Writing with Mercury Retrograde (Aug. 4 - 28, 2024)
a short season for new approaches to your writing + horoscopes for writers
Quick Announcement: The application deadline for the intimate writing cohort lyric threads lab is August 20th. We’re looking for poets and lyric essayists that write with energy, with inventiveness, and with urgency. Apply here!
Today begins this summer’s Mercury Retrograde in Virgo and Leo from August 4 - August 28. Mercury Retrograde is a transit often mentioned in a hushed tone. The advice is clear: don’t make plans, don’t travel, don’t sign contracts.
You may feel tongue tied.
You may miss important details.
You may unintentionally piss someone off due to careless word choice.
This all may be true. And, where Mercury retrogrades in your natal chart could give you a clue for which areas of your life will feel slowed down, reversed, or squashed down (go to the bottom of this post for quick guidance there).
And, as a writer, you may feel like you should just take a full pause in these three-ish weeks. Mercury rules writing, thinking, learning and when he retrogrades, these parts of our life do not function “as normal.”
But what if we saw Mercury Retrograde as energy we could work with?
What if Mercury Retrogrades — which happen about 3 times each year — were something to look forward to?
What if Mercury Retrograde was treated like a retreat for writers to get freaky? To turn around and try another route? To go back and clean up what has been generated, and discover what you might have missed in your writing?
Mercury Retrograde could become a thrice-yearly “Spring Cleaning” — or a sexy research trip — or the time you take to collect yourself before gaining more speed later in the year.
The RULES of “re”s —
With Mercury in Retrograde, we lean into the energy of “re”: research, revision, reading, rewind, return, recall…. you get it.
If you planned your August to be when you drafted important chapters, you may feel unnecessary friction. Or, your ability to pluck ideas or images from the ether could feel stalled. Whatever your “typical” verbs when writing, you will not be able to employ them with your normal level of ease.
I have some suggestions for this August 4 - 28:
FOR WRITERS INSIDE OF LONG TERM PROJECTS
This Mercury Retrograde, I suggest focusing on researching the foundational knowledge needed for your project.
For those who write with characters: do you know the lingo of your environment? Do you know your characters’ back stories? This is the time for filling in the holes and adding to the foundational richness of your story.
For those writing in a specific genre or mode, have you read key examples for these?
You may have felt good progress earlier this year in your project. Do not feel alarmed when the drafting process isn’t as fruitful as it has been recently. This is the time to feed your mind with what knowledge, ponderings, and language you will need in September to continue with the forward momentum.
READING IS WRITING
Though it may not feel like it, reading is writing. This is the short season to dive deeply into the books and texts you have set aside while writing. These are the three-ish weeks for soaking in the language written by others.
This is the season for taking notes, privately, for your own pleasure.
This is the short season for putting aside afternoons to really immerse yourself in a novel, biography, or reading a poetry book from front to back in one sitting.
And reading a poetry book from front to back in one sitting is one of this world’s most delicious pleasures, yeah?
RESEARCH WITHOUT AN ACADEMIC LIBRARY
I highly encourage all writers this August to practice research — through texts and experientially. Google Scholar is available for us all. YouTube, TikTok, Substack. Find the people writing and sharing about the topics you crave to know more about.
But consider, too, assigning yourself a short term experiential research project.
I’m thinking about a writer who has been writing metaphorically about leopards in a series of poems. What if this August is the time to visit large cat rescue centers? What if this is the time to practice moving like a leopard? What if this Mercury Retrograde is when you visualize the daily life of a leopard?
Last year, I experienced what felt like a life altering research trip in Southeast Asia where I put my body through many new experiences that fed the poetry manuscript I just completed (? Did I???? Maybe??????) — and this was during the Mercury Retrograde in August/September 2023. I wasn’t writing as quickly and with feeling like I had been on the first part of my experiential research trip. But, listening to the Mercury Retrograde guidance, I felt more pains and pleasures as it pertained to my body than most months of my life. Intentionally, I put aside the “I can’t write” guilt and leaned in. I sweated, I cried, I wanted to quit my yoga teacher training. I received a deeply releasing massage by a blind man. I sat with my eyes closed to felt mosquitoes eat me while I breathed through the discomfort of heat and ache. This is all to say, I came home with much to write about. And didn’t force myself to write about it until Mercury stationed direct again mid-September.
Writerly Horoscopes for Mercury Retrograde
Leo Risings — look into what skills and talents you’ve built as a writer; (re)consider your voice — (re)configure your style of speech — how is your personality showing through in your writing? — who else writes in the way you wish you did? — read their writing
Virgo Risings — write with your left hand — dive into your subconscious — ask yourself questions to respond to in September — this is the season to seek out therapeutic supports — read and write what soothes you
Libra Risings — seek out the writings of your community at large — who speaks for your generation? — what parts of humanity are you forgetting? — make wishes — plan to fulfill them in September — write in “we” statements — research the systems that will support your writing
Scorpio Risings — (re)consider the “big picture” — put your effort toward collecting your motivations — research the rhetorical triangle in relation to your writing — who is speaking? — how is authority established by the speaker? — who is the audience? — what is the message?
Sagittarius Risings — what are the meaning making systems of your writing? — look to the sky — where do you go to learn more? — what is “near” and what is “far”? — (re)vise how you write about the object, the subject — this is the season to expand your definitions
Capricorn Risings — read and write what terrifies you — employ other creative mediums — when was the last time you felt intimately connected? — where do you go to share your thoughts? — is this a place you have access to always? — explore your psychological underpinnings
Aquarius Risings — this is the season of dialogue — who in your life clarifies what you desire to write about? — who can you interview? — can you trust someone to offer helpful feedback? — read what is in conversation with your writing
Pisces Risings — chip away at it — you, more so than others, are ready for active revision — line level editing — refinement of language — systematic tidying
Aries Risings — doodle with language — read for pleasure — experience joy — experiential research in play — think about how children use language in the most brilliant and surprising ways
Taurus Risings — it is time to read the classics — what do you define as a classic? — read your ancestral origins — check in with the language you use to explain your emotions — (re)vise for what feels natural to you
Gemini Risings — listen to voices — research for fact and fiction — collect language, keep in your pocket for September — bring your attention to the speakers that fascinate you — (re)vise for ease of understanding
Cancer Risings — practice writing in different modes — move your body — read writings that comfort you — keep your thoughts to yourself for now — capture the sensual details — (re)vise for physicality
Coming up — Virtual and In-Person Events:
VIRTUAL COMMUNITY — for Poets and Lyric Essayists
LYRIC THREADS LAB: the writing cohort experience outside of academia
Sundays over Zoom from Sept. 8 - Oct. 20, 1 - 4pm Central Time
Comparable to the creative writing workshop in an academic setting,
❤️🔥 We will discuss the craft of lyric in depth.
❤️🔥 We will expand ourselves in a community of equally interested and dedicated writers.
❤️🔥 We will gain a greater understanding of the subtleties and transformative qualities of the lyric mode.
But, unlike the academic writing workshop, we can thread this experience into our rich and full lives without sacrifice.
Head to the webpage to see more details. Applications are due August 20th.
IN-PERSON: Writing Workshops
PLANETARY ELEGIES — August 10th and September 14th — part climate grief, part artistic development. Lynden Sculpture Garden, North of Milwaukee in Brown Deer. This workshop is for those looking to discuss climate grief and process it through contemplative, explorative writing prompts. We will be reading and writing elegies after walking through the prairie labyrinth (created by Artist-in-Residence
). With these elegies, we will hold the difficult, conflicting, comforting, and celebrating emotions inherent to the elegiaic mode and climate grief.
KP Kaszubowski (she/her) is a poet and filmmaker. Her debut poetry collection “somnieeee” was published in 2019 by Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, and her debut feature film “Ringolevio” premiered in 2020 at Dances With Films in Los Angeles. As narrative designer and producer, her first feature length documentary “My First and Last Film” (director: Tracey Thomas) premiered in 2019. Her previous poetry has been published (as Kristin Peterson) by pitymilk press, Great Lakes Review, dancing girl press, Juked, Flag + Void, ICHNOS, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing through Eastern Washington University in 2023. KP Kaszubowski is also a practicing archetypal and ancient astrologer. In her practice, she seeks the patterns in her clients’ charts for affirming and life-enriching pathways. She lives close enough to the Lake to pretend she can hear it. When she lived in Spokane, she could hear Lake Michigan there too.