Come write with me this summer
A diagnostic for the stuck draft, with Mercury retrograde as the opening act.
Summer doesn’t ask permission before it changes how you write. The schedule loosens. The light stays out longer than your attention does. Some of you will use the extra hours. Most of you will watch them disappear into everything except the page, then wonder where July went.
This July has a particular flavor to it. Mercury has been retrograde since June 29, moving back through Cancer, and it doesn’t lift until July 23. If your drafts have felt foggier than usual, less like you forgot how to write and more like the words keep arriving sideways, that’s not something to ignore and push through. Retrograde seasons don’t create your stall. They make it loud enough to finally notice.
I’ve been studying evolutionary astrology, deep enough now to have an advanced certification in it. And the one thing that has stayed with me through all of my coursework is that a planet never changes what it’s asking for. Mercury always wants the same thing: a clear channel for your mind to move through. What changes is the sign it’s moving through, and what that sign does under pressure. People talk about Mercury retrograde like it’s the apocalypse. Retrograde just slows the whole system down long enough to show you where the channel was already narrow. It’s incredibly prescriptive if you’re open-minded enough to view it that way.
Camp starts July 13, while Mercury is still moving backward. By the time I teach my session on July 31, the retrograde will have lifted for exactly one week. Good timing, for once.
I’ll be at Novel Summer Camp this year as a camp counselor, teaching a session called Write Like Your Element. It’ll be both diagnostic and interactive. You’ll find your element through your sun sign, then we’ll go through what each element does when a draft stalls, sign by sign. Air doesn’t stall the same way for every Air sign. Fire doesn’t either. The strategy each sign reaches for under pressure is specific, and so is the way back in.
Your sun sign is your identity, and in the realm of writing, it’s always asking the same question: what does it look like for you to be fully yourself on the page? Your element is the family of answers you’re working with. Your specific sign is the particular strategy you reach for. When the draft goes quiet, it’s because the strategy hit something it wasn’t built to handle. It needs a different move, not more force, and definitely not more guilt.
I won’t walk through all four elements here. That’s what the session is for. I’ll say this much though: the unlock is never “try harder.” It’s smaller and stranger than that, and it changes by element. You’ll leave with a writing exercise built specifically for where your draft stalled, and something concrete to do after the session.
If you’ve got a manuscript that’s gone quiet, or you’re starting something new and want a real framework for understanding how you work instead of borrowing someone else’s, come find me on the campgrounds. I’ll be the one with a red name badge, talking about the sky like it’s a craft book.
Novel Summer Camp runs July 13 through August 7. It’s a free, 4-week writing retreat, no packing required.
When you sign up, you also get access to the full NovCamp experience, including:
Educational webinars from camp counselors (like me!) — craft, genre technique, and professional development
Daily writing sprints to build momentum every day
Cabin groups — small, matched cohorts for accountability and friendship
Campfire story circles — weekly showcases to share and celebrate your work
S’mores social hours — casual, pressure-free community hangouts
About the author
High Priestess Lakeisha is the founder of The Story Temple, a spiritual writing sanctuary for Black writers healing their relationship with their voice. She is a developmental editor with close to 10 years of experience across fiction and nonfiction, an initiated priestess, a certified evolutionary astrologer, and a shadow work facilitator. Her editorial roots are in fantasy and speculative fiction, the genre space where she first saw the patterns she would later have language for.
Lakeisha’s work holds craft and spirit as one practice. The Elemental Writing Energetics framework reads the manuscript. The Elemental Shadow Wounds framework reads the architect behind the words (the writer). The Story Temple exists on a single premise: writing is a spiritual practice, and a free sentence is a prayer being answered.
Morrison knocked the gaze off the shoulder. Baldwin showed what the eyes could do once it was gone. Àṣẹ 𓂀✧⟡