Today’s writing prompt is Tarot
SO, HOW IS WRITING COACHING LIKE THE KNIGHT OF CUPS? In tarot, the Knight of Cups is driven by dreams, ideals, imagination. Like your book-writing coach, he just falls in love with your story. Like the Knight, your coach has big dreams for you. She keeps her imaginative inner eye focused on your completed book and holds that vision in her writing-coaching heart. It’s the light by which she guides you.
Also, like the Knight of Cups, writing coaching coaxes you into magical-but-hidden spots in your own heart, reassuring you that, yes, you can travel there, and, yes, you will discover something worth its weight in gold along the way! And like that idealistic Knight, writing coaching cares about your story almost as much as you do. But most of all? Writing coaching offers you her overflowing cup of inspiration to drink from, whenever you have a mighty writing thirst upon you.
Tarot Writing Prompt
But coach or no, you can be a knight in shining service to your own writing project! Try one of these exercises the next time your cup of inspiration is empty.
- Remember why you fell in love with your main character in the first place (even if you’re writing a memoir and your main character is you!). Make a list of the ten most charming and/or endearing attributes your character possesses.
- Write about your story as if it were a dream. Interpret your main plot points, looking for hidden meanings in the mundane details as you’ve imagined them.
- See yourself as your story’s champion—the only one who can save your story from falling off the Cliff of Despair and dashing to pieces on the deadly Shoals of Uncertainty. Write a tongue-in-cheek fairy-tale scene in which you do just that.
The Knight of Cups and I hope one of these exercises will feed your writerly imagination. Because that, after all, is this Knight’s highest quest.
Thanks to U.S. Games Systems for permission to use the Knight of Cups from the out-of-print ARCUS ARCANUM TAROT DECK.