Writing as alchemy
The writing process is often compared to the process of alchemy.
I hear this a lot. I really like it. I think it’s a fruitful and evocative comparison, rich with possibilities. I also happen to be an ancient historian one of whose research specialties is ancient and medieval alchemy. So this meditation comes from my reading and researching of ancient alchemy, and considering how the practice of alchemy might vibe with the way we think about our writing and ourselves as writers.
If you want to read some ancient alchemy texts for yourself, I can recommend this book. Apologies that it is very academic indeed. But if you should dive in, hit me up. I love talking ancient texts. I do it for a living.
***
The Tools of Alchemy
Historically, alchemists were some of the world’s earliest scientists. By this, I mean a few things. One of the things I mean is that there is historical evidence that alchemists were some of the first folks ever to do their experimentation, their workings, in a laboratory environment.
The early alchemist’s laboratory would have been different from a modern-day lab, of course. There would have been different rules, different protocols, and of course different equipment. It’s the spirit, the aura, the vibe, the meaning of the place where we are drawing this thread between historical time periods.
Alchemists had a dedicated physical space where they did their workings. And that space, that container, would have been where they kept their tools: their furnace for heating things, their glass vials and beakers, their herbs and liquids and tinctures and substances. Entering this space meant that it was time for them to use these tools towards their purpose. Extinguishing their candle, closing up their space and leaving would have meant ending their session for the day, to return whenever it was time.
~~~
What are the writer’s tools? What is the writer’s space?
We have our laptops and computers for digitally writing and storing our work, a kind of cyber memory space. Our devices are also magic portals: the way we share our work with the world at speeds, volumes, and ways of which our ancestors could only dream. They help us create our platform, reach out and connect. Your digital presence as a writer serves as a kind of avatar, an android archetype of yourself who does your work in the cyber realms.
We also have our phones: for written or voice notes about our stories, and of course for emitting and receiving all manner of energy. I like to every now and then do an energy cleansing ritual for my phone. I imagine a waterfall of glimmering sparkles of energy–maybe soft white, maybe golden, maybe purple or pink–cascading over my phone, clarifying its vibration.
And of course we have the physical tools of being a writer. I have books and notebooks for every writer’s purpose. I have small and medium notebooks that travel with me. I have large spiral-bound notebooks for dreaming and drafting. I have ornate, beautiful journals for envisioning my stories and being with my characters. I have colorful, flowery planners for seeing the flow of my time on paper. I collect guided journals for when I need a little direction, the divination of the external. My journals have lines and no lines, elaborate colored paper and creamy white paper. I use colored markers and pens for physical writing. I love writing utensils, I own probably thousands.
I think we writers like alchemists are sensory, tactile folks. We like to feel our tools sometimes. We want to feel the smooth softness of paper, that gift from trees, and the scratch and glide of our pen on the page. Pen to page is how we make alchemy.
Y’all know I write at a writing altar. When I sit down there, maybe light a candle, everything in me–body, mind, heart, soul–knows that it is time to write. When I get up, there is the beautiful sense of a container, a circle, closing. It is safe and it is time for me to lay the writing to rest for today. It’s a good exercise, practicing daily letting go. It is nourishing and necessary to let the writing, the tools, the space breathe. We’ll be back. Leaving is returning.
What are your tools as a writer?
What is your writer’s avatar or archetype out in the world?
Do a ritual of protection for your writer’s self online, or an energetic cleansing for your laptop or phone. These objects absorb and emit a lot of energy.
What are your favorite physical writing tools–your preferred notebooks, books, pens? What kind of tactile or sensual experience are you seeking when you write by hand? What does writing by hand mean to you? (Shoutout to folks also who cannot or do not write by hand. All methods of writing are writing and are magic.)
Where do you write? Do you have a writing altar?
Do you have a ritual for beginning or ending a writing session?
The Raw Materials
Alchemists had a variety of substances that they worked with as the raw materials in their quest for transmutation / transformation. Here is a list of just a few of them (this evidence is from the ancient Greco-Egyptian alchemist Pseudo-Democritus, in his text On Things Natural and Mystical):
-copper
-mercury
-sulfur
-lime
-iron
-quicksilver
-cinnabar
-marcasite
-oil
-vinegar
-honey
-brine.
Alchemical texts indicate that the experienced and well-resourced ancient alchemist would have had if not exactly these then similar ingredients to hand, or that they had their own robust experimental practice and therefore their own ideas for what might work for their purposes. (More on alchemy as experimentation later.) We remember that the alchemist worked in a lab, which they kept stocked with the things they might need. Ancient alchemy was experimental and eclectic. You never knew what might work, what might be worth a try.
So I like thinking of the ancient alchemist as an open-eyed, open-minded collector of things. They moved through the world awake and aware, collecting interesting or potentially useful things for the treasure-stores in their lab, in case they should need them.
~~~
What do we writers use as our “raw materials”? Where do our stories come from? Where do we draw our inspiration?
Maybe…
-dreams
-life experiences and memories
-sensual experiences, like sex and food and being in a body
-our childhood
-travel
-nature, our more-than-human kin
-crosspollinating with other forms of art: visual arts, dance, music, drama, movies…
-symbols, symbolic languages, myth, archetypes
-reading reading reading: lots of poetry, novels, short stories, children’s books, science and nature books, writing and creativity guides, graphic novels, fantasy…
There are also more mystical sources that our stories, characters, and ideas seem to come from, the ones that are more difficult to explain and less straightforward to access, like…
-channeling
-messages from the beyond
-the notion that our characters are real people
-the notion that stories are happening on other planes of existence
-rest, sleep, letting go
-the ideas and inspiration that are shaken loose when we meditate, walk, or move our bodies
-the mystery of mystical imagination
-ancestral, generational, karmic, akashic, or earth memories.
As writers we do fill the well, I think, with all forms of art and the beauty of the world. I think tapping into these is part of why we’re alive: to notice, to share, to be moved by creative beauty. I also think it’s activism and revolution: slowing down to savor art, to be in the moment with it, to be unproductive. And, yes, I think that, like alchemists, we are also great collectors. Writers have storehouses that we build up from a lifetime, many lifetimes, of being with the things that inspire us. All of it goes into our writing, some intentional and some beautifully unconscious: like a great stew, like a witch’s cauldron, like an alchemist’s mixture.
What are your raw materials as a writer? Where do your stories and ideas come from? What inspires you?
What are some of your favorite things to write about?
What’s your favorite style of art from which to “crosspollinate”?
How do you fill your creative well?
What mystical sources does your writing come from? What do you tap into as a writer that’s bigger than yourself and your direct experience?
What do you think the “imagination” is? Where does it come from? How is it sourced? Where does it live?
Write from a dream you’ve had or a symbol you’ve encountered.
Alchemy as Experimentation
Another reason that alchemists were true early scientists and explorers of the natural world is because they experimented. They didn’t just theorize, think, or philosophize about the world; they got their hands dirty, literally, messing around with substances, trying shit.
Alchemists had no idea what was going to work. Their intention was massive and bold. A bold intention asks for robust & wild experimentation.
They heated things up. They cooled things down. They poured stuff onto other stuff. They dissolved substances. They tried to reconstitute them back together again. They wrote things down. They failed and tried again. They saw what worked and what did not. Some alchemists, in need of a “day job” since they had to work their alchemy in secret, became blacksmiths and metalworkers–because they knew what worked and what didn’t in the realm of making shit with your hands. The later historical alchemists decided to take what they’d learned about the nature of material reality, what it’s made of and how to cause reaction in it, reconstitute it and call it by a new name–chemistry.
~~~
Writing, too, is a space of experimentation and play. Sometimes, we have some intention, something that we are trying to effect or say, and we do not know what will “work.” So, we try shit. We bring in other eyes, to see how near we have come to saying what we intend to say, and if we can get closer to the mark.
Sometimes, we have no specific “goal”–we are just playing with words, having fun in the fields of language. Sometimes, we feel some longing, some pull, some call–but we are not sure exactly where we are going, or how to get there. In all cases, I think, we have to write–we have to do the thing–to see where we are going, what we are trying to say, and what is going to show up for us. Writing is experimentation. It’s showing up in the play space, the lab. It’s a space beyond strict definitions of failure and success, it’s about coming back tomorrow to play again. Like alchemy, writing asks us to be wild and robust in our fucking around & finding out.
Write in a new genre you’ve never tried before. Might I suggest a play, a comic book, a sonnet, a children’s story.
Write a creation story for the universe.
Imagine a new species of bird, tree, flower, fish, or dinosaur onto the page. Draw it.
You’re asked to envision a rollercoaster. What kind of rollercoaster comes to mind?
Give yourself a new name.
You’re asked to rename the months of the year. What will you call them?
Do a bizarre dance. Write about it.
Write by candlelight.
Write about a road that some people are traveling and they don’t know where it’s going. Maybe the road is metaphorical or symbolic or maybe it’s, like, an actual road. Maybe the people are made up, maybe they are real, maybe both. Maybe they are you, or maybe they are others, or maybe both.
The Alchemist’s Goal
Ancient alchemy was esoteric. This means that its true workings and true purpose were a closely guarded secret, made known only to initiates. This kept the magic safe from haters. And ancient alchemists had a lot of haters.
The externally known “goal” of alchemists is that they were trying to make cheaper metals into gold. Yes, there was a lot more to it than that (more below). But this was certainly part of it. Imagine having access to that kind of potential to create wealth for your family and community.
~~~
We may have “goals” as writers. TBH, I don’t always love the word “goals.” It conjures capitalism for me. It’s giving striving. That’s just not what my writing, or my writing life, is for.
But isn’t it beautiful to create abundance using our writing? We might want to…
-become full-time writers
-go to school for writing or teach writing
-publish and sell lots of books
-make money from our Substacks, Patreons, writing courses and mentorships, all the things
-hell, become famous and wise and well-respected novelists / poets / writing guides…
We love it. We love all of the things. Make your writing into gold. Create that wealth and abundance.
What are your goals as a writer / for your writing?
If your “writer’s dream” came true, what would that look / feel like?
What is the place of writing in your life? How does it fit in with / support your life?
Where do you want your writing to take you? Where do you want to take it?
The Alchemical Process
Okay, but, like, how do we DO the thing??!! (And indeed: because alchemy was esoteric, it was sometimes felt to be so secret that its true name could not be spoken. Folks often called it ars [Latin] or techne [Greek]–meaning simply “the art” or even “the thing we do”!)
The short and simple answer is that alchemists treated metals in an attempt to create some change or transformation in them. They tried all manner of things. They mixed things with other things, to see what would cause change or reaction. (Think a chemical reaction… alchemy is very much the ancient forerunner of modern chemistry; this ancient practice evolved historically into our modern science.)
They heated and cooled metals, attempted to change their colors, poured all sorts of mixtures and solutions and tinctures over them, tried to melt and mold and dissolve them, to reduce them to their essential elements so they could more fluidly work with them… they asked the materials they worked with to undergo a lot. It was in service to the intention of transformation, says the philosophy of alchemy.
The idea was that, by undergoing all of these processes, lead or copper or bronze could perhaps become gold.
~~~
I like to be careful with this one, y’all.
I do not believe in reducing the hard things we have gone through by saying that they were “all in service to our growth.” I am not even saying that they were NOT, or that they did not become, part of our growth. The hard things we go through can and do grow us. I just think we need to sit in and with the hard shit we have been through, and the emotions associated with those difficult happenings. I do not want to whitewash or erase or gloss over what we have been through with a brush of “love and light” Instagram spirituality. This ain’t that.
I also do not want to condone the very real forces of things like systemic poverty and institutionalized racism and oppression that often have a hand in creating the conditions for the hard things that folks and communities experience. Spirituality cannot close its eyes to racism or transphobia or oppressive capitalism or climate destruction or genocide. Spirituality has to look at those things. Or it ain’t worth its name.
So writing as “alchemical process” is not, for me, saying that we just go through hard shit “for the plot.” It’s not saying that we spiritually “chose” the bodies and the conditions we were born into so that we could “transform and grow.” Nope: my ancestors didn’t spiritually choose slavery, and my people today do not choose lingering systemic racism. (The very word systemic indicates that this is something perpetrated intentionally and habitually to keep those who are in power in their power. Systemic also says that it can be dismantled.) It’s not saying that trauma or oppression are “okay” as long as we “heal and grow” from them. No: that’s not accountability and it isn’t the revolution.
What I am saying is that writing is one of the tools we have to begin the process of transformation, on the page. I believe that we do indeed perform certain kinds of treatments to our experiences when we write about them, particularly hard or challenging experiences. We might “simply” write what happened to us, beginning the process of integration through making it real on the page. We might reimagine or rewrite the experience, opening up a new sense of possibility. We might write about it to break silences, access truth instead of shame, use our voice, connect with others, or begin to create change. We might do a mystical writing exercise like giving it to a character. When we see a character, us but not-us, going through this experience, navigating it in their own unique life, we get to see a shift in perspective. This is writing as alchemical process: making something new out of what we have experienced.
I’ll share an example. I wrote and shared my traumatic birth story here on Substack. I simply wrote what happened. I didn’t cast any spells, play any mystical tricks. And yet: just writing it began to create a sense of integration, healing, memory, even satisfaction. There it was: on the page. Sometimes, in a traumatic birth story, the person giving birth may feel like the birth never even happened; it was so far outside of expectations. I felt this way. Seeing it there made me feel more as though it had happened, and to and in my body.
As always happens when we share our truth, folks responded. This resonated, people said. This happened to me too, people said. Some people who have never given birth and never will said, I haven’t gone through this exactly, but these parts of your story resonated. People said, I am angry for and along with you (for the systemic causes that underlie why my experience happened). A dear friend wrote a long love letter to me afterwards. I said, sometimes I feel ashamed that I am “not over this yet.” My friend said, I am not over it yet, and all I did was read it. She said the story was like a portal, like alchemy.
Some folks, including my therapist Gabriella, suggested I do the mystical writing practice of rewriting the experience. If I could have the birth story I’d desired, one that would feel more nourishing and aligned, what would that be like?
I found that I did not want to do this, or not exactly. What I did do is rewrite the emotional texture of this experience. I did not respond to: how would I have wanted my birth story to go? What I responded to was: what were the feelings I would have wanted to feel during my birth experience? I’m creating more space for being with my emotions here.
The next step in the alchemical process that I can feel coming is that I will give it to a character. No, I will not give my same exact birth story to a character. It will go through the portal and be transformed.
Am I “making gold” of this difficult experience? Is this what we do when we write as alchemical process? I mean, things are coming out of it. But I am careful with this one too. There’s an ethos I don’t love in some ancient alchemical texts, that seems to suggest that gold is “higher” or “better” than metals like copper or lead. I do not think that the version of us going through a difficult thing is “lower” than any other version of us. We are always, equally, and inherently worthy of dignity, respect, and love.
How do you revisit difficult experiences on the page?
Have you ever “made gold” / made something new out of something hard that happened to you?
Give an experience you’ve gone through to a character. How do they navigate this moment?
Remember a time when you shared your truth and peeps responded.
How do you hold space for big emotions?
What makes you angry? My writer elders, like Audre Lorde, tell us that our anger is sacred. Our anger is a map.
The Secret Intentions of Alchemy
Like we’ve been saying, alchemy was esoteric. Those on the outside imagined that the whole point of alchemy was to make [fake] gold. Alchemists had a reputation of being tricksters, dishonest, greedy.
Is that really what the ancient practice of alchemy was?
Lift the outer layer and you will find many deeper layers. The more esoteric alchemical texts, the ones enshrouded in code and symbol, indicate that “making [fake] gold” was only the tip of the alchemy iceberg. What’s underneath? What were some of the hidden, deeper, more mystical intentions of the alchemist?
To find the fountain of youth or eternal life
To understand more deeply the nature of the universe and reality
To connect with Source or the Creator (some definitions of mystical say that it means “connecting with Source without any intermediary”)
To find a universal method of healing
To play with ontology using mystical tools like numerology, color magic, and word / letter / spelling magic. (Numerology is the belief that we can do magical workings with significant numbers. Color magic is the belief that changing the color of something is a magic spell that changes its inner soul. Word / letter / spelling magic says that the way we spell a word is a spell in itself, and that if we change the way we spell a word, we change its inner identity.)
To “make gold” of the self and the soul.
~~~
Like I said earlier, we are all for creating abundance for yourself with your writing and your art. We are also, and equally, in full and deep support for the writing intentions that go deeper than money and this world’s ideas of success. My writing helps me do and access and tap into and feel so many things. Some of these more mystical intentions of the writing life, for me, are…
Accessing my intuition and a more aligned kind of decision-making
Holding space for my memories, having someplace to linger with and transform them
Playing, messing around, fucking about, being unproductive, frolicking
Taking my time, playing with timelines, writing to my younger self, my ancestors, and my descendants
Casting spells, manifesting intentions, dreaming, writing for change and activism
Getting in touch with nature, the cosmos, the world around me; practicing sacred noticing
Sinking into the sensual, the erotic, the sexual, the taboo, the fetish–having space for that in a world where there is very little space for it
Healing, slowing down, giving air to my emotions, being kind & gentle with my tender self
Dwelling in and imagining other worlds; being with the characters I love so much & having fun with them
Channeling, mysticism, mystery, being with the inexplicable and unexplained, touching Source / the imagination / the creative principle
Connecting with my loved ones, and new friends, and people I do not know, and readers who I’ll never meet; being in mystic conversation with every single writer who has ever lived and ever will live. Writing helps us build a legacy and take our place in the tradition where we belong.
I think that the mystical intentions of alchemy and of writing are deeply aligned. Writing is one of the ways that we can touch that idea of living on beyond this individual body.
What deeper intentions does your writing help you touch?
Are there more dimensions of the world or your life that you’d like your writing to engage with?
What legacy do you want to leave behind as a writer and a creative person?
The Alchemical Mindset, Credo, Philosophy
To believe in forms of mysticism like numerology and color and letter magic, to believe in the possibility of literally changing material reality, requires some wild & radical philosophical underpinnings. What were some of the elements of the ancient alchemist’s credo of mindset and belief?
Healing is possible.
All things tend both naturally and mystically towards their most aligned form.
It is possible for us to dream our way closer to an understanding of the nature of the universe and of reality…
…even if there are unknowable mysteries at the core of the universe and reality.
Experimentation is magic.
If something doesn’t work today, we get to try again tomorrow. Trying again is magic.
Nature is our ally, it is to be respected, it is worthy of our love and attention.
The nature of reality is not fixed. Reality is fluid and changeable. Even the nature of time itself, even life and death, is flexible and moldable.
If we can change the nature of material reality, we can also change our minds, hearts, and souls.
The hard things we go through help alchemize us. This self-alchemy, this alchemy of the soul, is at the heart of the esoteric texts.
As a mystical writer, and as someone who’s devoted to the writing life really intentionally, I like to play around with my own writer’s mindset / credo / philosophy. It’s shifted and changed during my writing life, as I think any deeply held credo should, evolving with us across circumstance and over time, walking in step with our particular needs. Here’s some version of what I believe as a writer right now:
Writing is for everyone. Everyone is creative.
Writing is magic. We need magic in these times, it is ours, and we deserve it.
Writing and creativity are not selfish or a waste of time. They are deeply important, they are part of the revolution, and they connect us with self & others, past, present, and future.
Writing is sexy and delicious and fun. My revolution is sexy, delicious, and fun. Is yours?
Writing is healing and play. It returns us to the inner child, the form of us that we were when we came here, that we are trying to both remember & grow into. The older I get, the more I believe in fairies. What about you?
What about you? What’s your writer’s credo? What do you believe about writing and the writing life?
How is writing alchemy for you? What ideas have you been playing with lately?
Happy experimenting,
love always,
Nikki
- -
Hey. I’m Mistress M / Nikki Ali. I’m a writer, writing guide, teacher, dancer, and creative activist based in Newark, New Jersey.
I am a person whose ancestors were enslaved people who helped build the structures of this country where I live. I stand with the lightworkers + those seeking the liberation of all peoples from oppression. I live + create most humbly on Mohican + Lenape territory, and I lovingly acknowledge the ancestors + elders, past and present, of the land on which we live.
Do YOU know the ancestral elders of the land on which you live? Check out this tool, Native Land, to learn more. Educate thyself. ♥️
My creative works, outlook, and spiritual practice are all delightfully queer. If you, too, support the beautiful rainbow of all human experience, then I’ve got a table here with plenty of open seats, and you can totally sit with me. 🏳️🌈
I am a creative dominatrix who believes that everyone is creative and that everyone can find the creative rhythm that works for them, and that supports them in reaching their creative dreams.
I am the founder and editor-in-chief of Mistress M’s Community Publishing House, a full-service, boutique book incubator where we hold the values that no matter what our hearts desire to create, there is an audience seeking it; that, by putting our work out into the world, our audience will find us; and that there IS space in the marketplace for the offerings of our hearts.
- -
If you wanna support this small black-woman-owned creative business, :D, I have SO many offerings cooking in the chamber.
Find all my good things at my new home on the web, mistressm.podia.com.
Write with me in our 2026 writing pathways here.
Work with me in a private 1:1, year-long writing container to write the book of your heart: Into The Chamber: The Intimate Author’s Container.
Make your writing your activism. Celebrate the rainbow of humanness over in Writing Gender Magic-a 7-day self-guided journaling course for exploring + celebrating your gender identity.
If you like writing with the energy of tarot, symbol, numerology, the Wheel of the Year, the seasons, the ancestors, manifestation, and anything else that brings us home to the magic of spelling is a spell, check out my book Writing Magic: 44 ways to cast spells, enchant your life, get intimate with your senses, and change your narrative through the power of writing. Ebook here. And paperback here.
Write through the tarot with me (if you like mystical + esoteric writing too, and questions without answers)! Our self-guided online tarot writing course is right here. <3
For all my published works, from my own queer erotic romance novels penned under my author avatar Nikki Ali, to books on writing guidance from your creative domme, to my popular community anthology Heart Art, check out my Amazon author page here.
And for Heart Art volume 3, get the paperback here.
To order Mira’s Story, my novel published by Cinnamon Press in April 2025, find all the links here:
Find Mira’s Story @ the Cinnamon Press website
Find Mira’s Story @ Barnes & Noble
And, yes, you can also find Mira’s Story on Amazon.
To join my creative circle, in which I host monthly writing salons where we create together + practice our craft, support me on Patreon.
I work with writers 1:1 to create the writing rhythm that works for them, to unearth & polish the gems of their stories, and to help them reach their creative dreams. Interested in 1:1 work? Contact me at mistressmwriter@gmail.com.
For all things Mistress M, follow me on Instagram @mistressmwriter. Be sure to hit up the link in my bio to check out ALL my offerings.🙏🏾
The idea of giving air to my emotions really resonates. In rewriting painful memories I’ve also added more to the story, like my present self showing up and giving me what I needed in the moment, instead of completely changing what did happen.