CRAFTING THE PERFECT

WRITING RITUAL

JEANETTE LEBLANC | PEACELOVEFREE.COM

ritual
{ }
A RELIGIOUS OR SOLEMN CEREMONY
CONSISTING OF A SERIES OF ACTIONS
PERFORMED ACCORDING TO
A PRESCRIBED ORDER

RITUAL IS POWER.
RITUAL HOLDS DEEP MEANING.
RITUAL WORKS.
The value of ritual in writing is
well-documented, and for good reason.

Ritual engages us in the process and in the moment,

helps us connect to both path and purpose. Ritual
sends a clear message – to yourself, to the universe,
and to that illusive muse. It says, “I’m here, I’m ready,
and this time I mean business.”

Read the biography of a famous writer, and you’ll

likely learn something of their ritual.

William Wordsworth and Virginia Woolf were

committed to the practice of taking long walks to
help the stories percolate. Stephen King sits down in
the same place at the same time every morning with
a glass of water or tea, a vitamin, music, and his
papers arranged in the same way. Elizabeth Gilbert
begins her morning writing the night before, with an
early bedtime. She writes in the hours before the rest
of the world is awake and ends her daily writing in the
middle of a sentence, just as Hemingway did.

The set of behaviors we create to support our writing

practice - whether they be based on location and
surroundings, a specific time of day, a particular kind
of paper or pen, a particular method of preparation, a Ritual and ceremony
bit of mysticism or magical talisman, a song or prayer
or mantra or inspirational quote read aloud - are all a
in their due times kept
part of the complex equation that helps us take the the world under the
elusive pull of story and creation and transform the sky and the stars in
call into action. their courses.
- Terry Pratchett
WHY
CRAFT A
WRITING
RITUAL?
Simple answer:
rituals tend to clear the path
between you and the story that
is waiting to be told.

Rituals act as a symbol to your subconscious self that it is time to write. Over time and with
repetition, this symbol gets deeply ingrained in body and mind, creating a sense of
predictability and control. The impact of this is a reduction in the anxiety that often surrounds
the writing process, and an increase in commitment and momentum to the process. Like any
other routine we embrace to help us meet our goals, the intentional act of ritual becomes
familiar and even automatic over time. The ritual itself often becomes the way to blast
through the resistance and the blocks that hold us back from the words.

Whether rooted in superstition and magic or the concrete and tangible, rituals send a signal
that allows our conscious mind to take a back seat and lets the act of creation take center
stage.

Even the most unorthodox or woo-woo ritual has direct implications on your writing practice
- an easier path to inspiration and greater productivity.

Creating your own writing ritual and devoting yourself to it will make you, as a writer, more
likely to be writing instead of thinking about writing, talking about writing, worrying about
writing or hiding from writing.

With most goals in life, over half the battle is won just by beginning.

Simply put, establishing a writing ritual will make it easier for you to begin.
 EMBODIMENT

When I speak of ritual I want us to go even deeper than a

lucky pen or a time of day. I want to talk of the sort of ritual
that prepares us not just for the practice of writing, but that
grounds us deeply into our physical selves before we even
begin.
We writers tend to live in our heads, in the land of creativity, imagination and make believe.
Our internal landscape is rich and ever evolving. This is, in part, how we make meaning of
the stories of our lives.

However, the ethereal plane of inspiration can also leave us detached from the physical
world - and from our own embodiment. This can be problematic. Because although the
words and the stories and the crafting of words can seem to belong solely to the mental
and emotional world, it is their translation through the physical body that grounds them in
the raw and the real. And this grounding - the origination point of the physical body - is
necessary in order for these stories to land fully in the bodies of our readers. 

WHEN YOU CRAFT A

*
WRITING RITUAL, PREPARE
YOURSELF TO ENTER YOUR
PRIMAL BODY.
To feel the goddess movement born in your blood. To tune into the cadence of pulse and
the cycle of breath. To unscatter your scattered self and pull energy from ground and air,
from water and fire – feeling it enter and spiral and flow through your chakras, allowing it to
root and settle and take up residence deep in your core.

It could be ice, or heat. The rhythm of drums.  The salt of skin on skin. The cadence of
mantra. The casting of a circle, blocking what you do not want and calling in what you do.
Bare feet on earth -  connected to the land and the wonder of the natural world.

Only you will know what it is for you, but when you land on the particular combination of
environment, time, and activity you will know by the way you settle into your own
physicality. You’ll know this by the sense of power and control. By the flow of your words as
they leave you and take up residence on page or screen. By the raw truth of what comes,
not filtered through mind or culture or constraint or intellect, but primal and earthy and
undulating with what lives at your core.

Do you feel it?

This is truth of your body story. The truth of you. And it will have a dramatic impact not just
on your writing practice, but on the words that flow from this space.

I promise.
MY OWN
RITUAL OF
EMBODIMENT
My body is a wolf. She’s a fierce full moon howl. She is
femme fatale with a hint of danger. She’s a broken
open angel on her knees. She’s pure mama love. She’s
insecure and afraid and desperate for belonging. 

She’s wide open soft and hard of edge. She craves your knowing and cloaks herself  in eternal mystery. I
can’t write from outside of her. When I try my words fall flat, sound hollow.

They lack the energy and pulse that draws you in and makes you commit to staying. The muse has no
interest in my intellect. She wants to feel my pulse quicken and taste the salt of my sweat. She wants to
know what I want and what I will do to get it. And she wants to know that I will write and write until it is
mine for the taking. For me it starts with the knee-socks and a long sweater that falls off my shoulder and
lets the ink on my clavicle show.

“Be Ignited Or Be Gone”, it reads. A line of Mary Oliver’s claimed on skin – a scar of my own choosing. I
run my fingertip along it to remember that burn that I never stop craving. I remove my jewelry. Piece by
piece, except for the thin silver band on my left ring finger that holds promises to self that I do not speak
aloud. My hair is purposefully left tangled, eyeliner end-of-day smeared. There is something to being a
bit unkempt that keeps the words from being too precious.

My front door is open to let the dark spill in. There always seems something wild and uncontained about
night air, holding the promise of mystery and hidden things. Candles are lit on a base of ocean stone. One
must always be a deep blood red. These burn differently than the others, I am convinced. 
My talismans are carefully placed. Rusted keys, a broken shell, sea
glass, rose quartz, an antique compass, a bit of drift wood, dried
lavender, old photos and love letters from a vintage shop. It depends
on the night and what I need. I know instinctively, trust what my hands
close on. Then, the clink of ice at the bottom of a glass tumbler. The
smooth pour of whiskey. Not much. Just enough for that burn of first
swallow to wake up my insides. The scent of amber, all earth and sex
and exotic land. Music on the speakers, music that hits me down low,
that calls the wolf and welcomes her home, music of heat and sweat
and sex, of love and loss and ache, of profanity and anger and angst.
The music, too, I trust to choose itself.

And then the grounding. Some nights it’s the simple flow of fountain
pen on the 60-year-old paper I discovered in my late grandfather’s
office one summer, my muse painting her words on the back of the
pages where he once wrote invoices. Or it could be crossed legs in
front of my altar and the vibration of the “Om Guru Dev Namo” filling
space and reverberating through my body.

Other nights it’s the warm drag of an illicit cigarette on my patio – the
smoke filling my lungs and curling through the night – carrying me
away to distant spaces. Some nights I dance alone, hip spiral
silhouetted in candle light on my living room wall. Or I pull out my
hula hoop and spin until I’m covered in sweat and I can feel the
bruises rising on bone. Some nights it takes all of these things, and
more. And then when the time is right – and I always know – I lay on
the ground. 

On the hard of my wooden floor. I commit to that grounding like I

commit to little else in my life. I feel every place where the soft of my
muscle and the hard of my bone connect with the solidity beneath
me. I trust in what holds me up. Offer it thanks. Breath it in. And then
begin. Screen or pen and paper. It’s irrelevant, really. I take a breath.
And then another. And another. I welcome in the energy of the night,
and of my heart and soul and body. And I begin. Nothing, not even
the words that eventually spill, matters near as much as the
willingness to begin. 
 THIS IS MY
RITUAL

NOW IT IS TIME
TO CREATE
YOURS
CRAFTING YOUR RITUAL

Do you currently have a writing

1 ritual?
1
This exercise asks you to examine your current activities
around writing to determine if you are already practicing
in a way that lends itself to the creation of ritual.

Your path to embodiment

2
This is where we take a deep dive into embodiment, in the
ways you best ground into your own physical presence and the
place from which the most powerful writing can arise. 

Consider the possibilities 

3
It's time to craft some potential rituals. Looking back at your
answers, create some rituals to test out over the next few days.
Each time you test them, add notes and observations.  

Finalize your ritual 

4
After testing out your potential rituals and observing their
impact on your embodiment and your writing practice, carefully
craft a ritual that feel like it will best support you as you move
forward. Of course, rituals are organic and ever changing - so
allow room for time (and the muse) to shift and change things. 
 EXERCISE ONE
Do you currently have a writing ritual?

Even if you have not taken the time to define it, you may be surprised to know that there
are repeated environmental, time or behavioral aspects to the way you write.

Consider your current writing practice when answering the following questions. What is
working or not working for you? Think of the times your writing flows or you reach past
resistance into the place of ease.  Or, consider your favorite pieces of writing and what
your state of being or environment was at the time you wrote those pieces.  If you are
not currently writing - think about periods of creativity in general.

When do you usually write and for how long?

Can you think of anything you regularly do before, during or after writing - perhaps even
unconsciously?

Do you have any superstitions, inspirations, actions around writing or creativity?

Do you prefer to write with a certain type of paper or pen, or maybe your computer?
Is there a type of music you listen to that helps you feel more creative? 

What physical or embodied activities are currently a part of your life or writing?

Can you identify any other patterns or behaviors that are already acting as a ritual,
however loose or unstructured, in your current writing practice?
It does not matter what it is, even
if it seems silly to other people.
You have to cultivate it and make
a whole ritual out of it. Make a list
of ways you can get into your
body. You know what these things
are in your own life that release
you, but you have a hard time
giving them to yourself.You have
to train yourself to highly
ritualize it and make it huge
instead of tiny. You have to
devote yourself to it.

LIDIA YUKNAVITCH
 EXERCISE TWO
Embodied Ritual Brainstorm
How do you get out of your head, your brain, your thinking and philosophizing and
debating and doubting mind? How do you get into your body?
It’s time to go deeper into the embodiment aspect of ritual. Our goal with this exercise is
to have a core set of embodied, ritualistic behaviors that you can begin to build on. A
go-to ceremony or sacrament to help you ground into your body before you begin to
write. A way to separate yourself from the rest of your day and the remainder of life. A
way to transition yourself to that liminal space that ritual creates, where you walk the
thresholds between this world and the deep space of creation.

In order to determine what will work in the future, we start by revisiting the past. What
were you doing the night the words flowed like honey? What did you feel inside then?
Where were you? Was there music playing? How did you fill yourself with inspiration or
empty yourself of resistance before you began or while you wrote?

Begin by making a list. If you’ve worked with me before you’ll know the drill - set the
timer and free-write away. Brainstorm all the different ways you have of connecting with
your work, your muse and your physical being. Go back to your past writing - collections
of words you’ve spilled in that deeply connected space, remember what you did then.
Draw on the memories of the times you have felt in deep flow and communication with
the muse, when the words were not traveling from brain to paper, but through every
pounding, burning inch of skin and bone and organs and muscle. When the words were
alive with sweat and sex and the burn of anger and the chasm of grief.

If you have not been writing - bring your attention to the times you feel most alive.
When you land in your physical being and your senses are heightened and that elusive
creative spark pulses through your entire being.
trade. 
*
SOME THINGS TO CONSIDER DURING YOUR BRAINSTORM:

Your current practice: environment, your habits, your schedule, the tools of the

How you write best: the times and places and circumstances in the past when you
have done your most fluid and powerful writing. 

Your personal path to embodiment: outside of your writing practice, how you

connect to your physical body? 

What grounds you here on this earth and in your human experience?

The five senses: your ritual may involve aspects that lay outside the physical
plane - but in this exercise, get deeply physical. Pull from each of your five
senses. In your most embodied state, what can you see, taste, touch, feel and
smell? 

Outside the box: your perfect ritual may include things you have not yet tried.
Think outside of your past and current practice and be willing to get a little wild
and crazy.

Look for the common themes and elements in your writings and memories and
trust your knowing of what works for you and your body and your creative spark.
 *
QUESTIONS TO INSPIRE YOUR EMBODIED RITUAL BRAINSTORM
Revisit the last time your words were on fire or you felt deeply in your own body:

Was there sensuous food? The perfect ice cold beer. The first perfect sip of
coffee or the comfort of hot tea? The smooth burgundy truth of red wine or the
honey fire of whiskey?
Did it happen in the bright light of day, with warm sun on bare skin or in the
darkness by flicker of candles?
Where were you in time and space? Can you isolate those surroundings and
describe them?
Was there music or mantra or the complete hush of quiet alone?
Did you come alive amidst the collective energy of of the crowd? Were you in a
communion of strangers or with the dearest of friends?
Did you lay out your altar or collect talismans or invoke the goddess? Make
offerings or speak requests to muse or guru?
Did you channel the elements: earth, air, fire, water?
Perhaps sex, or color, or voices joined in harmony? A hot shower or candlelit bath
and the scent of essential oils rising in the steam?
Did it have something to do with the slide of that exact pen on that exact paper?
Or perhaps the perch of your body in the chair and the way the light at that time
of day sliced across the room?
Do you come alive on unfamiliar city streets wearing your badass boots, or maybe
in the middle of the wide open country?
Were you wearing a full skirt that twirls around your legs and layers of jewelry?
Maybe your most sultry perfume and fishnet stockings? The perfect cut off
denim?
Did you lose yourself to the music until sweat dripped from your body? Did you
give yourself over to honest hard work until bruises rose on bare skin?
Did it have something to do with whispered truth? The vibration of Om? The
alignment of body in downward dog?
Did you draw power from the words of the masters and absorb this wisdom
deeply into your core?

THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG ANSWER. ONLY THE TRUTH OF YOUR

BEING AND THE WORDS WAITING TO BE BORN. 
Embodied Ritual Brainstorm:
Use the space below to make a list of all the ways you have of becoming embodied - truly
and wholly grounded in your physical being. Set a timer for five or ten minutes and do not
stop writing and brainstorming until the timer dings.

If you feel unsure of what you are writing just keep going. Get creative and imaginative.
Picture yourself as the writer you dream of being. Be specific. Go deep and go deeper.
Write as many details as you can. Use physical language. Invoke your senses. Describe
what your own embodiment feels like on all of the levels of your physical being. Take a
step away. Come back and dive in again. Go until it starts to feel really deep and full. Now
we’ve got the beginnings of something. So, let’s begin.
Embodied Ritual Brainstorm - continued:
EXERCISE THREE
Consider the Possibilities

Looking back at the previous workshops, take time to craft some potential writing rituals
that you can try over the next few weeks.  Aim for three possible rituals, each should
include some different variables, but if there are aspects you know you want to include,
it is fine if these overlap. 

There may be some trial and error. You may have to play with things for a while to get a
true feeling for what will work. Or, you may already know exactly what you need to do.

Now use this to craft yourself some rituals.

Dedicate yourself to them. To the exploration of possibility inherent within this set of
acts and place and purpose. Consecrate these and make them sacred. Gift them energy
and intention and trust. Create a dedication of this ritual and these words.

To your body. To your story. To yourself

WHO?
*
THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN CRAFTING YOUR RITUAL: 

Do you write best alone or surrounded by others? 

WHAT?
What will you do or include? 
          - Environment 
          - How long
          - Behavior 
          - Objects
          - Superstition / Mysticism 
          - Embodied physicality 

WHEN?
What time of day is best for your creativity and your schedule? 

WHERE?
What surroundings are best for your writing? 

BEFORE DURING AND AFTER

.- How do you prepare to begin? 
- What do you do during the time you are writing? 
- How will you close your practice when it is complete?

THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG ANSWER. ONLY THE TRUTH OF YOUR

BEING AND THE WORDS WAITING TO BE BORN. 
CRAFT YOUR POTENTIAL RITUALS

POTENTIAL RITUAL ONE/

WHAT:

WHO:

WHEN:

WHERE:

PREP:

CLOSE:

POTENTIAL RITUAL TWO/

WHAT:

WHEN:

WHERE:

PREP:

CLOSE:

POTENTIAL RITUAL THREE/

WHAT:

WHEN:

WHERE:

PREP:

CLOSE:
NOTES ON YOUR POTENTIAL RITUALS (Try each more than once to get a real idea).
Ritual One

Ritual Two

Ritual Three
EXERCISE FOUR
Your Writing Ritual

After taking time to feel into each of these possibilities - which of these feels like the
right ritual to begin with - or is it a combination of all three?

Write down the specifics of the ritual that feels like the best fit to begin.

Keep in mind that your ritual is not meant to be written in stone. This should be a fluid
and ever evolving experience. Your ritual can and should shift over time as you grow
and deepen your writing practice.

Take the next page to describe your ritual in as much detail as you can, focusing on the
sensory and embodied experience.

Go forth and create.

YOUR FINAL RITUAL

FINAL RITUAL/

WHAT:

WHO:

WHEN:

WHERE:

PREP:

CLOSE:
TOO OFTEN WE TAKE
NOTES ON WRITING, WE
THINK ABOUT WRITING
BUT NEVER DO IT. I WANT
YOU TO WALK INTO THE
HEART OF THE STORM,
WRITTEN WORDS
DRIPPING OFF HAIR,
EYELIDS, HANGING FROM
HANDS.

NATALIE GOLDBERG
I hope that the exercises in this workbook allowed you to move
into a space of deeper relationship with the embodied
experience of writing, and to develop a ritual that truly supports
you in telling your revolutionary story and into a more profound
knowledge of self.

As you move into the days ahead, embracing your newfound

ritual, your embodiment and your story - remember three
important things:

1. You ARE a writer, if you weren’t you would not be here.

2. The world is waiting to hear your voice.
3. Nobody can tell your story but you.
 JEANETTE LEBLANC

Truth: I spent most of my life working very hard to be a good girl. One day I woke up and decided to
write my way out of my own life – things haven’t been the same since.

I believe in the smooth honey burn of whiskey, the crashing of mama ocean, pencil skirts, vintage band
tees and fringed boots, the kinship of the wild wolf, walking for miles in unfamiliar cities, the singular
power of dark red lipstick and the necessity of putting out for the muse on the regular.

(Also – I’m clearly not afraid of run-on sentences)

I’m a queer single mama to two ridiculously intelligent and wholly unruly girls, an ocean girl who has
fallen into a reluctant love affair with the desert. I’m a writer with a science degree. I write redemption
and have a hard time forgiving myself. I exist in a perpetual cycle of white hot burn and brilliant rise. I
live in the center of the wildest paradox.  And through it all I write.

Because it’s true – sometimes our stories are the only things that can save us.
 ARE YOU
READY TO
WRITE?
If you find yourself nodding along to these statements, or if you feel chills along the surface of your bare skin, if
that white hot pulse of truth flows through your blood – then you are a Wild Heart Writer.

You are one of the wild, restless ones – rarely content to swim on the surface of things. You are
meant for freedom. You long to answer the call of the wolf, to dance under the moon, to dive deep.
You've been feeling lost, adrift, unsure and uncertain of how you got to where you are, and how on
earth to find your way back.
You deeply long for community, a safe space, a tribe of like-minded souls and an inspiring container
in which to create. A collection of wild souls – just like you.
You want to be pushed further, held accountable, and encouraged to show up.
You've lost touch with your creative soul and need to trace the path back.
You've got a bad case of writer's block – and want it to go the hell away.
You've always told yourself and others ‘but-i'm-not-a-writer' even though you know deeply that you
are called to the story of things.
You know, right at your core, that you are meant for more than the constraints of your current reality.
That there is something waiting to be born.

JOIN US AND GET READY TO WRITE YOUR WAY FREE