Tag: tarot

The Ultimate Writing Toolbox: My Favorite Analog & Digital Writing Tools

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson

Whether you’re a new or seasoned writer, finding the right tools can help boost creativity and streamline your process. Let’s dive in!

My Go-To Analog Writing Tools

Sometimes, nothing beats the feel of pen and paper. Here are my top three must-haves for brainstorming and planning:

1. Spiral-Bound Notebooks

I stock up on these during back-to-school sales, but Amazon also has great deals. I use them for brainstorming, outlining, and keeping track of ideas. For my current urban fantasy series, I dedicated an entire notebook to jot down initial thoughts, asking myself what if questions to spark creativity, and for keeping track of character names and descriptions.

2. Index Cards

These are a lifesaver for outlining! I love that I can move them around, shuffle ideas, and visualize my story structure. Using different colors helps me track changes during revisions—sometimes I even highlight corners or use washi tape to categorize sections.

3. Tarot Cards

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know tarot is a big part of my writing process. I use it for character creation, conflict development, and even as a daily writing prompt. I’ll be sharing more about this in an upcoming post, so stay tuned!

My Favorite Digital Writing Tools

While I love analog tools, I also rely heavily on digital ones. Here are the writing programs I can’t live without:

1. Scrivener

I’ve been using Scrivener for years, transferring it across multiple laptops. The digital corkboard allows me to move my scenes around effortlessly, which is a game-changer compared to cut-and-paste in Google Docs. While Scrivener can be overwhelming at first, taking a course or reading a tutorial helps unlock its full potential.

2. Google Docs

Though I don’t draft in Google Docs, I am currently using it to create a series bible to track characters, settings, and major plot points across the five books I have planned. It’s free, accessible, and great for collaboration – I can share the file with my editor or beta readers easily and track comments across multiple people.

3. Amazon Music & Spotify

I have to have music to write – at this point, it’s non-negotiable. I love being able to choose playlists, radio stations, or whole albums on various music websites. It allows me to groove to the many genres I adore like 90s hip-hop, Broadway soundtracks, or modern day pop music. 

4. Vellum

This is a Mac-only software that I use to format my books beautifully for both print and digital publishing.  It’s pretty magical, since none of my books have images, I can format my entire novel in 2 days and have files ready for the eBookstores in a flash.

My Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, all I really need to write is my laptop. But my notebooks, index cards, and digital tools make the process smoother and more enjoyable.

I’d love to hear about your favorite writing tools! Share them in the comments or connect with me on Instagram.

Tarot for Writers…Helpful Tool or Waste of Time?

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson

As you can probably tell, Tarot is one of my absolute favorite tools to use as an author. I use it to help me with everything from character creation to plot design to marketing strategies. You name it, I’ve probably used Tarot to help me in some fashion.  But when I mention Tarot to other writers I sometimes get the following phrases:

It’s too woo, I’m not a witchy person.

I have my own things, I doubt Tarot will actually help me. 

I’m not intuitive enough for Tarot, don’t you have to be a 4th generation psychic?

I’ve looked at it, but Tarot doesn’t make any sense – what’s a pentacle?


Let me break down some of those myths and help you decide if Tarot is a useful tool for your writerly toolbox. 

Tarot is too “woo”

Yes, it’s true that witches and other spiritual people use Tarot as a tool to connect to their divine energy, and personally I use it that way too, but as a writer you don’t need to consider yourself woo to use the cards.  The thing I always tell people is it’s just cardboard pieces of paper with pretty imagery on it.  Imagery that can help your brain come up with new ideas. It’s a visual tool that can help with brainstorming – that’s it!

I promise you, they will not open any portals to an evil world or let in evil spirits. I have been using Tarot in this way for at least ten years, and I’ve never opened an evil portal yet. 

I don’t “need” Tarot

If you have tools and systems that work for you – great! I’m not asking you to replace those, I’m asking you to be curious and see if there are any places within your writing journey where you get stuck, need help, or might benefit from a new tool. 

Now, I personally teach a lot of ways to use Tarot because I use the cards in different ways, and I want you to have options.  So if you don’t need help with character creation, that’s awesome, but let’s say you get stuck in the middle when outlining, or have trouble coming up with conflict while drafting – that’s where you might be able to utilize the magical tool of Tarot.

I’m not intuitive enough for Tarot

If you’ve used Tarot for personal reasons, you might have heard that the books are bad and you should rely on your intuition only and that might be true if you’re looking to be a professional Tarot reader for others, but as a writer I think using the books is perfectly fine!  The books, the guides, and the online information can be extremely useful when you are brainstorming.  Yes, I will always guide you to start by just looking at the card and seeing what comes up, but then grab those books, look the card up online and see what else might help you with ideas. 

Now, if you start using one or two decks all the time, I believe your intuition will get stronger and you might not need the books as much, but even after ten years of using the cards I still grab the books for insight, new keywords, and other information sometimes.  It’s fine, I promise!

Tarot is overwhelming, I don’t know where to start!

I get it, Tarot, as a system, looks very overwhelming but once you learn the basics, it’s not so bad.  First know that there are two main parts – The Major Arcana and the Minor Arcana, and the Minor Arcana is broken up into 4 suits, like a deck of playing cards. You can watch my Creative Tarot 101 videos here to learn more about the Minor Arcana.

A normal deck of Tarot cards has 78 cards and on one hand that’s amazing, there are 78 things for you to look at and get inspiration from.  On the other hand, that’s 78 cards that you might feel like you have to learn and get “right” – you don’t, you don’t have to have the right answer, you just have to have “your” answer.

To start, I suggest getting a deck you feel connected to – you like the art or the colors and just start by looking at one card.  It can be the very first card in your deck or you can shuffle and pull one at random – whatever feels right to you.  Look at the card and just see, what’s going on, what is the figure or human doing? What are they thinking? Then look for one tiny detail and ask the same kinds of questions.  What is that tiny snail doing? What is he thinking? Ask those great writerly questions and let your imagination go wild! Then, if you want, you can look the card up in your guidebook as well.  

So, I would love to know, have you ever used Tarot as a writer before? If so – what’s your favorite deck!!  And if you haven’t, what’s stopping you and did these tips help you?

Oh…and if you’re doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this year and would like some accountability, I’m running a FREE group with pep talk emails, check in emails, weekly writing Zooms in November and Preptober help so you are all ready to write come November 1st.  You can join here today!!

Easy Character Creation Using Tarot Cards

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson

When starting a novel, it’s important to fill  your world with well-rounded characters – the kind that feel so real your readers love diving into your stories, getting lost in their lives. Today, I want to teach you how to do that with the magical tool of Tarot.

For some great examples using my Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck, be sure to watch the video below!! 

I like to think about what kind of story or genre I’m writing before I grab my deck. Young Adult, Fantasy. Science Fiction, Cozy mystery? Then, grab your tarot deck and give it a shuffle. If I have any other ideas, like which character I’m creating or any story details I already have, I’ll think of that while shuffling, then I’ll choose 1 card.

As soon as you flip the card over, what immediately comes to mind? Any and all thoughts start writing them down. Then pay close attention to the main figure or focal point of the card. How are they dressed? What are they doing?  

Once I have established a few things, I’ll move on to the background of the card, paying close attention to color, other figures or animals, and what’s going on – is there any action that helps you with information about this character?

Now, let’s ask some questions:

  1. Are you getting main character energy? Protagonist or Antagonist? Or is this a side character? 
  2. What gender is this character? Male, female, non-binary?
  3. What age is this character? Young, old, timeless – like a wizard?
  4. Are you coming up with any name ideas? Sometimes I get great ideas from something really random on the card and sometimes I don’t.

Once I have these basics established and I’m starting to get a clear picture of who this person is, that’s when I personally bring in the character worksheets you find online. In fact, sometimes I turn those into a tarot spared by pulling cards for each section of the sheet – which can be a fun exercise. 

If you are in a writing group, this can be a fun group activity too. Each of you grab a card and go around the group talking about the character you’ve created – you might even get inspired by the other people’s cards – so bonus!

Have you tried something like this before? Did you find it fun or do you have questions about how to make the process easier?  Let me know by hitting reply to this email.

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My Favorite Way To Come Up With New Ideas As A Writer

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson

I find that writers get stuck for a variety of reasons:

 

  • Lack of ideas
  • Lack of motivation
  • Getting stuck in their own head
  • Overthinking things
  • Worrying
  • Issues with their characters

 

The perfect writing tool to help with these issues will allow you to have more creative freedom, give you a new way of looking at things, and help you get out of your own head so you stop worrying or overthinking about things and help you get back on track, back in flow, and back to writing.

 

And most importantly, give you motivation even on your worst days.


If you’ve been around for any length of time, you might guess that the magical tool I use and would love to introduce to you is – Tarot Cards!!

 

Some writers get scared when they hear the word Tarot, especially if they aren’t into that woo-woo stuff, but I’m here to tell you that you can view the cards as just beautiful imagery on cardboard. 

 

Those beautiful images help me unlock things deep in my psyche, they help me get past everyday life and my normal way of looking at things to get a new perspective, new ideas and new insight.  I use Tarot cards for pretty much every part of the writing process from creating characters to outlining and plot development to editing sessions and daily motivation, especially when I’d rather do anything other than sit in that chair and write. 

Watch the video above to see two examples where I show how I use Tarot to motivate me when I’m stuck in the muddy middle of a first draft and help give me some new ideas during an editing session.  

 

If you’ve never used Tarot as a writer, what questions do you have for me? Leave them below and I’ll make videos and blog posts for you!

4 Fears My Inner Editor Has Convinced Me I Have

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson

…and how I have used Tarot to overcome them

Our inner editors can be very loud and can totally convince us that we have a range of fears from fear of success to fear of failure. But I think that if we learn to acknowledge and address these fears, we can overcome them with journaling and Tarot. 

In working with my clients, and in my own writing career, I have seen the same four fears come up over and over again. And they all stem from that loud inner editor. 

The fear of failure – This book is not gonna be a success. Why am I even bothering? 

The fear of success – Oh, this book’s gonna be great, but then I’m gonna have to write a second book…I can’t do that!

The fear of bad reviews – Just the thought of someone critiquing our books can cause us to completely shut down.

The fear of being “found out” as a fraud, otherwise known as imposter syndrome – Oh no, someone is going to come and take me away to fraud jail because I’m really not – insert thing here causing you panic.

I don’t believe these fears ever truly go away, but I do believe that if we work on acknowledging and working through them, we can quiet them down enough so we can take action and move forward toward our dreams.

That is a huge key to getting over writer’s block. 

 

 

What I would like you to do is grab a journal and answer these questions:

  • Which fear are you currently dealing with or which fear do you deal with most often?
  • How does this fear show up in your life? 
  • How does it stop you from writing and how does it affect your writing life in other ways? 

 

Once you’ve acknowledged the fear, keep journaling, let your mind wander and really get everything out about how this fear shows up and how it stops you from pursuing your dream.  
If you are dealing with a few fears, start with one and work through both exercises and then you can go back and do the same thing with another one – in fact, it might be super helpful to do these with all four fears, but let’s start with one. 

Once you’ve done the journaling work, the deep inner work, and you know which fear you are dealing with – let’s do something a little fun, a little different – a 3 card Tarot spread!

Grab your favorite deck, give it a shuffle and lay down the three cards – one for each of the following questions.  If you’d like to watch me go through this process in real time with my own fear, click the YouTube video above. 

 

Facing Your Fears Tarot Spread

  1. What is my fear trying to tell me?

  2. How can I face my fear with grace and acceptance?

  3. What’s one action I can take to move forward through the fear?

 

So that is what I would do first. I would acknowledge my fears by journaling first, and then I would work through the 3 card Tarot spread to deepen my knowledge or the fear and to come up with action steps through the fear.  

Because I really don’t think our fears ever truly go away. I think we just have layers of depth where we learn more and more about ourselves, more and more about the fear and why it’s coming up and how to effectively deal with it. BUT I do think doing this work quiets the fear so that it’s not so prevalent, it’s not so in your face, and you can then take the action steps needed to move forward toward your goal.

I would love to know if you try these, what came up for you or what action step you are now going to take, so leave a comment below.  

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Kickstart Your Creativity Using Multiple Tarot Cards

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson

Let’s say you’ve been dabbling with using Tarot cards for your writing and you’ve been pulling one card at a time – great!!  Looking at one card can help you gain insight, get you out of your own head, and spark ideas but by adding a second (or even third) card, you can take your writing from pretty awesome to freaking amazing! 

 

Look at each card individually first

Grab your favorite Tarot deck, shuffle and pull one card at random.  Spend some time looking at that card and see what comes up for you.  Look at the background, foreground, what the “character” of the card is doing, colors, animals, etc. Note or write down everything you can think of.

Now, pull the next card and do the same thing.  Spend some time and note all the things about this card as it stands without thinking about the first card.  Again, look at the background, the foreground, and the character.  Write it all down. 

Watch the video below to see real world examples using one of my favorite Tarot decks for creative writing.

Look at the cards together

Here’s where the magic comes in.  Put the two cards together and start looking at what’s the same about each card.  Do they both have water elements? Are there similar colors? Does each card have animals? Are they both in the same suit? Is the character facing the same direction? Anything and everything that’s the same gets noticed first.

Then take note of what’s different.  Is one card more warm tones while the 2nd card is more cool tones? Does one have lots of animals while the other is pretty barren? You can notice anything that catches your eye that’s different about the cards.

You can then assign meaning to those things based on your writing style or genre or just what strikes your fancy.  If you’re trying to get help writing a scene, let that guide you to what’s more important.  Like I tell people, there is no wrong answer – there is just YOUR answer.  So write everything down and start connecting the dots.

 

Have fun

Here’s where the fun comes in – start writing by putting them into a scene together.  They can be attending the same party, waiting for the bus, be co-workers, sitting at a bar – seriously the sky’s the limit here.  Pick something that works for your genre or a setting you like and start from there.  You can type all of this, handwrite, or turn on your phone and record yourself and then get it transcribed or type it up later.

OR another fun writing activity is to start the action on one card and finish it on the other.  For example, let’s say you pulled a Queen and a King card.  You could start with whatever’s happening  

 

Try adding more cards

This is something you can do with multiple cards as well.  Just follow the same steps – look at each card individually, then look at them together – what’s the same, what’s different, and then group them together and start writing! 

 

Things to think about

If you pull a card that doesn’t have a person or character on it, can you still use the card?  Sure, just use elements from the card to either create a character or add to the scene – you can combine the elements of both cards to create one perfect setting, one weird character, or one conflict that you can then use.  

It’s usually helpful, before you start, to decide if you want to write a scene, create a character, or if you just need some inspiration to get around writer’s block.  It’s helpful, but not needed if you just want to have some fun and see what comes up for you – again, there is no wrong answer, there is only YOUR answer and your answer is beautiful – and so are you!

Did you find this helpful? You might enjoy my signature course, Turn on the Tap, happening this June – so join the waitlist by clicking here to find out more ways to use Tarot with your writing, especially for ways to deal with and get unstuck if you are dealing with writer’s block.

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6 Ways Tarot Has Made Me A Better Writer

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson

Sure, I was a good writer before I found Tarot but since I’ve started incorporating these magical cards with my writing….I’ve become even better!  How has it helped me?  Let me count the ways. 

 

Helps me get out of my own head

 

We all get stuck in our comfort zones, our own little ways of doing things, but using Tarot and the imagery in the cards helps me break free of that and see things that I might not have thought of before.  If the villain in your book always kills their victims in a certain way and you’re getting tired of that, pulling a card and seeing what else might be possible helps with the brainstorm process, helps your brain make new connections.

 

Helps me develop ideas

 

For my novels, Tarot has helped me create characters, develop subplots, helped with conflict, and gotten me out of stuck corners during problem scenes or sections.  I always get some new ideas, new things to think about that allows me to continue forward movement and continue writing – even if I need to fix things later, at least I have words on the page. 

 

I also use Tarot to help me come up with ideas for YouTube, Instagram, email sequences for my business, and my newsletter.  It really can help you come up with ideas for almost anything – tell the cards what you are looking for while shuffling and let the magic happen.  

 

Helps me deepen my relationship with my characters

 

Yes, I teach how to use Tarot to create characters – and you can check that out here – but it also helps me deepen those relationships, even developing friendships with my characters. Even with my villains and antagonists!! When I create characters I usually choose a Tarot card (or let the Universe provide me with one) and I’ll keep record of that so I can grab that card and “talk” to my character when I need to. 

 

I do this normally by journaling with them, but you can also record yourself speaking and answer yourself back as if you were the character – sometimes it can be super fun to do these kinds of things to help you learn more about your characters.  Ask them about their likes and dislikes, what makes them tick, why they do the things they do and what they want you to know.  I guarantee you will know so much more about them if you take the time to talk to them.

 

Helps me have a relationship with my Inner Editor

 

And speaking of creating relationships, over the years I’ve developed one with my Inner Editor.  I chose a Tarot card to personify that voice in my head and started having conversations, learning more about them and telling them more about me.  He’s changed over the years but we now have a very nice working relationship where he helps me (rather than hinder me) and I can write so much faster and with greater purpose than before.  

 

If you’d like to learn more about this process, I teach all about it in my signature course – Turn on the Tap, which is coming this June, so sign up for the waitlist here.

 

Helps encourage me when times get tough

 

Who here has cried over a draft or section of their writing? I have.  One of my favorite ways that Tarot has helped me become a better writer is it encourages me when times are tough.  Listen, things are not always going to be rosy when writing.  Sometimes we feel defeated, we get blocked for days or months, sometimes are characters are real jerks and stop listening to us, or sometimes we just paint ourselves into a corner and can’t see a way out.   Tarot can help you see the big picture.

 

For me, specifically, it helps me see how far I’ve come, how much I’ve already accomplished and how amazing my journey has been.  In the video attached above, I pulled The Magician card and realized how perfect that was for encouragement because we do all have the tools we need to move forward, sometimes we just need to remember how magical we are, how amazing we are for being able to pull words out of thin air and create whole new worlds and people!   The Magician reminds us that we can feel grounded while reaching for the stars – it’s a beacon to help you keep going.  

 

Helps me when I need a writing coach

 

In that same vein, Tarot has become somewhat of a writing coach for me.  Yes, I am a writing coach and have amazing support around me from a kick ass editor to a really awesome writing group, sometimes you need to be able to rely on yourself for answers. 

 

When you are having a panic over something at 3am, you can’t always call on another human being, but you can reach for your trust deck of cards to give you guidance and answers.   For this example, I pulled the Knight of Wands which is all about the fiery passion, nurturing your dreams and your projects while keeping both feet planted on the ground – it gave me a message of your project being precious and you being an amazing writer who cares so much and it shows! You can’t see it right now, but you have bigger things to conquer, bigger mountains to scale and you are going to do just fine!!

 

And that’s how I use Tarot as my writing coach, sometimes you need that little burst of inspiration to help you stay in the moment and keep writing.  We all need someone to tell us we are doing a great job and we don’t all have those people in our lives, so let Tarot do that for you.

 

By combining the magical tool of Tarot with the innate knowledge you have about writing can help take your writing career and journey from pretty good to freaking awesome.  Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below and hopefully this gave you some insight into why I think Tarot is the best tool for writers to help unlock their creativity and keep them writing for the long haul. 

Adding Depth To Characters

How To Add Depth To Your Characters

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson

Creating characters that make readers fall in love takes time and many, many layers of development.

If you’ve taken my free training, Novel Narrator, and used Tarot to create your characters then you have an amazing character but to take that character and add some depth, we need to do a few more things.

 

What is my motivation?

Yes, this is a terrible actor cliche, but it’s true! Your character needs something to motivate them to do things in your book.  What do they truly want and what do they need by the end of their arc? This is usually two different things too, which can be confusing.  Let’s say your character wants to find the murderer – that is what is motivating them to take on the case.  But what they need is to have closure around their own father’s murder from twenty years ago – that will help them grow and evolve.  

 

Flaws make for real humans

I know we don’t like to look at our own flaws, be we all have them. From little quirks to big things we would like to change (or maybe we love them and others wish we would change) we have character flaws. These help your fictional characters feel like actual humans, people that your readers can root for and feel connected to. I like to use Tarot cards to help me find these, but you can also look toward friends or family and just tweak it a little.  For example, say your friend is always late, like annoyingly so.  To change it up a bit, maybe your character can always be early.  What would that do to your novel and the people your character has to interact with?

 

Friends and Enemies

Another layer to add on to these characters we are creating is how they act around other people.  Do they have quirks or coping mechanisms when they are around their parents? Do they have friends that bring out things they would rather hide about themselves? Are they putting on masks around anyone?  We all tend to do this, but it can be tricky to see, but adding this element to our novels takes our characters from blah to holy crap, I totally relate!

 

Using Tarot

Like I teach in Novel Narrator, I love to use Tarot to help me with all these layers.  If you used 1-2 cards to create your character, get them out and place them on the table.  Then shuffle your deck and add 3 more cards to help you add depth and layers by assigning one card per issue above – you can choose which card goes with which layer.

Choose your card, grab your notebook or open your document and start writing down all the ideas you get.  Remember – look at the background and foreground, use the colors of the cards, and think about what happened right before and after the card’s images.

 

If you haven’t taken my free character creation training, sign up below!!

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4 Tips For Keeping Motivation High During Editing

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson

Yay! You’ve finished your first draft – congratulations!  Now, are you ready for the editing process?  Don’t be scared. Yes, editing is a totally different beast and it can get long and lonely, but following the advice below will help you keep your spirits high and motivation even higher.

Make it FUN

Editing can be a long process with lots of moving parts.  I know my editing list includes things like: fix character voice, add more details and descriptions, and totally change the ending.  It’s a multiple pass system where I’ll be focusing on different issues on different days.  Editing is not always fun so you have to make it fun by using writing rituals that light you up. I like to light a candle, turn on my book’s playlist, and pull a tarot card before each editing session.  Figure out 1-3 things that will make you smile before opening your document or grabbing your notebook.

Another thing that helps me keep the editing fun is mini goals and rewards.  I like to set weekly goals and bigger mini goals of finishing either things on my list or a percentage of the book and then I reward myself.  For weekly goals, I’ll reward myself with a full day off and for bigger goals I’ll buy a new eBook, take time to read a whole magazine and drink a cup of coffee, or even just relax with a movie.  Whatever makes you happy will be a good reward.

Find your people 

Editing, and writing in general, can be a lonely process – where you spend hours, days, weeks, months (not at one time hopefully) sitting by yourself in a room with your notebook or computer working away so it’s good to have some people that understand what you’re going through.  Writer’s groups, people online, real life friends and family.  Make sure you’re taking breaks within your writing schedule to stay connected to the real humans in your life, even if they are online friends.  Cultivate those relationships, share in their wins and aggravations too so it’s not a one-way street.

You can also use social media and your online support group for accountability.  Post on your Instagram your weekly or daily goals, or post a picture before your writing session and again afterwards.  Not only does this keep you on track, but it’s fun – and shares your behind the scenes with potential readers of your book.

Get organized

Editing is messy even if cutting and pasting happens digitally (for the most part) it’s still messy so make sure you have one place for keeping all of your notes.  It can be somewhere on your laptop or phone or a battered old spiral notebook, but make sure you choose one for each project.  You can always change it up on the next book but if you have too many places to look for character name changes, ideas, and plot twists you’ll lose them.

Having one place always helps if you want to blog about your project. Blogging about your book really helps get those readers interested in the characters, the backstory, the why you decided to write this particular story, and about you as a writer so when you launch that book they are ready to jump and buy it on day one.  Even if you don’t want to share, keeping a journal of what you did each day gives you a boost of happiness and keeps you motivated.  Seeing progress helps on those days when motivation is nowhere to be found.

Use Tarot

When the blahs settle in and you’re feeling less than ready to sit down and work, grab your favorite Tarot deck and ask it for help.  Ask why you might be feeling stuck or what your main character wants you to know at this moment.  You can even ask it for advice on a sticky area or something that’s just not working.  

I also like to keep my character’s cards front and center when I’m working so if I do get stuck I can journal a conversation with them and ask them for help.  Our characters know more than they’re letting on so if they aren’t doing what we want, ask them why – they might unlock a whole lot of stuff that you can use in this draft.  

What do you do when you are feeling less than motivated during the long editing process?  I’d love to know below.

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What is an Intuitive Tarot Reader?

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson

When I was starting my Tarot journey, the thought of learning meanings and descriptions for 78 cards seemed super daunting. In fact, I was overwhelmed to the point that I stalled my study for a few months before I gained traction.

The thing that helped during that time was learning some basics.  These included knowing the differences between the Major and Minor arcana, numerology, what each suit means, and the main points are for each court card.  These helped me quickly make assessments when I pulled cards, but I still felt like I was missing something.  It felt very textbook to me, very standard, nothing about it felt personal.  

I was missing my own spark!

What was missing was using my own intuition including how I feel about the card, what I’m picking up about the person I’m reading for and the situation I’m reading about.  Adding this into my repertoire helps me pick up almost any deck and read with it because I’m not worried about key phrases or definitions, I’m letting my brain tell me what I need to know.

What does Intuition mean to me?

Intuition means trusting myself that I will have an answer when I need it.  This did not happen overnight, it happened over months and years of honing this trust by practicing.  How did I do this?  By not using the little white book that came with my deck.  In fact, I forced myself to do personal readings without any book or cheatsheet’s help.  I would just read based on my own brain and what I thought was important from each card. 

If the thought of doing this stresses you out, promise yourself that you’ll do the reading without the book first by writing down your own thoughts that come up from your intuition and then going to the book.  Once you start realizing that you can do it without the book’s help, you will need the book less and less.

How does this work when reading for others?

For starters, I use the energy I get from either their body language if I’m doing a live or Zoom reading or what words they use if I’m doing a written reading. I can’t really explain this process, but I can feel things from the other person which helps me decide what information to bring forth in readings.  It also helps if I know what kind of reading we’re doing – I get different energies around writers looking for creative help than I do for friends who are needing help with a romantic relationship.

How does this work if I’m using the cards as a writer?

I actually drop the traditional meanings all together and just use the details in the cards.  I look at colors, backgrounds, foregrounds, tiny details, and anything about the people or animals in the card that might ping creative ideas for my characters, plot points, and anything else I need for my writing. 

Dropping the key phrases helps me find that freedom to trust myself fully, moving swiftly from idea to idea, knowing that whatever comes up is exactly what I need in that moment. It’s either the perfect answer or something that will help me create the perfect answer.  It’s all about making connections and brainstorming until I feel that certain something that tells me I’m on the right track.

When you hear the phrase Intuitive Tarot Reader what do you think? I’d love to know below. 

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