The Star card from the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck, published in 1909; art by Pamela Coleman Smith; image via Wikipedia Commons.

I love writing from images. I’m highly visual and have spent years working with my dreams, so pictures serve as powerful prompts for me. They launch memories and inspire stories. Tarot cards, of course, draw from archetypes, which means they can be particularly productive as writing prompts, suggesting connections to myth, fairy tales, and dreams. If you like writing from images, you might try this: Choose a card randomly from a Tarot deck, reflect on the image, and start writing. Describe what you see in the card; ask the image a couple of questions; ask yourself what it reminds you of. Write for ten or fifteen minutes without stopping.

Tania chose the images for us, and that was a good idea for our group. Each of us got something different from similar images. I was particularly drawn to the Star card from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. After two days on the northern California coast, long walks by the ocean, long talks with my writing friends, evening meals and readings, that morning I was primed to write. Here’s what the Star card brought up for me:

She is kneeling in the grass, pouring water into a lake, making rivers, a jug in each hand. She is glaciers melting, spring erupting, waters rising. Stars fill the sky behind her….

When I doodle I draw stars. I draw star people with big floppy shoes, round eyes, curly hair, and clothes to suit the expression I draw on their faces. I draw star people at meetings when I am bored or when I am involved or when I wish I were home writing. I draw star people obsessively. Boy stars, girl stars, cowboys, teachers, school children, dancers. They wear funny hats or have a single strand of curly hair or no hair. They have big ears, always. They are on alert, hopeful, looking, listening for a story or a song.

When I bring my notebooks home from the job I quit, the job I quit to save my life, I tear out all the notes, all the irrelevant notes from interminable meetings about pointless endeavors by people who deny what I know—that this place is going down—I tear out all the notes and keep the star people. The star people I cut out and tack to my bulletin board in my writing room or slip into a box where they gather together and talk about the new society they might form, the new comic strip, the new creative venture, that has nothing to do with pointlessness and everything to do with water, life, gardens, art, community. With starfulness.

The Star card is #17 in Tarot. This is how I wrote when I was 17, in this position—sprawled out—with a pen in a notebook, sipping a cup of tea, like I had all the time in the world to say what I wanted to say and be who I was in the moment in my room, on the third floor, alone, under the stars, of the stars, a star to be.

In the second part of the exercise we shared our writing with two other women in the group; then each of us selected a line or a phrase from another woman’s piece and used that as a writing prompt. Michelle Wing choose “the star people I slip into a box where they gather together….” As she wrote, the box turned into a jar, and she crafted this poem:

Star People
by Michelle Wing

I keep the star people
in an old jam jar
tucked underneath my bed.

Brush teeth.
Drink water.
Good night.
No light.

Unscrew the lid, and here they come.
Glitter across each corner of my room.
Land upon the bed post, stand on the dresser mirror –
to stand guard
with their tiny swords.

How do you like writing from images? How do you like writing in groups? How did you write when you were 17?

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