Tarot for the Fiction Writer by @Diviningthemuse is a Snuggle Up pick #writing #tarot #giveaway
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  • N. N. Light
    • Nov 23, 2020
    • 5 min read

Tarot for the Fiction Writer by @Diviningthemuse is a Snuggle Up pick #writing #tarot #giveaway



Title: Tarot for the Fiction Writer


Author: Paula C. Scardamalia


Genre: Tarot, Fiction Writing Reference (Books)


Book Blurb:


Writing a novel is a wild, unpredictable—and oftentimes stormy—adventure. And sometimes you need a compass to guide you. Because story is inherent in Tarot’s structure, it is an effective map and storytelling tool—whether you’re writing a novel in progress or starting out on a brand-new endeavor. Now you can use Tarot myths, symbols, characters, settings, and innumerable combinations as a powerful, portable, and imaginative tool for story development, editing and revisions, publication, and promotion! Each card has a story to tell you and can help you map out your book. Discover how to hook your readers. Figure out what happens next. Find a unique twist in a scene. Deepen your characters’ backgrounds. Create meaningful settings. Identify that “Black Moment.” Is your novel going in the right direction? Grab your Tarot compass! The path to publication is just around the corner!


Excerpt:


As a fiction writer, experienced or not, writing is a mysterious process. Sit with a group of writers talking about their current works in progress (WIP) and you are apt to hear comments like:


“My characters just took over the story!”


“I was going along full force, and suddenly the story just lost steam.”


“I don’t get it. I have a strong beginning and a dramatic ending but my middle…”


Writing is a wild, unpredictable adventure, a journey into deep and uncharted waters. You set out thinking you know where you are going, only to discover that you’ve lost your sense of direction and haven’t the slightest idea of how to course-correct.


Reading book after book on the craft makes your head spin like a compass that’s lost true North.


You don’t need a different map. What you need is a compass that works, so that the maps and charts make sense again, and so that when the wind rises, you know how to tack your sails to head in the desired direction.


The Tarot is that compass…


“Be still. You are too weak to move or go anywhere.”


She relented and relaxed back into the bed.


“Do you have a family? What is your name?”


She stopped breathing. They did not know.


“Darouk, hush! Let her be. I didn’t tell you to interrogate her.” The woman threw an arm in front of the man, pushing him back. “She’s still weak and dehydrated. Give her time.”


The woman touched her hand again to Samara’s forehead. She noted the gift of the woman’s gentle touch against her heated skin as she dragged her gaze from the man’s. She turned her eyes again to her surroundings. Pictures woven in fine threads showed birds and flowers in bright colors and hung on whitewashed walls. Sunlight, softened by sheer fabric at the windows, glazed a polished stone floor. The room and the bed linens smelled of something flowery. If not the Land of Rivers, it was as wonderful…


Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):






November is a time to be thankful. What are you most thankful for this year?


This year, I am most thankful for the technology that allows me to stay connected to my family and friends, and to maintain community with writing colleagues and readers.


Why is your featured book worth snuggling up to?


Snuggling up to Tarot for the Fiction Writer, will keep the writer warm with the magical spark of inspiration and the embers of new ideas and possibilities waiting to be fanned into story.


Giveaway:


Enter to win a $50 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card

Enter to win a $50 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card

Enter to win a $25 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card

Enter to win a $15 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card

Enter to win a $10 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card



Open internationally


Runs November 1 – 30


Drawing will be held on December 1.



Author Biography:


I love story and have since I was old enough to sit and listen while my dad read to my siblings and me in the kitchen while getting our hair cut, or Captain Kangaroo read stories on the television in my grandfather’s house where my family and I lived until I was seven. When I was seven, I wrote my first book, “Fat Man, Thin Man,” on folded and stapled typing paper. In junior high, as an assignment in English class, I wrote my first mystery on lined tablet paper about a female teen character eerily similar to Nancy Drew. Some of my favorite books that we owned or I signed out from the library were collections of fairy tales and myths, like the Golden Book of Fairy Tales my aunt gave my siblings and me for Christmas. Throughout my school years, when my class was given a writing assignment of any kind, I dove into it with a smile while my classmates groaned. No surprise, then, that I majored in Creative Writing at Pennsylvania State University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree. After graduation, I married my husband, Bob, and we lived for nine months in his hometown of Pittsburgh (I love that city). We moved to the Washington DC area, so Bob could get his Master degree in demography at Georgetown. I worked at an insurance company and contributed articles to their in-house magazine, and in my free time, studied textile arts with a local artist. After the birth of our first son, Stephen, we moved to the Albany area, for Bob’s new job with the state. Two more sons, Christopher and Jason, were born, and between pregnancies, births, and diapers, I learned to weave. A couple of years later, I received a Master’s of Fine Arts in Fantasy in fiction and weaving. For my MFA, I wrote a young adult fantasy manuscript that involved the secret to achieving the royal blue color in dyeing cloth for king’s robes, and hung an exhibit of my framed pictorial weavings. In the early 90s, I created my business, Nettles and Green Threads ( the name taken from a fairy tale), and sold my wearables and throws woven from luxurious, colorful rayon chenille at craft shows. Individual customers, boutique shops, and galleries from across the country, Europe, South America, and Japan purchased my work. It appeared at resorts like the Greenbrier Hotel (WV) and the Broadmoor (CO), and in museum shops like the Smithsonian’s Renwick. Even as I spent hours at the loom to fill orders, I wrote, mostly articles for a crafts professional magazine. But weaving is an ancient craft found in myth and fairy tale, and is an active metaphor, so it seems inevitable that in 2006, I completed and self-published, Weaving a Woman’s Life: Spiritual Lessons from the Loom. The book won several awards, including a Bronze in the self-help category in Foreword Magazine’s 2006 Book of the Year Awards. Ironically, a year later, I stopped weaving professionally except for a design firm in Baltimore. Instead, I coached other creatives on everything from process to marketing content to booth design. In the fall of 2009, I sent out the first issue of my digital newsletter, Divine Muse-ings, that continues to arrive in readers’ e-mail every week. In December 2018, my first novel, In the Land of the Vultures, was published. In March of 2019, I celebrated the publication of Tarot for the Fiction Writer, a non-fiction book that shows you how to use the tarot as a tool for storytelling and the creative process. I am at work on more books, and coaching and editing to help writers tell their stories as well. Because whether I am leading a workshop, doing a tarot or dream consult for a writer, coaching or editing someone’s book, I am a storyteller.


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