Blogging by the Cards
I have trouble blogging regularly
I have tried to start blogging regularly for years, and the normal advice of "find your niche" has never worked for me. I have so many interests I want to share with the world, but, more than that, I have trouble just sitting down and writing on a regular basis. I can come up with a dozen topics, a hundred topics, that sound great in the moment, but which never spark any interest or seem like too much work when I sit down to actually write about them.
I have trouble keeping a tarot practice
I love the tarot. I love how it's useful as a tool for self-growth and discovery and healing. I use it mostly in the vein of 'how do I feel about this situation' or 'what's bothering me' or 'what do I need to work on to make myself a better, happier person'. It's not for telling the future, it's a way for me to slow down and really listen to myself. That said, like everything else in my life, I have trouble keeping a daily or even semi regular practice because I have so many things I want to do, that some things just have to fall by the wayside.
It's partly because I'm not sure I'm getting the most value out of my cards. I love the stillness of doing it, but I'm not very familiar with the cards. I'm still very much a learner and getting in touch with my intuition is hard because I've been pushing it down for so long, so it can be really hard to get a lot out of the usual single card a day practice. I want to do more complicated spreads, but I don't have the baseline comfort at reading my decks that make it worthwhile.
I have some bad time blindness
I'm not great at time management. I have a fair bit of time blindness and I let time slip away from me without realizing that time is passing at all. I'm also not a big fan of very rigid structures. While I know I need to have some to stay sane, I hate schedules that say 'I'm going to working on that specific thing for this much time on that day'. I'm working on making myself a bit more structure but it is a challenge.
Why not bring them together?
If planning topics and keeping a regular practice don't work for me, why not try to combine these it all into a new practice that makes me excited?
I want to try writing 10 blog posts using cards as a jumping off point in one 3 hour time block each week.
Timeline
Thinking in Quarters of a Year is a popular way of doing things, and it seems like a good amount of time for me. That said, my 'Quarter' isn't starting on January first. It's not starting on a first at all. If I wait too long, I'll lose the momentum and just never get started, so, I'm going to go from today, February 19, to April 29, with a final report of my findings coming out on March 6, 2024.
In fact, to make sure I keep that date, I'm going to schedule a post today that says "I effed up, here's my accountability post" which I can only replace with my final report when it is done.
Objectives
- See if this combination of "set-time-no-set-topic" works for me.
- Write 10 blog posts using tarot and oracle cards as a guide
- find my blogging voice
- see what, if any, common topics come up and see if I can build on those over time
- get more comfortable with the tarot and learn more
- See if I actually enjoy writing weekly blog posts in general
Materials
- Various Tarot and oracle decks. Deciding which one each week is part of the fun! I want to use at least 8 different decks, though sometimes I may use multiples in one week.
- The guidebooks
- A calendar to time block my focus block
- A document that keeps track of my overall experiences week to week about the process
- Pen and Paper for word vomiting
- Phone, to act as timer and camera
- Maybe a tarot book or two?
- Any resources needed for the chosen week's topic
Method
- Have an idea of something I'd like to write about, or decide to let the cards guide me completely
- Pick a deck. Maybe it'll be by vibes (I live a lot of my life based on vibes), or maybe it'll be based on the idea I have.
- Take some notes about the deck. This will go at the end of the blog post with links to the creator, if appropriate. Affiliate links will be noted (not that I've signed up for affiliate anything at this point), as well as how the deck came to my possession. Full transparency.
- Shuffle
- Lay out three cards on the table before me.
- Take pictures for the eventual blog post.
- Look at the cards. Do they have anything in common? What suits came up? What numbers? Images? Elements? Whatever comes to mind. Do a big brain dump and vomit all over the page. This will probably be done by hand. use the guidebook if you need something more to build off of. I'll probably set a timer of 15 minutes on this part so I don't go overboard.
- Take a 5 minute break. Drink some tea. (Make a cup of tea if I don't have any available. That takes about 5 minutes.)
- Look at the word vomit and pick your topic based on what is there and what calls to me.
- Start writing, using the cards as prompts if you get stuck. Set another timer, maybe 30 to 60 minutes.
- Let it sit! Editing the same day is not the best idea, so, I'm going to use half the three hour block on writing, and the other half on revising and prepping the post from week before to go live.
- Edit, review, revise
- Add the pictures and links and whatever else I need to do.
- Get it on the site for Monday Noon.
- Have fun along the way!
Wish me luck!