source. That shit is powerful.

Your environment is everything for Reflectors. Where you write matters. The energy of the space, the people nearby, even the city you live in, is influencing what comes through you. Reflectors often do their best creative work in nature or in spaces that feel expansive and clear.

Since you are guided by the moon, you may find that your work moves through very distinct phases. Throughout the month, there will be days when your channel is clearer than others, when the work pours out of you like a waterfall. And then there will be days when your energy is lower, when you can't seem to connect to anything at all. Both are part of your process. You ebb and flow. Write when you are in the open, receptive, flowing phases. Give yourself grace during the other times. Your job is to learn your cycle, track it, and honor it.

My last piece of advice for the Relfector writer is to remember that you are designed to speak for the collective. The themes you are drawn to write about are not random; they are exactly what the collective needs in this moment in time. You write for everyone because you carry the energy of everyone inside of you. Remember, you are a vessel, this is your gift and magic. You don't absorb other people’s energy like Projectors; you take in a sample and then reflect it back to them, but AMPLIFIED. Because of this, trust that your voice has a place in this world.

Until next week,

With both Jupiter and Venus meeting in Cancer last week, I thought it would be the perfect time to do my deep dive on Jupiter placements for writers, authors, and us aspiring authors.

Jupiter is often called the planet of luck, but I think that is an oversimplification.

Jupiter IS the planet of abundance, growth, and visibility (wisdom, higher education, good fortune, the list goes on) BUT the most important thing to know about Jupiter is it’s the planet of EXPANSION.

It’s where life wants to give you excess.

Fun fact for us writers and creatives! Jupiter is also the planetary ruler of publishing. While Mercury governs writing and daily communication, Jupiter rules the diffusion of those ideas through mass media, publishing, and global allocation. Basically, broadening and widening that net.

Jupiter represents your capacity for immense growth and your highest pursuit of success. The “house” it occupies in your chart highlights the specific areas of life where you naturally have unlimited expansion, visibility, and where wealth-building opportunities naturally flow.

Jupiter inherently amplifies and expands whatever the house rules.

A few quick (and simple) examples: Jupiter in your 3rd expands your craft, Jupiter in your 10th expands your reputation, Jupiter in your 11th expands your audience. (more on this below)

Depending on your house and the sign it’s in, this is where you'll have the biggest opportunity, the most expansion, and the most abundance. And it can expand your abundance in money/wealth, but also in health, friendship, or love, and so on. It can help you grow in ways you never thought possible, and it will be the place in your life where you feel most safe AND courageous to be visible and seen as your true self.

And Jupiter doesn't reward effort — it rewards ALIGNMENT.

Where Jupiter is placed in your chart…the house it’s in, the sign it’s in…is where expansion can happen most easily for YOU (when you are in alignment with those elements, again more on that below)

And you can push or use that expansion energy to influence other parts of your chart and your life. (like writing your book)

This is what I'll be showing you today:

How to find your Jupiter placement (which house and sign it’s in), where it expands for you, and how to use that expansive energy in your writing and beyond.

Because every one of us is born with a little magic in our charts — the kind of magic that creates miracles out of thin air, that forges immense growth when we are doing the very least and from a place of ease, creating endless abundance and wealth — this is the magic of Jupiter.

Some lighting housekeeping before we begin…

I consider myself a psychic astrologer. I combine the chart-based study of astrology with my intuition and psychic abilities. I liek to say I scan people's charts for planetary placements and then read the energy after that, absorbing whatever comes forward intuitively. I am self-taught and learned by reading other people’s charts — friends, family, my boyfriend, strangers at the bar after two margaritas, and yes, I had them text their mom for their birth time. I have been studying astrology for 8 years and have been into it since high school. These are my credentials.

I have an astrology book that I've had for years, which is a good starting point for the basics like houses, signs, etc. I used it to learn the ins and outs of said basics and still refer to it when I come across certain signs or houses I'm not quite comfortable with yet…like Libras and the 6th and 9th houses. I think we can all agree that certain signs come into our lives and repeat often — like Pisces and Geminis for me — and certain signs we never see much of — like Libras for me. Because I've learned astrology by reading others' charts and haven't come across many Libras, if at all, I'm not as comfortable with them and will refer to my astrology book for some help and intuitively go from there. Also, my 6th and 9th houses are empty, which is why I haven't spent as much time on them.

As I said above, when I read astrology, I use my psychic gifts. I use my understanding of the signs and houses and then feel into what else the stars might be saying, because I believe astrology has many layers that intertwine with each other like a cosmic map.

I currently don’t do private readings, but I love sharing this information because I genuinely enjoy it. This type of information is behind a paywall because I do all my astrology by hand, through my own wisdom and understanding. I don’t use AI, and I don’t get my astrology information from other astrologers. Basically, it takes a long time to channel and output all this information and make sure it is digestible for you to use in your daily life.

It's also important to note that I believe we are all channels and each channel will read the energy in their own way — the same way some astrologers were saying the Jupiter-Venus in Cancer is the luckiest day of the year, while other astrologers were saying you might experience some hiccups. Astrology is deeply personal, and each channel or intuitive will read the energy slightly differently while the main themes remain. On what you read below, take what vibes with you and leave the rest.

One more thing — as I said, astrology is deeply personal. I did my best to share information below that will be valuable and helpful to you, while not knowing your full chart. The information below is meant to be inspirational and helpful, but without knowing the rest of your chart, the reading will always be slightly incomplete, and that’s okay. What’s below will be immensely helpful — I know it is, because when I did this for myself, it was so valuable for me and gave me a better understanding of where I need to shine more brightly.

My goal with merging astrology with writing is to help us creatives step into our highest potential and highest form, and I know astrology can do just that. We each have access to our own cosmic map, a blueprint of our soul written in the stars, and this very blueprint can act as the stepping stone to YOUR dream life.

How to look up Jupiter in your chart

To look up Jupiter in your birth chart, you will need your exact birth date, time, and city.

Generate your free chart using an astrology site like Astro.com

Look for the specific Jupiter glyph, which can look like this ♃ …Kind of looks like a 4.

When you find that symbol (♃), you will be able to see which house it is in; there will be a number on the inner wheel.

Now look at the outermost wheel, which will show the sign it is in. Each house is represented by its own sign, and every house has a sign, even if that house is empty.

Take a look at my chart below for reference and see how I used this information for myself in real time.

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How are we after that full moon in Sagittarius? Can I just say that was probably the most transformative full moon of the year for me. (I think for all of us, hey?) It feels like I’m living in a completely different life now, exiting my last one, my last chapter, and now forging on a new path. We as a collective have completely closed this last 8-year chapter when Uranus first moved into Taurus, now finding its new home in Gemini.

That full moon was at 9° in Sagittarius. It occurred for me in my 10th house of career and reputation. My MC is at 7°in sag, so this moon, actually a full moon THIS close to it (literally 2° away), is kind of a big deal because full moons = things coming to a head / reaching completion.

(Here is a good video for finding how this moon and other transits affect your chart, maybe I’ll make my own soon!)

The Midheaven is basically like your “peak” point. It’s the very tippy top of your chart, and it represents your public image (how strangers/the world see you), your career path and what you’re meant to be known for, your reputation and legacy.

So I basically had a huge spotlight on all of that for this full moon, and I was FEELING it. Before I even looked at my chart for this moon, just in the last few weeks, I have been dealing with so much around…

• My work getting more visible than usual, and moving into more public recognition with my Substack and my career as a writer/channel.

• and of course A LOT of “what am I doing with my life / what do I want to be known for?”

• I feel into more of the shadow periods for transits before they actually hit, it’s a blessing and a curse as the energy then can last for weeks for me sometimes, not fun for heavier transits as we had in late April, early May.

It’s no coincidence that I decided to come back to channeling and sharing all of my authentic self in relation to my writing career during this full moon, plus sharing on social media more again. It was hitting my Midheaven and 10th house HARD.

And since I've started channeling again, I have had a new energy come through — Pleiadian energy. I haven't actively worked with the Pleiadians since around 2019. I used to work with a group called the Guardian Fellowship (I know, so dramatic, but also a great name for my book lol), and in that group was Pleiadian energy called Jacob.

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Let me rewind real quick. Once I decided to channel again, I kept seeing 444 everywhere. My initial instinct was to Google what 444 means as an angel number, but my guides said wait, don’t do that. So I waited. For a few days. And nothing happened, and then I forgot about it.

Then I was scrolling Instagram, you know, a classic doomscroll, when I ended up on the super spiritual cosmic side of IG. I have not excavated this terrain in a while! And honey, it is still popping. I saw videos about machine elves you see on DMT, dolphins that can speak telepathically, and of course, a video about the Pleiades. In the very beginning of that video, the content creator said the Pleiades is 444 light-years away. And I knew that it was the Pleiadians trying to connect with me.

In that moment, I felt the top of my arms get really warm and fuzzy, and also around my solar plexus area too. I tapped in and assumed it was Jacob. When I asked, this being said no, not Jacob. So I spent some time trying to gather this being’s name. He wanted to tell me his true name — not his earthly name — but it was too hard for me to receive, so for now I call him No Name.

I was speaking to No Name and trying to figure out why he was coming in and saying “I”….like, I feel this, I know this…instead of “we.” Usually, when I channel, I get them speaking to me in “We” form. He told me it's because they can tell this is the form I feel more comfortable with. But I had to clarify and ask, “I am speaking to an individual, or a collective,” because this was new for me.

He said: We don’t really have individuality in the fifth dimension, not the way you all do on earth. He said his consciousness goes up to the seventh dimension as he speaks to me, through the channel of the collective. So he might be an individual, but his consciousness is part of the collective, and how he speaks to me is through that collective channel.

He said: Imagine you do a Teams call and the entire Pleiadian collective is on that call. You can see all the faces, but one person is talking. Similar to that.

And it’s interesting because I always did feel a little off with “we,” I like more direct and one-on-one energy. I think it comes down to my human experience: I like to go deep, I like one-on-one conversations, and I don’t like small talk. So I think they’re feeling into that.

Anyway, that was a long-winded intro to the whole point of this post, which is to share how I’ve been using various tools to help me write my book.

And to clarify — not write the book for me, but methodologies that can be useful when I'm feeling uninspired or maybe imposter syndrome creeps, or when I need a little boost to know I’m on the right path. things I KNOW can help you too.

Because there are two sides to writing a book — the pragmatic side and the ENERGETICS of it all.

My hopes is that space becomes the best of both worlds — sharing my journey in real time with the pragmatic side of writing a book like worldbuilding, drafting, editing, querying — and the energetic side like dealing with fear of being seen, the mindset of querying rejections, plus what houses in astrology best support your writing career and the gates in human design that will support your creatviity…. just to name a few ideas of what I want to share here.

The point is, I’m excited to be here with you.

Ok, so I shared more deeply in last week's post of the shifts occurring for me and how and why I decided to blend all my loves — writing, aspiring author, astrology, human design, and inner work — into one place. Start there if you haven't read yet.

Being new to the aspiring author world, I have seen so much content about how to write a book…the worldbuilding, the three-act structure, Save the Cat, all of it. But I don’t see a lot of people talking about the energetics of writing a book.

And after spending a year learning how to write a book, reading all the resources, and following all the people, I found myself desperate for that kind of content and learning. So I gave it to myself. I started looking at my astrology and human design charts, and I figured out what my biggest blocks and limiting beliefs are — like my fear of haters leaving mean comments on my social media if I became too successful — and began the process of working through it all.

Then things started moving again.

Here’s my belief: When it comes to writing a book and building a book brand/business, true and everlasting success comes down to your personal energetics. It’s why someone who might not be the most talented writer or have the best book idea can have massive success (we’ve all read a book or two like that and thought huh?) while someone with an MFA and an incredible book concept struggles to get a sliver of the results they desire. On paper, they should have it all, but energetically, something is off.

I literally read energy. That is one of my authentic gifts. And I was ignoring that part of me for a WHOLE YEAR.

This all went down three months ago, when I realized that my creativity is a part of my intuition (I know that might seem like a duh moment, and it was). But it was then that I remembered our souls have blueprints — divine maps that contain little clues or stepping stones to help us along our journey of life. And writing your book is no different.

Astrology and Human Design can’t write the book for you; doing shadow work or mindset work won't magically put 90k words on the pages.

But they can help you understand your blocks, your strengths, and how you’re naturally meant to work.

Through this work, you can…

• Identify your blocks, limiting beliefs, or where you resist

• Recognize patterns in how you work

• Understand your natural rhythms and energy

• Know how you’re meant to approach creativity

I was working against my design, against my blueprint, trying to be like other writers I admired. But then I realized I was going against my own design, which made everything so much harder.

For example, in Human Design, there are specific aspects that can pull certain people toward deep research. You might follow someone who has this in their design, and unknowingly try to emulate it within yourself…even if you actually hate deep research and intensive learning.

The thing is, you might not need to do that; you might have something in your chart that allows you to read one short article on a historical detail and be able to know everything you need for your specific book.

Just a few examples to show you the possibilities!

ok let’s dive in for real this time. I promise I won’t rant anymore.

Hi! Real quick, a post like this is usually saved for my paid subscribers, but I’m making this post free for all readers, so you can get a feel of this space and what I'll be sharing moving forward for my paid subs.

Astrology

There are SO MANY placements in astrology that you can look at for career, money, purpose, and writing — and I will be doing a post on every one in great detail. But for today, let’s look at just a few fun placements that helped me personally, since astrology is so deeply specific and personal.

I first turned to astrology to see where Jupiter was, and found it in my 3rd house in Aries. Jupiter is where you experience expansion, so having it in my 3rd house means my biggest expansion lives in the world of ideas, writing, and communication. And because my 3rd house is in Aries, I am meant to act FAST on those ideas. With that Aries energy, I'm meant to be first — meaning my first ideas are best, and my ideas are first in a trendsetter kind of way. (This really resonated with me because part of me felt I was creating, or at least initiating, a new genre for my book, so that was validating.) Also, my first draft, for anything that’s a draft, is always my best work. I just need to get it out there. That’s the Aries energy: the first draft is the perfect draft. Don’t sit on it, don’t over-polish it, just move.

When looking at my friends' charts, especially those who are creatives, I always look at Venus, which represents magnetism and abundance, and how prosperity is drawn to you. Your 10th house is your world stage, your career house, your public reputation. (Your 3rd house is your inner stage.) I also love looking at the 12th house. When building your brand as an author, I’d look to your 10th house AND the 12th, which reveals what's hidden beneath the surface: your subconscious patterns, blind spots, and what you may be unconsciously holding back.

This is just the tip of the iceberg with astrology!

Human Design

Human Design is one of the most important and valuable methodologies of our time. (in my opinion) There are five energy types — Manifestors, Generators, Manifesting Generators, Projectors, and Reflectors — and we are all literally meant to approach work differently.

As a Projector, I always felt like I could never keep up with everyone else, that I would get tired so quickly, and need breaks. I felt lazy and unmotivated. But that was before I knew my energy type and how I am actually meant to approach work. Projectors are not here to work in the same sustained way that Generators and Manifesting Generators are. We’re here to guide, to see the big picture, to work in focused bursts and then rest. The exhaustion wasn’t a character flaw or that I was somehow a bad person. It was a design feature I was ignoring.

Just like with astrology, there is so much to cover in Human Design, your energy type, strategy, authority, profile, centers, and gates, and I will be going in depth on each one and how to apply it to your writing, your book business, and your brand. But when I was looking at my Human Design chart, one thing jumped out immediately.

I have Gate 11 in my Incarnation Cross, which is the Juxtaposition Cross of Ideas. Gate 11 is known as the Gate of Ideas. It sits in my Ajna center and is all about the flow of inspiration — receiving ideas, holding them, and sharing them with the world. People with Gate 11 are natural idea generators. The gift isn’t in executing every idea, it’s in the having of them, the channeling of them, and knowing which ones are worth bringing to life. For a writer, this is kind of everything.

So when I tell you that this blueprint was confirming everything I was already feeling about my book….I mean it!

Shadow Work/ Removing Blocks

I knew I needed to implement shadow work and inner work in general when I learned that you can query 300 times and get rejected all 300 times. Writing a book and choosing the traditional publishing route can feel like getting a master’s degree in rejection. I can already feel old wounds and trauma coming to the surface.

That’s where shadow work comes in. Shadow work is the practice of looking at the parts of yourself you’ve pushed down, hidden, or denied — the fears, the limiting beliefs, the wounds you’ve been carrying quietly. It’s about shining a light there so those parts stop running the show from behind the scenes. Carl Jung coined the concept of the “shadow self” as the unconscious side of our personality…the parts we deem unacceptable and bury. Shadow work is the process of bringing those parts into awareness so we can integrate them, rather than be subconsciously controlled by them.

I’ve struggled with self-worth and self-trust for years. And there is still a part of me that feels like this won’t happen for me because I’m not good enough. But once I allowed my intuition to be part of this process, I heard a little voice say: “The work around this will take you to your next level of healing.” And I felt that deeply.

Some of the limiting beliefs and shadowy parts that have come up for me:

• I’m not good enough

• Others can have success, but not me

• I will always fail

• I don’t have what it takes

• It’s not safe for me to be seen

Speaking of being seen…I know so many of us have dreams of hitting it big like the Sarah J. Maas’s and Rebecca Yarros’s of the world. I get that maybe some of you actually don’t, but I think most of us are writing a book to get it into as many readers’ hands as possible, and with that comes more eyes on you.

But I know so many of us have a fear and a shadow around owning our worth and being seen. I know I am blocking my own manifestation in part because of this fear. Because if more people are watching, if I am truly being seen, they might say mean things to me. (lol) And honestly? That’s not irrational — we see it all the time in comment sections on social media. But my deeper fear is being misunderstood. That people will make things up about me, twist my words, create a narrative that isn’t true, which we see happen to authors and celebrities all the time.

I am currently working through this fear of being seen and doing mindset work around the belief that it is safe for me to be seen. That the right readers will find me. That being seen is not a threat, it’s the whole point.

Mindset and Identity Work

The final key to all of this = mindset work and identity work.

Calling in the identity of the person you’re becoming… the successful, agented author with a published book. Not wishing for her, not waiting for her. Actually becoming her, now, before the proof shows up.

It’s not about faking it or pretending. It’s about genuinely embodying who you are becoming before the external results show up. Because the version of you who already has the agent, the book deal, the readers — she thinks differently. She makes different decisions. She doesn’t spiral after a rejection because she knows it’s part of the path. She writes even when it feels hard because she trusts the vision.

That’s the inner shift that changes everything. Not a new outline, not a better query letter, not more craft books, though ALL of that matters too. But the biggest, most lasting change happens when you stop waiting for permission or proof and start living as if it’s already done.

THIS is game-changing work, because once you learn how to let go of the old self and step into your next, all your dreams and wishes will come true.

That’s all now for my friends. im really excited to go DEEP on all of these topics more. My goal is to share everything I know, plus my own personal wisdom and experiences on the pragmatic and energetic sides of writing a fantasy novel. Stay tuned for much much more!

Until next week,

This post is an ode to my first-ever YouTube video, nearly 7 years ago to the date! Aw, I kinda miss my YouTube days. I woke up today and felt called to this video, as I probably haven't watched it in years, and when I saw the date, I just had to laugh. There must be something about Gemini season when Uranus is changing signs that makes me want to get super freaky and spiritual.

Watching it took me back to the beginning of this whole journey. I was just a little baby on the verge of a new chapter. Uranus had just entered Taurus the year before, and I had spent that year exploring my psychic gifts, completely unaware that I was beginning a new trajectory, leaving my career as a photographer behind.

Now, as Uranus leaves Taurus and enters Gemini, I am once again on the verge of a new chapter — my chapter as a writer and fantasy author. But watching that video, along with all the other signs that have been metaphorically slapping me across my face lately, has shown me that I’m meant to blend these two chapters now. (more on that below)

That original video was me outing myself for channeling light beings and working as a psychic medium.

And that is my plan today. Same same but different.

I actually have been on a long break from the spiritual world for about three years now. I will write a whole Substack about it soon, because it will be SPICY and something I’ve wanted to talk shit on for a long time, (remember my podcast project Shift Talk that I never followed through on? I was always meant to write.) But for now, here are the things I'm ready to tell you that I've been too scared to share in the past.

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1: I can channel light beings, aliens, whatever you want to call them. I used to do trance channeling, where my consciousness basically left my body, and I would allow the consciousness of another being, not from Earth, to come in and talk through me. So wild, very draining on the bod, but also so fun and kinda freaky. I often recorded these sessions and would share them on my YouTube and Instagram.

2: The only reason I knew I could channel was when I moved to Australia in May 2018 and started seeing spirits in my house. I had NEVER had that before. I would wake up and see a Native American man standing over me, or be watching TV and look to my right and see a Victorian-looking woman watching me. I never felt scared; I felt safe but still freaked out.

3: Because I was seeing ghosts, I started meditating and exploring the supernatural and hyper-woo-woo spiritual. Two years prior, I had done a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat (a ten-day silent meditation retreat), so I was comfortable with longer meditations and would often go into medi for an hour or so. One day, while in one of my hour-long meditations, I felt my entire body shift. Inside my mind’s eye, I was suddenly floating through the cosmos, then I saw a portal, and I walked through it (naturally) and was transported to complete darkness, where I felt divine nothingness. It was in that moment that I could feel myself inside my own body move aside, and another Being came and started talking through me, a Light Being. The best way to describe this is it felt like I was taking a nap off to the side while this Being spoke, liek I was half awake, half in the dream world. When I came back, it felt like years had gone by, but it had only been about 50 minutes or so. I had no idea what had happened, but I remember the Being said I had lived many lives and that they wanted to show me the role of my self within the Universe. I kept this experience to myself at the time, but kept going into meditation and bringing that Being back in to chat.

4: Later, a friend told me I was trance channeling. Trance channeling is an altered state of consciousness in which a person, the"medium" or "channel,” enters a deep meditative state to allow a non-physical entity (such as a spirit, angel, alien, or higher self) to temporarily blend with their consciousness and communicate through them. Again, I had never heard of that. Anyway, this led me to explore my psychic medium gifts. I read books, read a lot online, watched YouTube videos, and eventually took Psychic Bootcamp by Bree Melanson, which I highly recommend! Bree also does trance channeling. At the time of buying her course, I had no idea she did too, but it was so nice to see someone else doing this “weird” thing, and she looked very similar to how I look when I trance channeled. We basically talk with our eyes closed, sound different in voice, and kind of move our bodies in a flowy way. It’s unique for sure.

5: I did that as readings and channeled guidance for years, and I love that chapter of my life. But something shifted. I felt so disconnected from my earthly self because I was always in meditation, cruising the cosmos, and learning about other worlds and lifetimes. I went too deep, lost sight of my human self, and that we are meant to be here on Earth. I felt this call to take a break, and my guides were supportive, I mean, of course they were, I have free will, dawg.

I also began to notice a lot of grifting in the spiritual realm, especially during the last election. For one, I watched in real time the concept of "5D ascension" become heavily commercialized with many spiritual teachers monetizing it because it obviously sold well. But that came with this whole "love and light" and “be more 5D” narrative while shaming those “stuck” in the 3D. Or the self-described "ascension teachers" coming out of the woodwork, declaring Donald Trump a "massive and powerful lightworker," yet when confronted in their comments about his atrocious actions against women and children, they would either spiritually bypass or ignore it completely. That era where pro-Trump conspiracy theories merged with New Age spirituality was super scary. They've also gone very quiet since the release of the Epstein files. (Oh no, you didn't realize your powerful lightworker cult daddy is a pedo?!)

So I told my guides I’m out for a bit. But before I did that, they wanted to show me one more thing — how Earth used to be. An ancient earth with even older magic. That the fairytales were real and humans used to live for several hundred years, and that the reason everything is so dense is because magic has left the earth, and we need to get it back. This would later become the main plot point in my book. My guides wanted me to channel things about the old Earth for this very reason and left me with a parting gift.

6: I took a year off from posting on social media and was three years into my break from channeling and the spiritual community. I wondered if I would ever channel again. During this break from social media, was also one of the hardest years of my personal life — I won’t go into it, but something happened to our family and shook us all to our core. I became so isolated, stopped seeing friends, and was often alone on long morning walks. It was on these walks that I was reminded of the old earth I had channeled years ago. During this time, I was also reading fantasy again. Then came the thought what if I write a fantasy book? I have been a writer for as long as I can remember. I have always been a storyteller, and when that ping came in, I knew it was my next step.

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7: As soon as my book idea came to me, I had another thought — that I can’t share my spiritual side in the bookish community. Everyone had their MFA’s, was academic and logical, no one believed in aliens or channeling (or so I thought), and I’m sure they had never even heard of the Pleiadians. Out of fear of showing my authentic self, I told myself this is why I took a break from channeling, because I was meant to be an “intellectual” author. I cut off all of my psychic medium gifts and got to work on the book.

8: A year after that initial idea came to me, spirits started visiting me again. One night, I could feel something sitting on my bed and MOVE around a couple of times. Another night, I couldn’t sleep because Louie and Greg were snoring, so I went to the couch. As I was drifting to sleep, I felt that same Victorian woman wake me — she actually threw something at me in the non-physical realm like a ball or something, then I fully woke up and saw her standing in my kitchen. I told her to fuck off and go away. Also, the critter on my bed, Stacy or Stephanie, I asked her to go away, too.

I couldn't believe this was happening again!! But since I know what's going on in astrology — with Uranus shifting into Gemini — it's helpful to reflect back on what was happening in your life eight years ago, before this new shift occurs. And eight years ago, I was haunted by ghosts and unsure of my gifts. I realized I was in the same place now. I was on the verge of this new chapter, but ALL of me had to come along — the true, authentic parts. Even though I was trying so hard to be an academic writer and not an alien channel. I guess when I don’t listen, my guides send the ghosts to haunt me until I do listen. So, I reconnected with my guides, opened my channel back up, and basically put up the “Open” sign on my gifts.

9: Quick book update — because I have felt so stuck. I couldn’t figure out the middle of the plot, and I’m throwing this in here because this whole Substack is about writing my book from scratch. But I began meditating again, let my guides back in, and realized I had been trying so hard not to be “that light being channel girl” that I had completely shut off my intuition for this book. I have always been intuitive. I sometimes feel like I can read people’s minds because I can read their energy so clearly. Channeling light beings from other worlds has always come naturally to me. So why did I turn this off? I knew something had to change. Moving forward, I’ll be leaning into my gifts and intuition much more with this book — and already so many ideas for the middle have come forward. I feel so much clearer now.

10: Since I was feeling stuck with my book, I turned to astrology and human design. (as I do with any aspect of my life) I went looking through my chart for where there might be walls/blocks or even places where I naturally shine, just to give me a boost. Then I had this thought — you know how they say you are your most true self when no one is watching, what are the things you do when you’re alone? I have studied astrology and human design for the last eight or nine years, that’s the thing I do most when no one is watching, besides writing. I was the girl at the restaurant telling people to text their mom for their birth time so I could read their charts over a margarita at the bar. So I went back to my charts and found exactly where I was naturally meant to tell stories. Aries is in my third house, and so is Jupiter. I am literally built to be a writer, and not only that, but my first idea, that first draft, is meant to be the one. I’m meant to act quickly and be first with my ideas. I also have Gate 11 in Human Design, which is the gate of ideas. I am an ideas person, and my strongest channel for sharing those ideas is through writing. All of this gave me the boost and confidence that I am on the right path.

11: This led to my next thought — why don’t I teach other writers how to look up their charts and find these things that can actually help us? I had been trying so hard to separate my spiritual side from my writerly side, and it was killing my creativity and killing this book. I don’t believe astrology or human design can write your book for you, but I know it can give you permission, confidence, and help with pattern recognition. Because I truly believe these methodologies confirm what you already know to be true about yourself. So I have decided to start an astrology and human design series for writers. And funny enough, once I allowed that idea to fully form, those pesky spirits stopped haunting me. I decided it’s time to reopen my channel and share my spiritual side with you all because isn’t that the whole point? To show up fully and unapologetically as we are? I am a channel. I love astrology and human design. I can talk to beings from other planets and dimensions. I am also a writer, and I have been one since I was six years old. And I know I am meant to write this book.

12: This space will be changing, but just a little bit. Actually, not changing. Evolving. I will still have my Book From Scratch series, where I share every step of writing my fantasy book, because it brings me so much joy and I love it deeply. But I will also be sharing more of my spiritual side and helping you use astrology and human design in your writing — because your soul already knows what to do. Our soul blueprints are written in the stars, and that is exactly what these two methodologies help us find our way back to.

If you're still here, get ready, because there will be no more filters in this space. I want to share it all. I know there are more people out there like me: people who love writing, who love astrology and human design, who are psychic mediums and don't feel like they fit into the traditional publishing world.

Until next week.

I’m just a girl who likes things.

(and also doesn't like things, say hello to my shitlist down below)

So here we go, a non-exhaustive list of things I'm slightly obsessed with right as a 38-year-old woman just for funsies.

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Garage sailing: My boyfriend and I hopped on our bikes one weekend and cruised around looking for garage sales (ie garage sailing). If you remember from this essay, we moved to a new area, and it’s pretty bougie if I do say so myself. I got these boots for $5 from a pilates mom down the street. I love second-hand stuff, mainly because it kills me to spend $200 on a dress that’s made from polyester, probably costs $10 to make, and is made with unethical labor at that. I’ve taught my boyfriend the fun of second-hand, and now he’s obsessed with finding things that people are selling on marketplaces or giving away for free.

The OA: THIS IS THE BEST TV SHOW. WHY DID YOU CANCEL IT, NETFLIX, YOU SILLY FUCKS. I have a sick obsession with this show, and I’ve watched it a few times now. I just did a rewatch last weekend and aghhh, why did they have to end it? This show is so close to what reality can be like from what I’ve channeled; it’s a must-see if you’re into sci-fi, consciousness, and dimensions.

Medik8: Oh, I bet you were wondering when the beauty products would come in, hey? I'm not much of a beauty product girly or beauty girly in general. I didn't learn how to curl my own hair or do my own makeup until I was like 30. But as I've said, I'm 38, and I've gone by in life without using too many products, but this year I have started to see the signs of aging, which is great because aging is a blessing, but it still sucks. I’ve started using this brand and am loving it so far. I started on level one with this product and am working my way up.

The Plot Twist Pod: As someone writing a fantasy novel and knowing nothing about this industry, this pod has been a lifesaver. I love Soman and Victoria. I have this weird parasocial relationship with them and think of them as my bookish parents. I'm totally joking (no, I’m not), but they run a great show and have honest insights about the industry at large.

Going to the beach most mornings: Insert going to the park, on a walk, to the river, mountains, walk around the city — wherever you live — just getting outside first thing with a coffee/tea/diet coke in hand and your dog, cat, rabbit, pet monkey (boyfriend?) on a leash. We’ve been doing stuff solely for our dog Louie, because it’s his life too, and he wants more excitement and adventure. But it’s been a bonus for us as well. We’re also taking Louie camping this summer, should be exciting!

Weight lifting: Yes, I am that girl. Well, now I am THAT GIRL. My butt looks incredible, you should see it. Go ahead, take a look, I don’t mind. I have been scared of my own body for most of my life — I grew up in the “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” era and always wanted to be super thin, like sickly looking, because body dysmorphia will do that to ya. Weightlifting has given me strength and confidence in my body, no matter what size it is.

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn: The magic system in this book is so good! A YA fantasy spin on Arthurian legend, and probably the first book I've read that blends fantasy with the modern world, and I am completely hooked. I can't wait to finish this series.

Oner: New activewear I’ve been wearing, decent price point, comfy, and cute. It’s pronounced Oner like Honor, but I have this weird thing with my mind where once I see a word first before hearing how it’s pronounced, I will always call it by my initial way of pronouncing it, like severely unintentionally, my brain just can't switch. Hence, I say it Oner like Boner. I also still say Nova Scotia like “Scotty-a.”

These Jeans: I bought these jeans a size up, so for most of the month, they have a cute baggy feel to them. And when I am on my period or just bloated and not feeling too hot in my body, they fit perfectly. I have seriously been living in these jeans all spring. And look, they're on sale too!

TBM: Stop sleeping on To Be Magnetic. I’ve been doing this work since 2018. I found Lacy in August of that year and haven’t looked back. I am obsessed with this work. It has changed my life in more ways than I can count, and I have manifested nearly everything on my list over the last 8 years since starting this work. Right now, I’m in the fun era of writing a new list and going through the process of unblocking and manifesting that new list, which I think I’ll be doing a post on that in the coming weeks.

Perelel Health: Your girl is trying to have a baby this year — my first one, besides my fur baby, Louie. And although I have several Expanders of women having babies in their late 30s and early 40s (literally fuck the doctors who said it’s a geriatric birth if you have one after 35, da fuck?) Anyways, I felt intuitively called to this brand. I like that the pills are separate, and my intuition said hell yeah for this one.

Big Talk Small Talk: You guys, as someone trying to stay in the know from reputable sources, this podcast covers it ALL. I literally can't trust anything I read online about current events these days — but I trust these girls. They give such an unbiased and fair assessment of the current issues occurring worldwide, plus it’s fun to mix politics with pop culture, which they do seamlessly.

Mamdami — my baby choo, showing us how real political leaders are supposed to act and get it done. Everyone, clap for Mamdami and his cool wife.

Learning French: I’ve been trying to learn French since high school. I studied Spanish, and I’m decent, but French always sounded so fun to me. And also, life is too short not to do the things you want to do. I’ve been loving this Insta account and have been using this app.

Writing my fantasy book: An obvious duh, but jumping into the world of fantasy writing has healed me in ways I didn't think possible. This is something my soul has been desiring for YEARS, and now I’m actually doing it. If you want to read the first page of my book for free, CLICK HERE.

My shit list…

Course-selling grifters: Let me vent her for a sec….but I’ll start by saying that not all course creators are shameless grifters, and that’s genuinely true. I've even created courses! There are plenty of decent humans out there offering real value. But I do have a vendetta against a specific few. I’m talking about the people who already have a big following, then they join TikTok or Substack or whatever the hot new platform is, find success there, and then charge $1,000 for a course on how to have success on said platform. Or they sell you their “unique method,” but after dropping $3k, you realize they are just really good at marketing and creating urgency, but the product inside is generic, and their results are not something that can be replicated for the masses. As someone who has spent thousands of dollars on courses and coaching programs from women making millions per year, and have seen zero positive results (with the one exception being Psychic Bootcamp by Bree Melanson), this topic hits close to home. If you’ve ever been personally victimized by a course seller, this article is a must-read. This article also offers how to market and sell with integrity.

TikTok: I used to love it, and now I can barely stomach going on it. I’m loving IG more these days. This came after I took about a year off from posting on social media, which led to me being on the app less. And now I just find it boring and repetitive.

Spencer Pratt: Temu Trump, is that you? Fucking hell, did we learn nothing from 2016? I’m so tired of mediocre rich white men. Sigh.

Until next week!

This is a part of my book-from-scratch series.

THIS WEEK - Worldbuilding: Geography, history, cultures, politics, the rules of magic…yes to all of that. (duh) But the real secret? Two questions that cut through all of the noise and get straight to what makes a world feel real and not just another distraction for our readers.

Hello fellow goblins,

I’m a little late this week…work was busier than usual…we had a lot of work events, and very little time after all of that to sit down and write at the end of the day.

But as someone aspiring to be a writer full-time, not being able to write really threw me off. I did get a few good naps in, and Greg and I were also battling a half-cold (you know when a cold won’t fully come on, but you just feel off?), so maybe REST was meant to be this week’s theme.

But outside of my non-writing week, I did find some great inspiration and mindset shifts for this new life chapter I’m entering. So many little messages came in showing me I am on the right path — that this is my soul’s highest alignment — and I will do whatever it takes to get this book written and published.

I do feel like we are in this weird cosmic orchestra, and when proof of that comes in, it's like WOW, holy fucking shit, there is method to this madness.

Quick example: last week I was having one of those moments where I’m like, “What am I doing, this book is shit.” Then I went to my favorite cafe and randomly started talking to this girl who liked my hat, and she then shared that her aunt is higher up at Random House Publishing. (!!!)

That was definitely a little nudge from the Universe that this book will get published in the most exciting and unexpected ways.

The lesson: Remain open.

I’m also ready to write a new manifestation list, which I haven’t done in years, and take that through my manifestation process. I had a moment where I was looking at one of my old lists from a few years ago and realized I had manifested EVERYTHING on that list. (Holy fack!)

A house, a new job where I can work from home and write in my free time, our dream neighbourhood — and now it’s time to call in the energy for this book and this Substack.

It’s time to write a new list, a list that is book-focused, wealth-focused, and call in a new era of life. Also, a good reminder that sometimes things take YEARS to manifest.

Should I write about my manifestation process and how I craft my lists and the practices I do? Let me know if you would be interested in that!

I was also hesitant to write this week’s post as I truly don’t feel confident in sharing my knowledge and wisdom, or lack thereof, on the subject of worldbuilding.

For one, I have not written my book yet, and I imagine there will be many ah-ha moments regarding this world once I do.

Second, I realize I was going about this all WRONG.

Don’t you hate it when that happens? If I’m being honest, this journey has felt more like herding cats than writing a book.

When I first started the worldbuilding process over a year ago, what I focused on mostly were elements that felt cool or interesting. I thought that was the gist of it.

But that was how I felt about it as a reader.

I needed to shift my focus and perspective from a reader consuming a new world to a writer producing a new world. (light bulb moment!)

And this started with a question…

Is this moving the plot forward?

Now that I am older and wiser — I do have a year and a half tenure as an aspiring author — I recognize that the main question I need to be asking constantly is: how is this moving the plot forward? How is this helping the storyline?

I wrote down seemingly cool/exciting elements for my world, but I was unclear on how they helped move the plot forward or contributed to ANY character arc.

For example, I had a river that had healing powers ( COOL COOL), but it didn’t necessarily contribute to the plot or any arcs. It was just a really neat idea.

The healing river was nice for sure, but it didn’t really make sense for my story. If I took the river out, would it help or not help my story? Would it be missed?

The answer is no, the river would not be missed. (Sorry, little river!)

What I’ve learned about worldbuilding is it’s less about adding in trendy things and more about intentionally building out a world that helps the plot and character arcs, not distracts us from them.

Saying it louder for the people in the back — the world should not be distracting!

There needs to be a point or intention with everything, even if that point doesn’t happen until book two or three.

Once I understood this about worldbuilding, I was able to see this play out in real time in movies and other books I consumed.

Everything has a purpose; nothing is there by mistake.

If a key is mentioned, or a place or person, I know now — as a very advanced storyteller with a 1.5-year tenure as an aspiring author — that we will come back to that thing eventually.

And if we don’t, then that’s when we have a PLOT HOLE. (cue horror movie music)

It’s a reminder that we are storytellers first and foremost, and everything we do with our books and our worlds is about the story.

Trust me, your readers will call you out hard on any plot holes or things that are never mentioned again. Just look at Outlander and Jamie’s ghost situation.

Once I came back to this understanding that the world should contribute to the story, not distract us from it, I stumbled across a second question...

How do I make this world feel real?

My world is high fantasy, but there are also some sci-fi elements to it.

I also want there to be a matriarchal aspect to it, but how do I do that without making it sound cheesy, unbelievable, or like I’m virtue signaling a matriarchal society?

How do I do it in a realistic way without cultural appropriation?

Am I the right person to be telling certain stories?

SO MANY VALID QUESTIONS.

First, I started with reading and researching folklore.

This will not only make you a better storyteller, but it will also teach you how to add meaning, myths, and legends to your own world.

Folklore is the wisdom passed down; it’s the traditions that have lasted generations, the customs that define a community’s identity. Folklore is the stories, art, and practices that are passed down. These stories show what they fear, how they view the world, and their beliefs about how their world came to be.

So much of fantasy is about the richness of the worlds we create, and folklore is one of the best tools for building that. When I first started, my world lacked depth and substance. There was no cultural wisdom woven into the plot, no myths or legends. Once I started reading folklore, I could see how these rituals and beliefs added so much meaning to their world, and how to use that as inspiration for the history and origins of my own world.

Of course, be mindful of cultural appropriation, closed practices, and whether or not you’re the right person to be telling a particular story rooted in a specific culture.

Second, I focused on these questions:

• “Why does this world exist?”

• “What’s the cost to live here?”

To make a world feel real, to make your readers feel like they have a stake in the game of this world, it needs to be grounded in consequence. (Remember it’s the friction our MC encounters that keeps the story interesting)

There should be RULES (for the magic, geography, politics) that actually affect how people live, what they want, and what they fear or don’t fear. Not just as background detail, again not as a distraction, but as an element that actually shifts your characters and shapes who they are.

I could only do this for my story once I let go of trying to think of COOL ideas for my world.

Because fantasy worlds have scars, cultures can have messy backgrounds, entire civilizations have faced traumas they haven't even begun to heal, and politics only make sense when that shit is personal.

Even if you’re creating a heaven-on-earth style society (like I am for my world but with a plot twist), there can still be nefarious undertones and dark secrets that propel the plot forward rather than water it down.

Because if everything is heavenly and perfect through and through, where does the plot even come in?

Storytelling is about taking readers on a journey, starting at one point with one perspective and then shifting and breaking them wide open, until they arrive somewhere entirely new.

You can't get there through perfection. There has to be something at stake to make it feel real, because that's how life works.

Our readers — they want to FEEL that shift, not just read it on the pages.

And that FEELING starts with your worldbuilding.

Until next week.

April is coming to an end, and so is my delusion. Writing a book is not for the faint of heart, and yet writing is how we break our delicate hearts wide open.

Conundrum.

I spent the month of April watching Coachella on YouTube (both weekends), riding my bike to the beach, and purchasing index cards for plotting, only to stare at them unopened on my desk for weeks.

I also went to Ya’ll West last weekend, which is a young adult and middle grade book festival in Santa Monica.

Let me tell you, this was my first time attending a book fest. The last time I felt this high was at the scholastic book fair in the sixth grade.

Unfortunately, the lines were really long, and I didn’t have my mom or dad there to wait in line for me like some of the other youngins, so I didn’t get a chance to purchase any books or grab any swag.

BUT I did get to see Veronica Roth’s keynote and watch her speak about her new Divergent book coming out in October.

I also attempted to find one of the pirate flags to win one of Victoria Averyard’s Tempest galleys, but no success. (Galley is a pre-publication version of a book) I guess I will just have to wait until September 8th when my pre-order arrives.

Speaking of pre-orders, I also ordered Soman Chainani’s Young World, which comes out next week.

“Young World is YA thriller where a teen elected President sparks a global revolution of youth leaders, turning into a murder mystery when one leader is killed.”

Very excited for that one!

Here’s a fun little tidbit — Soman and Victoria have a podcast called 'Plot Twist.' At the end of each episode, they have Twistner Shoutouts, where you can shout out your book or writing. To help overcome my fear of talking about myself and my work, I sent over a little blurb. You should hear my shoutout for my Substack and book on their pod in the late summer or fall!

As far as book updates and progress go for April, I’ve begun plotting my ideas on index cards.

Well, I bought the index cards.

There are two days left until the end of the month to hit my goal of plotting my book for the month of April.

Sigh.

I procrastinated hard this past month — I lost my own plot. But there was a lot of good stuff to watch on TV after work, and I'm a sleepy baby who shouldn't overexert herself too much.

But now I’m in a bum rush to get this plotting part done, or at least even started.

Side note and speaking of TV — how depressing is this final season for Outlander? I am devastated by how much they have dropped the ball on this season. I would rather re-watch the ending of GOT over this, and I am a huge Outlander fan.

Back to these index cards.

I really don’t know what I’m doing, but I guess that’s all of us at any point in time.

Intuitively, I felt I should put each scene or beat on individual index cards and color-code them. I thought this was a groundbreaking idea, but after a quick Google search, I learned this is a pretty common thing to do when plotting and outlining a book.

So, I watched a few videos on YouTube about it in between Coachella sets.

The real issue is I have hundreds of notes in my notes app — pages and pages of ideas I have written down over the past year for my book.

It's overwhelming, and most of it is shit now.

But I need to take the time to comb through it all and make sure I’m not missing anything because maybe, just maybe, there is something good in there that I forgot about.

It’s a wild process to go back in time and see how far I’ve come with my ideas and the actual concept of this book. Again, most of it is shit now, and the concept has changed dramatically, but there are still a few good nuggets in there.

Another thing I did this month was figure out what my comp or comparative titles are.

Which I feel is getting ahead of myself, but the distraction from writing on my index cards was happily welcomed.

I know I'm meant to have book comps, but I don’t have those yet.

But what I do have are movies.

This book is The Avengers meets Lord of the Rings.

And if we were doing it as astrology, my book would be The Avengers Sun, Lord of the Rings Rising, with a Ferngully Moon.

One day, I would like to write a book that is The Mummy Sun, Lord of the Rings Rising, with a Pirates of the Caribbean Moon.

Can you say hello, book two?

In the month of May, I plan on finalizing my characters and their character arcs, along with any worldbuilding details that still need review.

I also plan on beginning the marketing phase of this journey.

I know it feels early, right? But I figure marketing oneself is hard and awkward, and I think if I start talking about my book and myself now, by the time I actually start querying, I may have a nice little following of ready readers, and the habit to market myself will be in place.

Get over the hard, awkward part now, feel more confident later. A win-win.

And hopefully, I will begin drafting in June. (OMG)

Until next week.

Hello, I’m Chelsea, a writer and author-in-the-making living in Orange County, California. Roses & Bones is a reader-supported publication where I share my thoughts and experiences on writing and becoming a published fantasy author. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

The first time I went to Coachella was back in 2007 when I was 19 years old. That year, Björk and Rage Against the Machine were headlining.

I went with my group of friends —thirteen of us crammed into a room with two queen beds at a Best Western off the 111 freeway. There were three of us to each bed, and the rest slept on the floor.

The room was on the ground floor, with a simple desk nailed to the wall and outdated wallpaper, water-stained from the air conditioning unit mounted on it.

Which didn’t work.

It was all we could afford after paying nearly $300 for a three-day festival in the desert, which was a lot of money for a bunch of 19-year-olds. But the room did what it was supposed to do, which was give us all a place to sleep after dancing all day and night.

And that weekend, it was the perfect room.

We used to sneak liquor into the festival by cleaning out Coppertone sunscreen bottles and filling them with alcohol. (the classic pink ones with the girl and the dog) We did this for years, but the booze always had a slight sunscreen flavor to it, no matter how many times you cleaned out the bottle.

You can buy fake sunscreen flasks online now, but it doesn't work at Coachella anymore—security shakes every bottle and makes you dump your red herring before you enter the festival.

Most people chug whatever liquid is inside while they’re still in line.

Read more

This is a part of my book-from-scratch series.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I say out loud.

I’m home alone except for our dog Louie, who is napping on the couch next to me. He doesn’t move his head, but his eyes trace toward me, giving a side eye that says I don’t have time for your human antics today, Mom.

I’ve always wondered if he actually thinks of me as his mother, or if I’m his best friend or a sibling at best. Both options assume Louie doesn’t simply think of me as the spare human who feeds and bathes him.

He lets out a long sigh, closes his eyes, and goes back to his nap. I let out a long sigh, too.

I don’t know if I can actually write this book.

I’m writing a fantasy book from scratch. And like every author before me, I’m sitting in that liminal space between never having written a book and actually writing the thing.

I did creative writing classes in college, wrote for online magazines, and had a personal blog during the blogger boom. But I’ve never written a book before, and I’m hoping that changes this year.

I do wonder if I’m too old, not smart enough, or maybe it’s too late now with AI everywhere. But those are shit excuses. The truth is, I’m scared. I’m scared to write this book and put myself out there and possibly fail. (Publicly, I might add if I'm lucky)

Again, shit excuses. Valid, but shit.

It was a little over a year ago now that the idea came to me. And from the very beginning, it has felt like a living, breathing thing living inside of me, wanting to claw its way out.

Those first few months, I spent talking into my notes app every day, recording every idea that came to me, even if it didn’t make sense at the time.

I now have hundreds of pages in my Notes app on my phone, and the anxiety and overwhelm are real.

Every idea started with what if this or what if that. At first, nothing substantial, just a potpourri of thoughts and questions. But I kept going — reading, researching, learning. I even looked at book-writing programs. (Are those worth it?)

At the time, it felt like I was putting together a puzzle without knowing what the image was on the box.

Still, I kept going.

After a year of voice noting myself, reading about how to write a book, and a lot of online learning, an image started forming on my own little jigsaw puzzle box, and a new question arose.

Did I have something real?

I started wondering if this was even worth my time. It’s easy to see an idea form in your mind, but getting it down on paper — that's where the real work comes in. Because writing a book is no joke, and entering the publishing world is not for the faint of heart.

So, how do you know when an idea is good enough? How do you know it’s worth your while?

Honestly, I didn’t know. I still don’t, not for sure at least.

But after a year of research and learning, I landed on a few foundational things I needed to trust myself to move forward. I am not an expert and will never pretend to be. This space is not meant to be educational. I am also completely new to book writing and publishing.

That being said, these are the five pillars below that I kept coming back to, the ones that took me from a vague idea floating around in my head to actually sitting down and committing to my story.

My five foundational pillars:

A core concept I can actually communicate: Not a vague idea that sounds cool in my head, but falls apart the second I say it out loud to someone else. (This was me the first nine months) I had to chip away and peel back the layers until I got to something foundational and clear — something I could explain to another person in simple terms that made sense. From my experience, so much of coming up with an idea for a book sounds like telling another person the dream you had the night before. It's important to go from dream telling to being able to clearly state the concept with ease.

Is it marketable?: Writing is creative, but publishing is a business, and I wanted to know exactly where my book fits in. I took the time to make sure I understood how the industry works and what marketing might look like. I spent some time looking at what my potential comps might be, how my book could be marketed, and where it would sit on a shelf. Things will likely change as I progress, but I didn’t want to go into this part of the process blind.

Central conflict: I couldn’t answer this for several months. I had an idea I loved, but it took a while to figure out and clarify what the main problem my protagonist would actually face. And, it took a few more months to clarify a problem that would drive the plot and develop my character at the same time. The central conflict is what moves your plot forward and moves your characters into their desired or undesired growth and expansion.

Magic system: The magic in my book is at the center of my plot and story. It’s special in its own way, but also familiar and not so out there that it stops making sense. Right away, I understood how my magic worked, what the limits are, and how someone can practice it. It’s actually one of the most complex parts of my world and also one of the parts I understand the most. Once I knew my magic system, I knew I had something worth my time and energy to build upon.

A strong “what if” question: This was actually the first thing that happened for me. I kept asking questions and, through that process, landed on something that felt real: what if magic were real but there was only one spot of magic left on the planet? That simple question started the entire process for me. The “what if” acts as a catalyst to create a compelling story. It’s also fun, like, what if Earth were a computer game, and if you win, you become king or queen of the world? That’s a compelling question to be answered in a story.

Will I stop at nothing?: The last and most important pillar, in my opinion. Will I stop at nothing to get this book written and published — Yes. I have never felt this way about anything before. I am not an early riser. I procrastinate. I take forever to do things. But writing this book has me up at 6am. I work on it every free minute I have. I can’t explain it, but it feels like if I don’t write this book, I will turn into an old witch the entire neighborhood is afraid of. And not in a good way.

It’s something that has to come out of me or else.

I found myself in a sauna last week and was reminded of a time when everyone was sunbathing their buttholes.

It was around 2019, and you could find videos on the internet of people bent over with their bare asses tilted toward the sun, spiritual gurus going to great lengths to share the benefits of one’s anus absorbing sunlight as some ancient Taoist ritual.

This wellness trend claimed that 30 seconds of sunlight on your perineum would boost energy and improve sleep. One influencer even alleged it would “increase your personal magnetism and amplify your auric field.”

Honestly, pretty convincing.

But my favorite quote came from a doctor who, erring on the side of caution, said: “Please don’t harvest solar energy with your butthole.”

I fear the world has turned into a real-life Onion article, or maybe we’re all trapped in some bizarre social experiment, like if The Truman Show, South Park, and Black Mirror had a baby.

Sigh.

Let’s get back to this infrared sauna.

Read more

When I was a kid, I loved the movie The Wizard of Oz.

Let me clarify — I was a 3-year-old with a hyperfixation on the movie, The Wizard of Oz.

I watched it every day and would have a meltdown if the location we were at didn’t have it on VHS. Travelling with our own copy became a common practice.

I had my “Dorphy shoes,” a pair of kids’ Maryjanes that looked like they had been dipped in red latex, and my “Dorphy glasses,” which were just reading glasses with the lenses poked out.

Anytime we left our home, I had to wear my “Dorphy shoes” and my “Dorphy glasses.” I was a toe-headed toddler with bitch bangs, wearing glasses without lenses, and red latex shoes.

As far as 90s fashion goes, I was serving a look.

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I had a really great week last week. We moved to a new house, which you can read all about in R&B No.2. Sarah J Maas was on Call Her Daddy, and Harry Styles released a new album AND had a Netflix special for his one night in Manchester.

What’s the millennial equivalent for screaming, crying, throwing up? That was me.

Let’s talk about Harry’s new album. I love seeing artists evolve and create something new. I like that Harry is expanding his horizons and adding in some techno beats, and that he maybe wants to DJ a little bit now. Whatever, I’m all for it. Get weird, you little freak.

Hello, I’m Chelsea, a writer and author-in-the-making, living in Orange County, California. Roses & Bones is a reader-supported publication where I share my thoughts and experiences on writing and becoming a published fantasy author. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

I feel like growing as an artist can be hard, especially if you’re making money from your art. There’s this expectation to keep doing what works, to play it safe, and give your audience/fans what they expect from you.

But that doesn’t work for us creatives; it’s not sustainable and is usually followed by an unrelenting itch to create something new. Which is something I’ve always admired about Harry — his desire to evolve, and you can see this evolution from album to album.

Right now, my favorite song from his new album is “Coming up Roses”, which is very on brand for Roses & Bones. Well, not the actual meaning behind the song, I guess I just like roses. Either way, I have been playing this song (the whole album) on repeat in our new home.

Speaking of our house, the new abode is faring well.

“I feel like our life has drastically improved since moving here,” I said to my partner.

I’m writing every day, and I’ve made progress on my book’s plot. (really stuck on that middle part, but aren’t we all?) Louie is loving his new yard; he frolics and sniffs around it daily. And Greg is working on our back garden, clearing out old roots, trimming the trees, and preparing to plant more grass. This is his heaven on earth. Give Greg anything to do with his hands, and he is one happy man.

All around, as a family, we are much lighter and happier.

Because space matters, the worlds we live in and create for ourselves matter.

And as much as I have been trying to figure out what to do with that pesky middle part of the fantasy novel I’m writing (first-time author, hi, nice to meet you), I’m very much still in the throes of world-building.

And I need it to stop.

When I first had the idea to write a book back in February 2025, the part that excited me the most was building my world — creating my own magic system, towns and kingdoms, societies, laws of gravity, myths, and legends.

The list goes on and on, and that’s the problem.

A question that keeps looming over me is this: when you’re writing a fantasy novel for the first time, when do you know to stop? When do you know enough is enough and it’s time to hit the pages?

The thing about me is I have a very active imagination. I’m also an avid procrastinator. Throw in perfectionist, and you have me in a nutshell.

And that’s not the best combo for writing a book because what I’ve learned is there has to be some semblance of surrender when coming up with ideas versus allowing those creations to form as you write.

Over the last year, this has been the biggest lesson I’ve learned — allowing things to form as you write.

When I first came up with the idea for my book, I told myself I would give myself a few months to learn about this process of plotting and writing a novel, and then get to work.

That was 13 months ago.

I’ve been stuck in the world-building phase for 13 months.

Sure, I’ve written down the main plot points, have started writing the first chapter, and I know who my characters are, kinda. But that’s it.

I have to be honest, though, and say this was no accident. It felt good to keep planning, to keep building and expanding this world because for me, writing a book for the first time feels really scary.

I now know this was my subconscious’s way to keep me safe, but what that did instead was keep me small.

Now that I am wiser and have a one-year tenure as an author-in-the-making, here are a few of my non-negotiable worldbuilding tips.

Worldbuilding Tips from a Newbie

Things I know now that I wish I knew then

Start with the foundation and figure out the rest later:

Last spring, I bought a 50-page PDF on world-building that covered everything from weather patterns to shoe styles and constellations. While amazingly detailed, it was too time-consuming, and most of it wasn't even relevant to my story. I realized I don’t need to reach 'Tolkien-level' detail right away. Instead, I just need a few foundational pillars, and the rest of the world will fall into place once I start writing.

I believe the foundational pillars will differ from person to person, story to story. For me, they were things like how my characters practiced magic, what festivals they celebrated, and what clothes they wore…simple details, nothing groundbreaking, but each one relevant to the world I was creating.

For example, my world is deeply connected to nature, and there is profound respect for women, as I want this world to be based on a matriarchal society. I don't need to know which stars they see in the night sky or what the weather is like, but I can incorporate festivals and celebrations that show their connection to nature and use clothing and fashion to show the respect they have for women. Or rather, I know I want to use those things to showcase those world elements.

Read folklore (this is life-changing for worldbuilding):

Reading fucking folklore and a lot of it. This will not only make you a better storyteller, but it will also teach you how to add meaning, myths, and legends to your own world.

Folklore is the wisdom passed down; it’s the traditions that have lasted generations, the customs that define a community’s identity. Folklore is the stories, art, and practices that are passed down. These stories show what they fear, how they view the world, and their beliefs about how their world came to be.

So much of fantasy is about the richness of the worlds we create, and folklore is one of the best tools for building that. When I first started, my world lacked depth and substance. There was no cultural wisdom woven into the plot, no myths or legends. Once I started reading folklore, I could see how these rituals and beliefs added so much meaning to their world, and how to use that as inspiration for the history and origins of my own world.

Of course, be mindful of cultural appropriation, closed practices, and whether or not you’re the right person to be telling a particular story rooted in a specific culture.

Let your intuition take the wheel and start writing:

I think our bodies know what to do when it comes to writing. I believe that somewhere deep in our minds or maybe even our souls, the story is already complete. The book is already written, and we already know exactly what to say.

In the beginning, I had a lot of fear around plot holes, things not making sense, and the overall worry that my writing would be bad, that the story would be bad. I told myself that if I kept building out my world, everything would fall into place. But as I said earlier, you really just need to trust yourself, start writing, and let the ideas flow out of you.

This past year has shown me just that — the story already exists inside of me, the world is built, the plot is done, the book is done. I just need to surrender and start writing because intuitively I know exactly what to do, and I'm doing myself a huge disservice by not allowing my intuition to take the wheel for a while.

So my final piece of advice is this: put down the massive 50-page worldbuilding PDF you purchased, figure out a few foundational pillars you need to know about your world in order to write your book, and just start writing. Because your book is already done, your story is ready to be told; you just need to start putting it on the pages.

“We need to get a Louie a backyard,” I said to Greg.

We were sitting tightly packed on a shuttle bus that was taking us to the Riviera Country Club for some golf thing in Los Angeles.

I was looking at a photo of our dog Louie, sent by my sister who was watching him that day. In the photo, he was lying in the sun on her back patio, eyes closed, soaking up the heat like he was solar-powered. I was doing my best not to overheat on the bus to this golf thing.

It’s not really just a golf thing, though, is it? I know Greg would have a fit if he knew I was referring to it as a thing. This was the Genesis Invitational, a premier PGA Tour event held at the historic club in the Pacific Palisades. It’s hosted by Tiger Woods each year as his signature event, with every top player in attendance.

We had special tickets for this tournament, where we could go hang out in the country club and rub shoulders with the other VIPs, which we didn’t do. I had the expectation that we would be sitting most of the day, in air conditioning, eating free food, and drinking free drinks.

We didn’t do that either.

We went to the event to watch a friend play in the tournament, which is how we got our special tickets. This friend is 8th in the world as far as PGA world rankings go. My mind immediately goes to the pressure of even having a world ranking, let alone being in the top 10 of the best golf players worldwide.

Greg knows this friend from back home in Scotland. They grew up playing golf together and playing for the Scottish amateur team as teenagers. Greg loves golf, he knows everything about it, and he’s actually pretty good at it, too. Not 8th in the world, but still.

I tell myself I don’t know much about golf, but after being in a relationship for three years now, I know more than the average person. I can tell you who the top 3 players are in the world, who won last weekend’s golf tournament, and what Rory McIlroy looks like from behind. (I’d know that ass anywhere)

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