Category: Writing

Truth or Fiction? or Yes, I’m Still Working with Temperance.

Posted C. LaVielle11 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey, Uncategorized, Writing

A few months ago Clio, my six-year-old grandniece, let me read a story she was in the process of writing. It was about a group of owls, and about how the smallest owl decided to leave. I was hooked until I came to the part about the little owl flying away in the middle of a bright sunshiny day. “Clio,” I said, “this is a great story, but owls don’t like to be out in the daytime. Why did the little owl leave at high noon?” “I don’t need a reason,” she replied. “It’s fiction, and I can write anything I want.” And she is absolutely correct. Everyone knows that fiction isn’t true. However, if you want to write fiction that keeps your readers turning pages, you must convince them that perhaps it could be true. Or, at the very least, convince them to suspend their disbelief for the duration of the story. This won’t happen if they spot glaring errors in your work. How… Read More »

Strength and the Werewolf

Posted C. LaVielle4 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, Writing, Young Adult Fantasy

Whenever I read a story about werewolves, the lion on the Strength card roars in my head like the start of an old MGM movie. A tale about werewolves is always about the eternal struggle between our animal desires, instincts, and power and our logical, self-controlled, altruistic human side. At the end of the 2010 remake of the 1941 movie, The Wolf Man, the Wolf Man attacks his fiancée, forcing her to shoot him with a silver bullet. Her words, which end the movie, states the moral dilemma posed by Strength and the werewolf beautifully. “It is said there is no sin in killing a beast Only in killing a man But where does one begin and the other end?” In his latest book, The Last Werewolf, Glen Duncan’s line between man and beast is fairly clear and painfully raw. Jake is a werewolf from hell. A week before full moon the wulf, as he calls, it begins to mess with him. Phantom fangs and… Read More »

The Major Arcana and the Hero’s Journey: Temperance, Part II

Posted C. LaVielle2 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey, Writing

When Temperance appears in a reading it’s not uncommon for the querent to groan and say, “I’m not giving up alcohol!” I assure him that the tarot card has nothing to do with the Temperance Movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s, which eventually led to the passage of the 18th Amendment in 1919. The Amendment made consumption, possession, or manufacture of most alcoholic beverages illegal, except for medicinal purposes. The initial intent of the American Temperance Movement was to moderate the alarming increase in alcohol consumption that began after the Civil War—hence the name Temperance. But the movement eventually started advocating total abstinence as the more radical members seized control. Abstinence may also have been encouraged because, even back then, I have no doubt that reformers knew that it is impossible for alcoholics to moderate their drinking; they have to stop completely. And so “total abstinence from alcoholic beverages” is now the second or third definition of the word temperance, whose first definition… Read More »

A Writer’s Rant

Posted C. LaVielle10 CommentsPosted in Writing

My husband, Craig, came home last weekend with a grocery bag full of chanterelles and stories about his camping trip with our friend Larry. Since Larry loves to cook, much of the conversation was about food prep. Craig mentioned that Larry is of the school that believes water boils faster uncovered. My hackles rose. “No,” I said, shaking my chanterelle cleaning brush at him, “Larry doesn’t believe water boils faster uncovered, he thinks it does.” My long-suffering husband sighed and settled back for a long rant. “It would be a simple experiment,” I continued, “Just boil the same amount of water over the same heat in the same pan covered and uncovered a few times and you’d have your proof, one way or the other. But you can’t prove a belief.” And yet, we are all so certain of ours. Not because we can prove they are correct to the rest of the world, but because our bodies tell us at a gut level that… Read More »