On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.

In a recent post on the Writer Unboxed blog, author and editor Kathryn Craft shared a unique approach to the writing life. Here’s an excerpt from that post:

For the 22 years I’ve been meandering up Author Mountain, I’ve been taking what you could call the Johnny Appleseed approach to the writing life: I keep seeds in my pocket wherever I go, and sow them wherever my spirit leads me. Which, let’s face it, is often into a library, bookstore, or a gathering of writers—I’m a writer, so my writing life enriches all of my life.

In fact, if I knew of a secret elevator that could be taken straight to the peak of Authordom Mountain, you wouldn’t find me taking it. There’s no view! No interesting people! No…story! I’d gladly tell you where to find it, but then you’d tell someone else, who would tell someone else, and soon that elevator would be so crowded it wouldn’t work anymore.

Truth is, there isn’t even an identifiable staircase. Each of us must pick our own way up the mountainside, exploring the deer paths, rock scrambles, and switchbacks; surviving the backslides and flash floods; and appreciating the flora, fauna, and vistas that will enrich your life and make your voice sing. Only by following your curiosity and staying keenly alert for the opportunity that’s right for you can you build a career that is uniquely yours.

Source: Writer Unboxed Blog

Writers can find inspiration almost anywhere, and they don’t have to go too far to find those ideas. Checking Twitter or Facebook feeds, reading a daily newspaper, watching a movie or television program, visiting an art gallery, attending a workshop, eavesdropping on conversations…

Which ideas work best?

Sticky ideas…those ideas that simply won’t go away.

Once that idea takes root, it’s like a song you can’t get out of your head. You wake up thinking about it, dream about it, and fantasize about it. You can even imagine the A-list actors who will star in the screenplay based on your novel. You may seek validation from family and friends: “Don’t you think that would make a great novel?” Unfortunately, too many ideas remain fantasies and don’t reach the next step: transforming an idea into a premise.

Continue reading on the Soul Mate Authors blog.

I’m happy to welcome multi-published author Kirsten Weiss. Today, Kirsten shares her creative journey and new release, The Mysteries of Tarot.

What was your inspiration for this book?

I was taking a class in flash nonfiction, and we had to come up with a piece each week. I was stumped, and not feeling very interesting. So I pretended to be Hyperion, the Tarot reader from my Tea and Tarot cozy mystery series, and wrote essays based on Tarot cards and Hyperion’s imaginary life and clients. One of the other students in the class was a Tarot reader, and she encouraged me to turn the essays into a book. But I couldn’t imagine publishing a book, even a Tarot guidebook, that didn’t include a murder mystery. So I decided to weave in “editor’s” notes, with the editor experiencing a murder mystery that paralleled the themes of each card.

What is the best part of being an author? The worst?

I love the freedom–creative and otherwise! Being my own boss is fabulous. Not having a steady paycheck can be a little stressful, but I wouldn’t give up this job for the world.

Describe your writing space.

In the summer, when it’s hot, I work in my downstairs office. It’s got a lovely view of the hillside, and occasionally deer will stop by to check me out. In the winter, I move upstairs to my dining room table (where it’s warmer), and which has a view of Pikes Peak.

Besides writing and reading, what are some of your hobbies?

I enjoy martial arts, though I can’t claim to be very good at them. And I love cooking, which is handy since I have to make up recipes for some of my other mystery series! You would not believe how many scone recipes I’ve got…

Any advice for aspiring writers?

Keep working on craft. Don’t settle. Writing is a craft, and you can get better at it, and it’s worth getting better at it. I’m still reading books on writing and taking courses, and I suspect I always will be.

What are you working on next?

Right now I’m hard at work hammering out four Paranormal Museum mysteries. I don’t usually write so many in the same series in a row, but the paranormal museum is growing and changing, and once I had the ideas in my head of how the museum and its curator’s, life was evolving, it made sense to just keep going. This June 30th, the first of the four, a novelette called Deadly Divination launches. The next full-length cozy mystery in the series, Dead End Donation, launches July 31st.

Blurb

The Mysteries of Tarot: A Work of the Imagination

How to Read the Cards for Transformation

When Tarot reader Hyperion Night sent his manuscript, The Mysteries of Tarot, to a friend to edit, it was a simple guide to reading Tarot. Hyperion couldn’t anticipate that his editor’s notes would evolve into a murder mystery, or that his friend would go missing. Shockingly, the annotated manuscript eventually made its way back to Hyperion, who forwarded it to the authorities.

Now this astonishing Tarot guide is available as a book. The Tarot guidebook features:

• Tarot basics―How to manage different interpretations of cards in a spread, how to read court cards, and a clear and simple method for dealing with reversals.
• Detailed card breakdowns― Keywords, flash non-fiction narratives, and a deep dive into the symbols of each of the 78 cards of the Major Arcana and Minor Arcana.
• Questions to apply to the cards for transforming your life―Insightful questions for each card to help you dig deeper into your Tarot reading practice.

Bonus feature: the guidebook also includes his editor’s comments on the more esoteric and philosophical interpretations of the Tarot, as well as his notes on the baffling mystery that engulfed him.

Gain deep insight from the cards, transform yourself, and solve The Mysteries of Tarot with this work of experimental fiction that’s part Tarot guidebook, part murder mystery.

Excerpt

The Moon

Messages from the unconscious. Mystery. Confusion. Dreams. Illusion.

Last night, I dreamt of a departed aunt I’d had a contentious relationship with. She walked down the hallway of my apartment and sat beside me in the living room.

Suddenly I remembered she was dead and understood I was dreaming. But instead of the dream ending, like it usually does when I become aware, we talked—the kind of talk we’d never been able to have when she was alive. She apologized for some things she’d said and done and helped me understand why she’d said and done them. And her reasons weren’t awful. They made a lot of sense.

I apologized too, because I hadn’t been innocent in the turn our relationship had taken. We forgave each other. I woke up feeling lighter. Free.

The Symbols

I’m still not sure if it was “only” a lucid dream or a visitation from my relative. I don’t know if it matters. It was all very lunar, very moonlike. And not just because the Moon card can represent dreams. Moons with their waxing and waning also represents illusion and confusion, messages from the subconscious crawling up out of the muck like that lobster creeping from the water in the card. A dog and a wolf, representing the refined conscious and the more primitive subconscious, howl at the moon’s light.

And all of those things had been at play in my life. I’d created a false—or at least incomplete—story in my mind of the cause of my estrangement from my relative (illusion/confusion). But the truth bubbled up from my subconscious in last night’s dream. If it hadn’t, I’d still be carrying that burden.

What Does This Card Mean for You?

When the Moon card appears in a Tarot reading, it suggests we may not be seeing things clearly. But the truth is out there — or in there, as the case may be.

How can you bring your subconscious impulses or knowledge into conscious light? The road between the two towers in the card is long, dark, and winding. Have patience. Be brave.

Notes: The Moon

As to The Moon, I feel like I’m swimming in it. At first my father’s death seemed like an accident, a fall from the balcony outside his bedroom. He’s been drinking more than usual lately. But the servants swear he wasn’t drinking that night. And the balcony railing is low. He could have fallen by accident.

I keep replaying our last conversation. Had he been thinking then of taking his own life? Was that why he’d come to see me? Because he knew I’d been a failure when I’d tried my hand at self-deletion? Maybe he wanted me to talk him out of it?

I don’t understand. But I’ll try to keep up with the daily edits, where I feel I have something to add. I need to keep my mind busy.

Buy Links

Kindle | Barnes & Noble | Google Play | Kobo | Apple Books

Author Bio and Links

Kirsten Weiss writes laugh-out-loud, page-turning mysteries, and now a Tarot guidebook that’s a work of experimental fiction. Her heroes and heroines aren’t perfect, but they’re smart, they struggle, and they succeed. Kirsten writes in a house high on a hill in the Colorado woods and occasionally ventures out for wine and chocolate. Or for a visit to the local pie shop.

Kirsten is best known for her Wits’ End, Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum, and Tea & Tarot cozy mystery books. So if you like funny, action-packed mysteries with complicated heroines, just turn the page…

Author Website | Twitter

Giveaway

Kirsten Weiss will be awarding a $10 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Find out more here.

Follow Kirsten on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour here.