You write in a way that comes naturally to you. Still, none of your writing manifests any rhyme and reason. Your characters lack depth. Your plot is too contrived. You fear that your story is too clichéd. You feel that you have written something that others have written before. You throw your masterpiece into the trash bin. Screw it. You’ll just make money posting funny cat videos on YouTube. You are not cut to be a writer. 

And that’s a good sign. You will often feel inadequate. The demons in your head will never stop. You are at a crossroads and you don’t know which path to tread. You stand there confused and tormented. To top it off, no one understands you. These are even more good signs for the path to great writing is not lined with roses. Confronting the elusive dimensions of the art is part of your journey.

It is at this dark stage in your writing where the alchemy happens. This is where your resilience as a writer is tried. The alchemists of yore attempted to transmute base metals into gold (chrysopoeia), while writers of both past and present weave words and phrases to create literary gems. But unlike the alchemist that fails in his protoscience, the writer has a far better chance at succeeding in his craft. 

Because writing is true alchemy. The writer as an artist considers facts and ideas and weaves a grain of truth embedded in a made-up situation through fiction. It then gives a form of revelation to his audience, which then becomes part of a reality they acquire from the reading experience. 

In writing, we deconstruct elements, remove impurities, and filter what is essential. We break it down to its base components and try to make sense of how this could relate to the experience or reality of others--for that is where the alchemy of writing lies. You labor for days, months, or even years to perfect this alchemy. 

Something always happens when you sit in front of blank paper or a computer screen. The ideas in your head may come immediately or not. But whatever the case may be, at that point, while you mentally fashion the opus in your head, any judgment is suspended as your hand translates into the written form the abstract ideas that your brain dictates. 

The fundamental alchemy in writing is the interrelationship between the abstract and the concrete. The shaping of what was once amorphous and giving it life through structure becomes a gratifying product of the self.

Alchemists did not only attempt chrysopoeia but also aimed at the creation of an elixir for immortality, a panacea for any disease, the development of alkahest (universal solvent), the perfection of the human body and soul, and the achievement of gnosis. The writer, in a grounded and realistic plane, aims at the creation of different realizations, makes readers fill in the gaps in their way, establishes a bond between author and reader, and unconsciously provides healing through the aesthetics of the written word. Now that is true alchemy.