Stories have power. As readers, we’ve been profoundly affected by story magic, and as writers, we’ve studied the spell work to make our manuscripts sparkle like that too. However, the stories we tell ourselves are far more powerful, and the way we tell them either uplifts or buries us in the pursuit of our art.
In the case of the latter, I’ve recently turned to shadow work, a witchy version of personal development that falls somewhere along the lines of cognitive behavioral therapy (examining and confronting patterns of thought and behavior), psychoanalysis (exploring the subconscious and the repressed—or at least the avoided), and spiritual healing (connecting with the universe or your deity of choice).
The goal is to face your shadows: those fears, anxieties, traumas, toxic behaviors, and internal monologues that are negatively impacting your day-to-day life, or in our case, our ability to create and edit. They might be personal, ideological, or societal. But ultimately, they are the darkness that we try to avoid, the negativity that creeps in on the edges no matter how much we try to push them back.
For more of an introduction to shadow work, check out my guest blog on Lindsay Elizabeth’s website.
A Living Collection of Prompts
I thought it would be helpful to keep a master list of shadow work journal prompts that could constantly update and grow as we do. The anxieties writers face can be rather specific, so adapting prompts from other shadow work resources can sometimes be a mental hurdle in and of itself. This is meant to be a resource for writers, specifically, so that we can all heal and manage our particular flavor of fears, anxieties, and hardships we face in the pursuit of our stories.
I’m attempting to make some order out of the chaos as well, so below you’ll see the prompts divided by Personal and Writerly (though let’s be honest, they’re all tangled up, so I’d suggest reading both), and then I tried to divide them further by subject matter. I’m sure these headings will likewise adapt and change as more prompts continue to be added.
Speaking of you have ideas for prompts, feel free to comment on this post, on any of my instagram posts, or DM me on Instagram, and I’ll make sure to update this post so we all can benefit from it.
To quote a witchy podcast I adore, Strange Magic, “Witches are healers, so we’re all here to heal each other… Witches love community, they love covens, they love being together.” Considering that we writers practice a kind of story magic, I think that resonates with us deeply too.
Take care of yourselves out there, friends, and as always, happy writing!
Personal Prompts
Success / Failure
What does success look like to me, and what would I consider failure? Where did I get those ideas about success and failure from? What would happen if I did fail? What is the worst thing that would happen? How might I reframe success to look differently?
What is my biggest regret in relation to myself or my work? What would I have done differently? Why did I behave the way I did, and an I holding onto that regret in an unhealthy way? Am I weaponizing it against myself with my thoughts?
If there were absolutely no consequences or no possibility of failure, what would I do (in my life and in my creative work)? Why might that be different from what I’m doing now? What fears are standing in the way of following that path?
Why am I afraid to succeed? What are the worst possibilities if I did succeed?
Follow the what ifs. State what I’m are afraid of, and then say okay, what if that happens? Then X. Okay, what if X happens? Follow the fear to its end conclusion and list ways that I would cope if the absolute worst thing I can possibly imagine does in fact come to pass. Make myself experience that catastrophe rather than avoiding it. In a lot of ways, this is exposure therapy: confronting a fear so that it does not have power over you.
What’s really stopping me from doing [THE THING] in this moment? Not in the big scheme, right now.
Toxic behaviors / calling yourself out
Is that really how it went or just how I (want to) remember it?
How are my insecurities affecting the way I’m viewing the situation?
What parts of myself do I see in the person I’m criticizing?
Am I more concerned with being right or evolving as a person?
What blame have I been placing on someone else that I can take some accountability for?
What hard conversation have I been avoiding with myself?
What is my most toxic trait I can admit to?
Is my ego getting in the way of my healing?
Writerly Prompts
Success / Failure
What benchmarks or accolades do I need to consider myself a successful writer? How could I go about rooting my feelings of success more into the writing itself instead of how it’s received?
Do I consider myself a hobbyist, a writer, or an author? How do I define those, and what would I need to achieve in order to change what I call myself?
What’s really stopping me from doing [THE THING] in this moment? Not in the big scheme, right now.
Drafting
Why am I afraid to start a new project?
What emotions are wrapped up in the process of juggling multiple projects at the same time? Am I using one to avoid another? Am I chasing some kind of feeling? Is it rooted out of a “should” feeling–that career professionals work on multiple projects in different stages?
What if what I write is bad and I don’t want to acknowledge it?
Am I discrediting my intuition or second guessing the choices made for my story / characters?
Revisions
Is it possible to be “cut happy” when revising? Am I killing darlings just to kill them?
What if I am making my manuscript worse with my rewrites?
What parts of my growth as a writer are actually an attempt to people please or gain others’ approval? How do I “write with the door closed”?
Criticism
What if no one wants to be a beta reader?
How does my childhood impact my creative work today? Am I using my craft to process anything? Am I particularly sensitive when those stories are rejected? What baggage am I bringing to the moments my work is critiqued by others?
What parts of myself or my work bring me shame? Do I judge those same things in other people, or am I holding myself to a double standard? Why am I holding onto that shame or inflicting it upon myself?
Am I internalizing beta feedback that I shouldn’t? Am I resisting beta feedback I shouldn’t?
Why is it so much easier to take the negative feedback to heart instead of the positive? How much more positive feedback would I need to drown out the negativity? Would it have to be unanimous?
Why do I feel so compelled to read negative feedback / reviews? Am I fixating or punishing myself? What ways could I intervene to have a more positive relationship with feedback?
Rejection
What voices are telling me no? What do they sound like and which person is saying them? Are they versions of myself or are they rooted out of an interpersonal trauma? Am I projecting my internal fears onto the people around me? How could I reply to those voices to quiet them?
What would I do if every agent I query rejects my book? Am I trying to control that particular uncontrollable? Am I afraid to move on to a new project or try a different publishing path?
Industry Specifics
YA fantasy MS subs are backed up by 7 months, and NA isn’t a thing. I’m worried that mine won’t ever find a fit and I’ll never be a trad pub author in a market saturated with fae stories
What if people only read my book to be nice and no one enjoys it?
Which path do I want to take: trad pub, indie, or hybrid? Why? Are there any biases, assumptions, fears, or anxieties wrapped up in that choice? What would happen if I don’t succeed in one of those areas? Do the alternatives feel closed to me for some reason?
Connection / Social Media
How do I build / find my writing community? What am I looking for in that community, and why might I be feeling anxieties or fears about finding that community? Have I had any bad experiences in the past? Has the absence of that community left me wanting?
How seen do I want to be on social media? How authentically do I want to express myself there? What am I afraid of saying, doing, or being online? What am I afraid others will say, do, or be?
Does what I see on social media impact what I write or want to write? Is that rooted out of fear, accountability, inspiration, etc?
