Pheonix rising 🐦‍🔥

Wow! So much going on right now, do you fid this too? I think there’s something in November’s and Decmber’s genes that gets the world into warp drive!

The reissue of my first novel – Owl Woman – with fantabulous new cover and extra bonus chapter happened on 1 December, with a special offer to my Newsletter readers. Writing the bonus chapter told me very firmly that Owl Woman is book 1 of the Bridewell Trilogy – Yelp! OK! So now I rejig my project plan for 2026 🤯🙄. But it is OK because as I journey-wrote it, it gave me the plot outline for books 2 and 3, now I just have to fit the actual writing in! Keep an eye out for more on that on my Newsletter.

And that takes me into how I write. Yes, I know about structure, 5-act plan, midpoints, all the skeleton that we need to hang our stories on, but getting the actual story … that’s a different thing for me. As an awenydd (British for shaman), I journey a lot, co-work and co-create with otherworld about everything, I teach others how to do that too which brings us to last weekend.

I offered my students an alchemical workshop, a long weekend, Fri evening to Sunday evening, all online but with work for them to do between the five 90min Zoom sessions, so quite deep and intense. They loved it and I’m getting great feedback – and they, and otherworld, are insisting I offer this inner transformation experience much wider. So I’m on the job! You can find out more about it Here on my Substack.

The students found it a great help for writing as well as enabling change and growth in them. Only one of them has already begun her writing career, the others had never believed they could write stories … now they do! And a comment I got just this morning is …

“I can’t stop thinking about more and more daily “stuff” as stories. You can learn so much more easily – at least I can!”

That’s so true! And again part of how I write, how many fiction authors write, using their own experiences to build both characters and scenes, whole plots. The alchemy we did on the weekend showed them how to work this for themselves.

So, the workshop intensive will roll out around Spring 2026 I think. In the meantime I’m sending a call-out for everyone who feels this might be for them. Are you one of those people? If so, subscribe to Phoenix Rising for more …