Archive of ‘News, Notes & Quotes’ category

Tarot Writing Prompt: DIY Pleasure-Dome

WHAT DO THE WONDERUL WIZARD OF OZ, PERELANDRA, and JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL have in common?

Their respective authors—L. Frank Baum, C.S. Lewis, and Susanna Clarke—each cooked up an entire world where their characters could play out their dramatic lives.

(For OZ, Baum created a land divided into four segments and separated it from our world with the impassable Deadly Desert. In PERELANDRA, Lewis set a battle between good and evil on a Edenic planet not far from ours. And in JONATHAN STRANGE, Clarke layered a fictional tradition of “English magic” onto a [mostly] historical 18th century England.)

This task—creating a fictional world with rules and people and a past—is called “worldbuilding.” A well-constructed fictional world includes, among other things, a distinctive landscape, a logical infrastructure, and consistent laws—natural, magical (where needed), and legislative.

Tarot writing prompt

Conjure up a city of any sort. Sketch (or bullet point) a megalopolis or an intentional community or, heck, make like Kubla Khan and create yourself a stately pleasure-dome.

Questions like these might help you think through the details:

  • What is the best thing about your city? The worst?
  • What do the folks of your fair city do to earn a wage?
  • Do they live well? Or are they living on the edge?
  • Are they divided into tribes? Factions? Castes?
  • What type of government lays down the law?
  • Has there ever been an insurrection? Should there be?

Got it? Good! Now, get up close and personal with one of your citizens. Establish a goal for him—one your city impedes. For instance: Are ramps obsolete? Put your character in a wheelchair and give him a life-or-death mission (on the other side of town, of course). Is artistic expression illegal? Provide him with an unstoppable creative gift. Is education taboo? Let his hunger for knowledge entice him into a fictional world’s worth of trouble.

Whatever the issue, use it to pit your character’s will against your city’s structure. And write until you discover what happens next.

a7f604a669d5124c563006f046942956This prompt was inspired by The Emperor, tarot’s archetypal worldbuilder, shown here as Caesar, from The Golden Tarot (with permission of U.S. Games Systems). Associated with structure and governance, the tarot Emperor is firmly in charge. A gone-wrong emperor is willful and vengeful. He sacrifices his people’s well-being to satisfy his ego. A healthy emperor may care for the well-being of those in his rule, but, at best, he provides for the good of the many while sacrificing the good of the few.

Congratulations Station

JOAN MANSSON’S been busy! She’s published both her beautifully illustrated FINDING YOURSELF THROUGH COLLAGE and her charming LITTLE BOOK OF REIKI this month. Way to go, Joan!

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MAXINE WEINTRAUB has assembled a lifetime of personal stories in her collection THE MAYONNAISE JAR. Friends and family will be delighted with her humorous, appreciative take on these special moments in her life.

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Big shout out, too, to ALAN ZEMEL on receiving his Tai Chi teaching certificate from the Institute of Integral Quigong and Tai Chi!

Tarot Writing Prompt: Doing It in the Dark

HERE IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE, IT’S FALL, the season of harvest, which rolls steadily into winter, the season of hunkering down, of mending nets, of dreaming in the dark. And what if, under the spell of that winter, in all that dark, during all those long, quiet hours, a dream should catch fire in the belly of the dreamer? Then, like a three- or four-months ripening womb, what was once just a glimmer will start to show in spring, that season of surging rivers, of buds swelling on what were just skeletal branches the day before.

But if that dream happens to be a big writing project? A novel? A memoir? A collection of short stories? Then be prepared: That quickening may take a while. The writing life has its own seasons—among them, a dark incubation, a time when a project may seem to have gone retrograde, to have lost its purchase. That season is the writer’s winter, the quiet dark in which a writing dream twists and threatens to slip between the fingers of our unconscious.

In her essay “Angst and the Second Book,” from her collection THE OPPOSITE OF FATE, Amy Tan writes about the lengthy gestation of her second novel, THE KITCHEN GOD’S WIFE, during just such a writer’s winter.

Each morning . . . I would dutifully sit at my desk, turn on the computer, and stare at the blank screen. . . . I wrote with persistence, telling myself that no matter how bad the story was, I should simply go on like a rat in a maze. . . . And so I started to write . . . about a woman who was cleaning a house. . . . After thirty pages, the house was tidy, and I had found a character I liked. I abandoned all the pages about the tidy house. I kept the character and took her along with me to another house. I wrote and then rewrote, six times, another thirty pages, and found a question in her heart. I abandoned the pages and kept the question. . . . I wrote and rewrote one hundred fifty pages and then found myself at a crisis point. The woman had turned sour on me. . . . I felt like the rat who had taken the wrong turn at the beginning and had scrambled all this way only to reach a dead end.

Tan goes on to talk about many other dead ends she found on her eventual way to THE KITCHEN GOD’S WIFE. She counts seven attempts. Among other morals we could take from the essay is this: A big writing project can take a long time to ripen. During this time, it may look like nothing (or less than nothing!) is happening, but on the inside, things are shifting, developing, taking shape. Given enough time and space, the big writing dream may well grow into something recognizable.

Tarot writing prompt

During these dark months, take time to slip beneath the holiday glitz and glitter and listen to the fluttering hopes of stories that might want to dream themselves awake in spring. Prepare the soil for those that will settle and take root. Listen in the dark for their tiny voices. Jot down what you hear. Keep your notes safe in the quiet of your own heart, until you feel one or more of them stir. Then fertilize, water, and make space for them to grow.

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This writing prompt was inspired by The Empress of the tarot deck (shown here as The Gardener, from Joanna Powell Colbert’s Gaian Tarot). Tarot’s Empress is associated with fecundity, fruitfulness, harvest, and pregnancies of every kind—and with the patience and nurturance it takes to bring those pregnancies to term.

 

Congratulations Station

CHICK O’BRIEN wrote to say that his book, DEIRDRE A WOMAN FROM CLARE, which he describes as “a love story wrapped around a mystery,” and which is set in Ireland in 1915, is soon to become a movie! Alexander Lenzi will produce. Congrats, Chick!

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JOYCE SWEENEY, award-winning YA author, has a book of poems in the oven. Her latest poetry collection, WAKE UP, will be available in February, through Finishing Line Press. Awesome news, Pard!

Tarot Writing Prompt: Secrets

“SHHH. Don’t tell a soul,” she says, and before you have a chance to stop her, you’ve become privy to facts about your neighbors or friends that you can’t unhear! What are you going to do? Wield your new-found knowledge like a sword? Or wad it into a tight little ball and shove it into the furthest depths of your unconscious?

Me? I go to one of my BFF’s. I trust her with even the most odious of secrets—because she is a vault! But if someone were to cut her open, my secrets would tumble out onto the street like looters, wilding and leaving havoc in their wake.

That might be for the best, though. Because the secrets we hold can protect, sure, but they can poison, too. And while the secrets we reveal can incriminate, they may emancipate, as well. Keep all that in mind, when moving on to the prompt!

Tarot writing prompt

Stick one of your characters into a situation in which she is told a secret—one that she’d rather not have heard. fbfb92c80583307335e873b44cf9235aPerhaps your character is a therapist—or otherwise charged with the holding of secrets. (Is she a doctor? lawyer? priest? garbage person? spy?) Let someone unload a piece of information on her that makes her squirm!

To tell or not to tell? That will be the question. Make the stakes equally high for the telling and the not—and don’t give your  character an easy out by legally requiring her to spill the beans. (Unless, of course, you put her in jeopardy when she decides not to do her legal duty!)

This writing prompt was inspired by The High Priestess of the tarot deck. The High Priestess is associated with hidden knowledge, intuition, and secrets we hold close to our chests. She’s ruled by the moon—which itself has a secret, a dark side that we, from the earth, can never see. That’s where the The High Priestess keeps her own secrets. If she were to let these out of the bag, she could rule the world. But she’s content to let the world rule itself.

Tarot Writing Prompt: Wishcrafting

WRITE IT DOWN, MAKE IT HAPPEN. That’s the title of my favorite self-help book. Written by Henriette Anne Klauser, the book is crammed as full as a Whitman’s sampler with stories of people making their own magic—just by writing down what they want.

For instance, one woman, given short notice to leave her apartment, created a wish list: two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a garage (with an automatic door opener), a view of Puget Sound, and, finally, “someplace quiet; beautiful and pristine.” She found her ideal living space within days of writing down her desires.

Of course, for every story like that, we’ve all heard one that sounds more like: “Oh! I should have specified to the Universe that I want neighbors who love Bach fugues, not Eagles of Death Metal!”

Hence, the caveat, “Be careful what you wish for.”

But no need to caution your fictional folks! No, sir! Our job as writers is to get our characters into as much trouble as possible. And there’s no trouble quite so engaging as that which a character brings on herself (a poorly considered wish being just the thing to attract a wasp’s-nest worth of mess!).

Dr. Klauser’s approach, though, invites us to step beyond mere wishing. Putting our wishes into writing gives them focus, she says. It transforms our pen into a magic wand of manifestation—and us into agents for our own change.

Tarot writing prompt

Give your character a problem to solve. When she conjures up a big wish in response to that problem, get her to write it down—and then, dear Writer Magician, make your character’s written desire so. For better. Or for worse.

the_magician__taro_by_mari_na-d3csp6xThis writing prompt was inspired by The Magician of the tarot deck. The Magician is a master of manifestation—and a charmer, to boot. Ruled by Mercury, the winged god of communication, The Magician is a real sweet talker, Betty Crocker, and has been known to sell those under his spell a bill of goods.

Congratulations Station

CONGRATS TO JON FORE, whose YA Fantasy novel LEXICON CHASE AND THE RIDDLE SONG (Book 2 in the Lexicon Chase series) won a Readers’ Favorite International Novel Award (from among thousands of entries!).

Here’s a bite to entice you! Even after she risked her life in search of a fairy tale, guided by nothing but rumors and unwritten histories, Lexicon discovers she is still being hunted. Now, forced to flee her castle, even as the city of Everhope falls under troll siege, Lexi must find a lost tribe of people hidden beyond the Great Blight—the last keepers of the Riddle Song—and learn its forgotten secrets.

Tarot Writing Prompt: Leap!

OFTEN, IN FAIRY TALES, the youngest son (sorry, most traditional tales are gender biased!), who is seen as a foolish dreamer by his older brothers, sets off to seek his fortune. Inspired by the chance to win a princess’s hand, he attempts an impossible task, one at which far wiser folk have failed. For instance, he might have to climb a glass mountain, travel to the home of the North Wind (try finding that on MapQuest!), or grab the single fish—from the whole wide sea—that has swallowed the princess’s precious pearl.

But the youngest son? He don’t care! Bring it! he says. modern_tarot__the_fool_by_teman-d6pwe1qAnd leaps into whatever chance has brought his way.

The thing is, this kid usually has no discernible skills. He’s not even that good at milking the cow or guarding the sheep. So how the heck is he going to unravel the 1000-mile long skein of enchanted gold thread that’s choking the king’s wheat field?

Welp. In addition to having luck on his side, he has a total disregard for his own lack of skill. He just gives it a go! What’ve I got to lose? is his motto. (Plus, he’s desperate. Anything’s better than staying at home and listening to his brothers’ taunts and jeers.)

You know the rest. Along the way, he finds magical helpers: The crone who offers him a walnut that, when cracked, releases a coach and four—or the billy goat that not only speaks English, but has the 4-1-1 on the in’s and out’s of the royal household! And, eventually, through wit (or the conspicuous lack of it), he wins the princess’s hand and her heart—he’s such a lovable goofball, after all.

The point here (at least for this prompt) is that the kid jumps right off the cliff of reason into action. Improbable action. Action for which he is (seemingly) totally unprepared! And in doing so, looks dead set to prove his smug brothers right. But, foolish though this hero may be, he prevails. Yup. The universe rewards his chutzpah by sending flocks of flying fish to carry him unthinkable distances so he can accomplish the unreasonable task(s) set before him and win the prize he seeks—thus changing his fortunes forever.

Tarot writing prompt

Write about a time in your own life (or that of a character) in which a seriously foolish and/or impulsive action ended surprisingly well. Make good use of words like “impossible,” “unlikely,” “unprepared,” “chance,” and “luck.” And throw in a magical helper or two for good measure. (Hint: Entire novels have been based on just such a premise. You know. In case you were looking for a premise upon which to base an entire novel.)

This writing prompt was inspired by the wild child of the tarot, The Fool.

Congratulations Station

KUDOS TO YA AUTHOR MELODY MAYSONET, whose debut novel, A WORK OF ART (Merit Press), won first place in the General Fiction category for the 2016 Eric Hoffer Awards! Not only that, but a follow-up report in The US Review of Books called A WORK OF ART “finely plotted”! Woo-freaking-hoo, Melody!

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And congrats, too, to Charlene Edge, whose memoir about her seventeen years in a cult, titled UNDERTOW: My Escape from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International, will be available in January 2017. In it, you’ll learn how easily a vulnerable person can be conned into following an authoritarian leader and how difficult it can be to find a way out.

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Melissa Abrehamsen‘s spooky, supernatural YA FORETOLD is available FOR FREE on Kindle for a limited time. Here’s something to whet your appetite: Lance Harper and Lucy Burns have avoided one another all through high school. He’s the son of the town psychic; she’s the daughter of a fundamentalist preacher. But the wall between them crumbles when Lance has a mind-splitting vision of Lucy’s bathtub suicide.

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Elizabeth Sims has good news! She’s signed a contract with audio book company Audible for all five of her Lillian Byrd crime novels!

Tarot Writing Prompt: Decisions, Decisions

swords02.jpegWE’VE ALL BEEN THERE. That moment when we have to make a decision—even though the choices facing us are bleak. We may try to forestall the inevitable, blindfolding ourselves to the necessity of choosing one not-so-good option over another. But eventually, the tide of urgency rises behind us and forces us to the keen sword-edge of decision.

Tarot writing prompt

Today, take pen (or keyboard) in hand and write about such a difficult decision-making moment. But first, you’ll have to make a choice.

Option A) Tell a tale from true life, detailing exactly what happened when you were faced with a plate of unpalatable choices. What were the circumstances? What was at stake? What was the worst (and best) that could come of any of the choices? Which did you pick? HOW did you pick? What happened next?

(Of course, you can drama-up the story. String out the suspense! Double up the consequences! Heck, go ahead and make your decision-making self a hero. Because you probably were. It’s tough to act when no action looks good.)

Option B) Create a character faced with an impossible decision. (Okay, maybe not SOPHIE’S CHOICE-impossible . . . but difficult, nonetheless.) Erect escalating tiers of stakes that force the character to the point of choice—and be sure to show the (excruciating!) risks inherent in her options. But what if your character bails? What if she is so completely paralyzed by choice that she puts her fate in the toss of a coin? Or in the pulling of straws? Or in a round of eenie-meenie-miny-moe? Welp. Then let the penny drop. Let the eenie-meenie begin. And when all is said and done, make her deal with the consequences of her (default) choice.

This writing prompt was inspired by the Two of Swords card in the tarot deck.

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