Hey there! Thanks for reading the Metaphysical Author’s Confidential. This newsletter is for fellow mystics who want to write, publish, or market their magical books. I hope you find it useful. If you like this newsletter, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
In this series, I’m interviewing mystical authors about their writing practices. Meet Chelsey Pippin Mizzi, the writer behind Tarot for Creativity: A Guide for Igniting Your Creative Practice (you are SO going to want this book). Check out her answers to my questions.
1. When did you first realize you wanted to write?
Writing has always played part of my life - from a very young age, I spent a lot of time daydreaming, telling myself stories so I felt less lonely, more entertained, understood. A foundational moment for me was winning a writing contest in elementary school - the competition, run by a local art museum in the town where I lived, invited participants to tell a story inspired by a work of art on display in the museum. It was my first paid writing gig. I was ten. There wouldn’t be more paid gigs for well over a decade, but it was the start of everything.
But despite the buzz of that early win, I don’t think I started taking myself seriously as a writer until a couple years later, as a young teen sharing fanfiction online. Being able to activate my imagination in that way, to lay claim to characters I loved, explore my ideas and big feelings, and practice my craft was the real beginning of my ambition to do more than just daydream and play, but to publish and share.
2. Do you view writing as a kind of spiritual practice?
I absolutely do. I grew up going to church, but I think prayer has always felt most real to me when I’m baring myself to paper rather than a god. Writing is how I notice things. How I ask for things and hope for things. How I manifest things and change things. How I understand things. How I meditate on life and how I plan for what’s next. How I live, I suppose.
3. You wrote a book, Tarot For Creativity. How has tarot influenced your creativity?
Tarot found me at a moment when I had fallen into deep doubt about my creative ambitions - the cards swooped in and rejuvenated those ambitions, rewriting them into a new story.
My first tarot reading was administered by a friend when I was at a personal crisis point - I’d lost my job as a full-time writer for a global publication with no new prospects on the horizon and I was stuck on a novel I loved conceptually but couldn’t compel myself to complete. I was blocked and lost and frustrated and ashamed, and I really just did not know how - or if I could - go on calling myself a writer when I wasn’t producing work.
The cards in that reading reminded me that I love to write. And they offered something truly magical. They told me, so clearly: if you don’t know what to write about anymore, write about us.
So I did, and here I am.
I’ve never been more creatively productive than I am with the cards on my side - writing about them, and writing inspired by them, revitalised me creatively in ways I really never thought possible. I’d grown up loving the idea of magic, but I don’t think I believed in it until the cards pulled me out of that hole and reminded me what I’d always known but never really articulated: magic is making things.
4. What does your writing schedule look like?
I have ADHD so a regular writing schedule or routine has always eluded me, and yet - books get written somehow! Though I struggle with consistency, there are few things that happen for me on good days to create a container for the writing to arrive into:
I try, most days, to join my friends at The London Writers’ Salon for Writer’s Hour. These free virtual sessions take place four times a day Monday-Friday - at “8AMs around the world” and offer really beautiful community accountability for writers across the globe. I’m lucky enough to be part of the Writers’ Hour hosting team, and showing up to these sessions has facilitated so many important creative moments for me.
Because I thrive on being in community with others when I write, I also like to co-work in person with friends where possible, and I often attend deep work sessions with FLOWN, which specialises in providing task accountability for neurodivergent individuals.
I keep several tarot decks on my desk to turn to when I’m stuck, as an alternative to scrolling my phone. It doesn’t always work, but it helps.
I move around a lot to keep my brain fresh. On any given day I’ll shift from my desk to my couch to my bed to my favorite reading chair to my balcony - laptop in tow. Anything to keep the experience from getting monotonous!
One thing that is constant in my writing life: tea and coffee :)
5. Can you share an example of how someone might use tarot when they feel creatively blocked?
Just about every week, I ask the cards the same two questions:
where is my creativity calling me to put my focus this week, and
what can I take off my plate so I can focus on that invitation?
I find these questions SO useful when navigating block, because they help me be more open to and curious about what wants to come through me, and how my creativity wants to experience the world, and simultaneously force me to let go of something that may be contributing to my resistance. I recommend this practice for anyone wishing to dabble in using tarot to convene with your creativity.
If you want to get less reflective and more playful, here are a couple of my favorite generative ideas for using tarot to stretch your creative muscles and unlock block:
If you’re blocked on a fiction project, ask your tarot deck what should happen next. Draw three cards, and choose the most intriguing one, then follow where it leads you and your characters. Don’t worry if it’s dumb. In fact, challenge yourself to make it as dumb as possible. There’s freedom in that.
If you’re a blocked poet, draw several cards and try to craft a poem using a card to inspire each line or stanza.
If you’re blocked on a memoir, draw a card and write about a personal story it reminds you of. Consider how this story intersects with the subject of your memoir, or gives you new perspective on that time in your life.
If you’re blocked in your business, choose a court card that best represents your ideal customer, and then draw a card at random to suggest a pain point that customer needs help solving. Brainstorm ways that you can help them solve that problem, then design an offer or product that addresses that need and try it out.
Blocked visual artists might consider drawing a card and choosing one small detail, color, or texture from the illustration to work with. Or otherwise, consider designing their own version of a card.
Blocked musicians might consider drawing a card and brainstorming how they might capture its essence in a song.
6. What are your favorite writing rituals?
Besides pulling cards as often as it feels right, my most important rituals are often about bringing me out of dizzying headspaces and back to my body and the earth (I’m a Taurus sun and moon, and it shows!):
Making a hot drink cures all manner of writing woes; ditto a scalding shower. Walks (without headphones if possible!) in between writing sessions - especially in autumn and spring - really opens me up when I’m facing resistance and frustration. Writing outside when the weather is right is one of the purest joys.
7. How do you celebrate when you finish writing a book?
I ask myself what the next one will be! Or a take a nap! Whichever one is more appealing at the time.
8. How do you process and deal with negative book reviews?
I vent to other trusted writing colleagues who have experienced the ups and downs of publishing. Commiserating is crucial in our line of work!
If it’s affecting enough, I may also raise it with my therapist.
I also ask myself an important question: Does this feedback come from someone who I’d consider my ideal reader?
If the answer is yes, I then ask myself: can I learn and grow from this feedback, or is it outside of my control or influence? For example, if the criticism is about not understanding the material, I may wish to write a blog that explains something more clearly or be more mindful of skipping over or speeding through that topic in future writing. But if the negative review is about something like the book’s typeface, how long the shipping time was, or the dreaded but unavoidable typo that snuck past 12 rounds of edits, I give myself space to be frustrated, and then I move on.
Meanwhile, if I ask myself if the feedback has come from an ideal reader and the answer is no, well. It’s admittedly very painful to be misunderstood, but I remind myself that if the critic is not the kind of reader I had in mind when I wrote the book, it doesn’t really matter what they think. It’s not for them.
9. Which tarot card would best describe you as an author?
I think I have Page energy - it’s hard to choose just one! But if I have to, I think I’m a Page of Swords. Here to try, even if it’s an uphill, windswept battle.
10. What are you currently working on?
For the rest of this year, I’m devoting my attention to developing more writing and resources for my Substack, The Shuffle. I’ve published one book and written two (one of my own, and one ghost-written project) since launching it, so now I’m very much ready to return my full attention to this platform and bring more thoughtful essays, workshops, and resources at the intersection of tarot, spirituality, and creativity to my readership.
More about Chelsey:
Chelsey Pippin Mizzi is an author, tarot reader, and certified Shadow Work practitioner. She combines tarot and other witchy practices with her 15+ years of experience working in the creative industries to provide inclusive, supportive, and playful resources for artists, writers, and creative entrepreneurs. She is the author of The Tarot Spreads Yearbook, Tarot for Creativity, and the forthcoming The Shadow Path.
Website: https://tarotforcreativity.com
Substack: https://theshuffle.substack.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pipcardstarot
Tarot for Creativity buy links: https://lnk.to/tarotforcreativity
Chelsey's so great! I love her work and am excited to get my copy of her book in a couple of weeks!