Daily Writing Inspiration: 10 Tarot Card Writing Prompts

Tarot cards aren’t just for oracles. They're a great tool for self-reflection, insight, affirmation – and writing.

Pictured: Cards from Jayne Wallace’s Moon and Stars tarot deck.

“Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good.”
~ Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

So you want to be a writer…

Or perhaps, like me, you’ve been writing a long time (over 20 years!) but still experience that nagging doubt: Okay, but am I a real writer, like so-and-so? 

Imposter syndrome is strong for many writers, and I’d be lying if I said it ever really goes away. The simple practice of writing daily is a great way to fight back.

While the old saying that “practice makes perfect” will probably never come true (what the heck is perfect writing, anyway), conditioning yourself to write daily is foundational to your development as a writer. Many of us journal, or write morning pages. Julia Cameron has a great guide to morning pages on The Artist’s Way, if you want to learn more about those. But those exercises aren’t for everyone.

Even if you’re already journaling, daily writing prompts are a great way to train your brain to get creative and power through writer’s block, which is often seeded by self-doubt and a lack of motivation or inspiration.

Prompts also help keep the practice of writing enjoyable and even fun. The occasional foray into messy, silly, nonsensical writing is good for the writer’s soul. Give yourself permission to suck. After all, who wants to sit down and write with the pressure of creating your best work every single time you approach the page?

Here in The Writers’ Den, I’ll share writing prompts and other exercises to help build your writing chops and develop good habits around your writing practice.

We’ll start with a personal favourite:

Using Tarot Cards as a Writing Prompt

Ready? We meet in the forest to dance beneath the full moon at midnight.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you to stretch your belief system or buy into tarot as a tool for fortune telling or divination. This exercise doesn’t require any knowledge of tarot at all – just an open mind, a bit of imagination, and a deck or two to get you started. 

Tarot cards aren’t just for oracles. They’re a great tool for self-reflection, insight, affirmation – and writing. 🤓

Each tarot deck comes with a guidebook that typically includes a few “spreads” (ways to read the cards) and interpretations for each card. I love this travel-sized deck of Spirit Animal cards from Colette Baron-Reid:

Jayne Wallace’s Moon and Stars tarot deck is another great options for the purpose of writing prompts. Each deck offers a number of different ways to find inspiration for your daily writing.

I don’t worry about spreads at all and simply shuffle the deck, then pull one card. Today, I’ve chosen “Chameleon Spirit.”

Believe it or not, there are at least 10 different writing prompts and activities you could do with this. Grab a blank piece of paper (or open a new document, if you prefer to type) and let’s get started!