creating the mood

weekly story work exercise

If you’re new here, paid subscribers receive Story Work exercises every Sunday night at 8 pm et. Story Work: Field Notes on Self-Discovery and Reclaiming Your Narrative is the name of my new book which is forthcoming from Broadleaf in November 2025. The term describes my signature process of reflecting, reclaiming, and reimagining the stories of our lives. It involves looking at your life experiences as creative material that you have the power to shape. For the next few weeks, our story work theme is worldbuilding for self-discovery.

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My recent thrift store book haul ♥

I’m always reading more than one book at a time and what I grab depends on the mood I’m in or what mood I want to be in. Sometimes I am driven by a part of myself that I want to feed or a project I’m working on that connects to the book in some way.

Every day we have the ability to make creative choices that influence and/or express our moods. In this worldbuilding for self-discovery series, this week we are talking about how we set the mood for our writing and how we set a mood with our writing.

If you are someone who is committed to writing—as a self-discovery practice and perhaps also as a path to publication—you know that being in the mood to write comes and goes.

You may have heard the advice: Just do it. Stop making excuses. If you really wanted it, you would make time for it. And admittedly, sometimes we need some tough love.

In many cases, though—like for us neurodivergent folks—we need techniques and tools for managing our moods and energy levels so we can act in alignment with our goals.

Where you are in your writing journey, what your goals and intentions are, and what your life demands are, will determine what your writing practice looks like.

But one thing is true across the board, if you are committed to your writing practice, at some point you will need to learn how to show up for it, even when you’re not in the mood. You have to learn how to create the mood. [related: creative embodiment and the power of habit]

creating the mood for yourself

Reading usually gets me in the mood to write. At the very least, it provides creative stimulation. Most mornings, I send my daughter off to school at 7 am, then I grab a book and curl up with a hot drink before I get my day started. This ritual often has a Pavlov effect: my mind and body know that it’s time to write, and it’s easy to get into it.

(Notice I said often. Nothing works for me every single time which is why it’s necessary to have a toolbox of options.)

Music also gets me in the mood. I have a playlist for writing that includes classical music, instrumental R&B, and some jazz, mostly Robert Glasper. Ludovico Einaudi’s album “I Giorni” was the soundtrack of writing Story Work. This album, for me, evokes a lazy river or a gentle flight, and I found myself returning to it again and again because it matched the mood I needed to access to write the book.

Sometimes organizing the area where I’ll be writing makes a difference. I create an inviting space. I might light an incense or a candle. Taking a walk puts me in the mood because it gets my circulation going and loosens me up—mind/body/soul. Going to the library where the vibe is bookish and studious always puts me in the mood. Or a coffee shop where the animated environment stimulates my imagination.

What gets you in the mood? How are the choices and habits that get you in the writing mood incorporated into your lifestyle?

If you are routine-resistant like me, consider experimenting with rituals and rhythms that signal your body that it’s time to slow down and sink into that deeper inner world.

The ritual shouldn’t be something taxing that feels like an obstacle, but something that is viscerally pleasing and that you are motivated to do like preparing your favorite cup of tea, or listening to music that hypnotizes you, or pulling out your favorite journal and pen and feeling it glide across the page.

Keep in mind that it’s hard to get yourself in the mood to do something if you don’t have conviction about why it matters so much. Why does your writing practice deserve your time, energy, and commitment? [see: the deeper why] Sometimes when we explore the deeper why, we discover that there are limiting beliefs in the way that are keeping us from taking the journey that writing offers.