Tavi Gevinson: The Feeling Will Come

Writing is a magical practice, but sometimes it can fill you with feelings of confusion and self-doubt. In this episode, writer and actor Tavi Gevinson joins Michelle Tea to discuss connecting to a higher power through her art, keeping the sometimes-boring daily practice of writing interesting, and following your intuition when indecision starts to creep in. Then, author Emily Segal gives us a spell for fresh and sweet writing.

Tavi Gevinson: And when I sit down to write, I feel or if I go on stage, I feel the the goal is to kind of respect it as a way of communing with something that is larger than me but you don't need to understand it in order to be graced by it. 

[Music]

Michelle Tea: This is Your Magic. I’m Michelle Tea and today I’m talking to Tavi Gevinson, who we all came to love for her tweenaged fashion blog back in the day and her eventual magazine Rookie. She’s since then acted for film and stage, performing in the Chekhov riff Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow Moscow back in the summer of 2019 and we are psyched about the Gossip Girl reboot, in which she plays the next iteration of gossip girl. We’re going to talk about astrology, trauma, and the challenges of personal narratives. 

After that we’ll hear from Emily Segal, author, publisher, trend forecaster and mystical person, with a spell for all of you writers out there. 

Stay with us. 

[Music]

Michelle Tea: I don’t know if I’m a writer with a tarot side-hustle or if I’m a tarot reader with a writing hustle. I engage in both practices a lot, and I get asked frequently if I use tarot in my writing. I always feel sort of a disappointment when I say no. For me, writing feels like its own divination, like its own intuitive act. I sit down before an empty notebook or a blank computer screen and like The Fool, I plunge off the cliff, paying no mind to the dog of anxiety that is definitely barking at my ankles. Do I know what I’m doing? Hell, no. You’d think after publishing a dozen books or so you would feel like you’ve got this writing thing down, but I really don’t. Every time I feel back at the start of a tangled and obscured path, taking a deep, shaky breath and saying, Ok, here we go again, you can do this.

I’m not one of those writers who makes a chapter outline and builds a structure before starting the work. I just sort of hold my nose, squeeze my eyes shut and cannonball into it. I once heard a writer describe herself as an intuitive writer, and that really resonated. Intuition, instinct, feeling, emotion, inspiration, while it’s there, and blunt mental force when it’s not. That’s what writing is, using a machete of words to slice a path into the woods. Into it, and, hopefully, out of it at some point. I’m aiming for one of those sessions when the thoughts just roll out of you and time becomes irrelevant. When you look back over what you’ve written and you can’t actually remember typing it. It’s like someone else did it. It feels more like channeling. Moments like that do make writing seem utterly mysterious, magical, and mystical. 

The challenge is keeping at it when it doesn’t feel like that — when there isn’t any ethereal communing happening, when what you seem most in touch with is your own self-doubt and discouragement. When you’re writing through the void of intuition. But if you think of the journey through a creative work as akin to the Fool’s journey through the Tarot, beginning with that optimistic leap, perhaps it helps to know you’re bound to encounter the Moon and all its confusion, the destruction and despair of The Tower, the slog through The Hanged Man, when you’re not quite sure why you’re sacrificing so much time and energy to this grueling artistic practice, but you have some sort of faith that on the other side it’s all going to be worth it. 

This is a pretty writerly episode, but we think the challenges and solutions you hear today can be translated to any of life’s worthwhile challenges, be it creativity, relationships, spirituality, or self-care. 

Here’s Tavi.

[Music]

Michelle Tea: Hi Tavi. Thanks for being on Your Magic. 

Tavi Gevinson: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.

Michelle Tea: What's your sign, man? 

Tavi Gevinson: I'm a Taurus. I'm a cusp actually. April 21st. 

Michelle Tea: Do you have Gemini in your chart, do you know?

Tavi Gevinson: I think so. I would have to consult any of the number of apps I've downloaded to tell me this very thing.

Michelle Tea: For sure.

Tavi Gevinson: But I've never been able to like, remember it offhand. I know I'm Libra rising.

Michelle Tea: That also makes sense to me. You have so much you have so much Venus influence. It makes sense that you kind of got your start writing about fashion, which is beauty, you know, it's like.

Tavi Gevinson: That oh, wow, OK, so that's what Venus that's what that means. 

Michelle Tea: People think a lot about Venus as being like love and where our like, you know, romantic partnerships live. And there is truth in that for sure. But also it's beauty. I mean, Venus is the goddess of love and beauty. So it's also can be about like how we present ourselves, what we find beautiful, how we dress. And, you know, with you having the Libra and the Taurus, you get this double dose of Venus, which is really interesting. And and and Venus manifests differently with Taurus and with Libra, like with with Taurus. It's a lot about physical pleasures, you know, home and comfort and luxury, food. And then with Libra, it's a lot about intellectual like eye candy, aesthetics, like recognizing things that are beautiful.

Tavi Gevinson: All of this is resonating. 

Michelle Tea: Everybody's Mercury, which is the planet that rules communication, is either in their sun sign or the signs on either side. So I'm just, I feel like I want to place a bet that yours is in Gemini. You started, like just having a blog and being on the Internet and having, like, your voice heard in that way. It's like it's technology, it's communication. It's all these things that Gemini rules, you know?

Tavi Gevinson: You know I did see, I had a chart reading like a year and a half ago where the astrologer I saw said that my field, my purpose is like opening new channels of communication, be it through media or otherwise.

Michelle Tea: That's cool. Don't you love when an astrologer just tells you your destiny? You're like, thank you.

Tavi Gevinson: Yes. I was like, this is affirming.

Michelle Tea: Do you seek the psychic arts regularly? Do you go to astrologers and psychics and tarot readers and whatnot? 

Tavi Gevinson: Yes. So I've seen that that woman I have seen when I lived in Manhattan, there was a psychic I went to in the West Village sometimes, and I get regular kind of chart readings from my friend's mom, who's an astrologer. And I do tarot myself. But I go through phases. I haven't done it in a while. So I'm really excited for this today.

Michelle Tea: I'm excited for it, too. What do you get out of these experiences of like having your chart read and you know, when you seek these this information, like what do you get out of it? What does it do for you?

Tavi Gevinson: I think a lot of the time it kind of tells me what I already know, but need to hear from someone else, like to kind of just keep my head down and keep doing my work and keep writing and keep making my home a home and doing all of the things that make me really happy day-to-day. But I think it yeah, it helps to feel like that is part of a grander design. And I also think creatively it helps to especially with something like writing, where it's just you and your head and, you have no like collaborators and you're trying to generate everything yourself. It helps to bring in another energy or consciousness. Like I also have a like an adaptation of the I Ching that Sheila Heti wrote and sent to me. I consult that a lot. And it and also I like one time I did I was in a production of The Crucible where I would like pull a different tarot card every night for a while to just give me something new to think about after doing the show, you know, a million times. So, like, I think it it helps me feel like I'm tapping into some kind of greater creative force and also gives me some direction when it's kind of overwhelming how many possibilities there can be with a creative project specifically. 

Michelle Tea: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Sounds like you do have mystical beliefs of sorts like you believe in like a greater energy or some sort of ineffable force?

Tavi Gevinson: I do have mystical beliefs, especially when it comes to creativity and, you know, the kind of currents that I believe are constantly running, running underneath everything. And when I sit down to write, I feel or if I go on stage, I feel — not all the time, like a lot of the time, it just feels like work — but the goal is to respect it as a way of communing with something that is larger than me and that I don't totally understand and that it's not really my job to understand, but you don't need to understand it in order to kind of uh you know, be graced by it. 

Like I've tried to make writing more like acting in that. I've tried to be like, OK, what if this was a play and you had to be here every night and you had to start whether or not you felt like it and whether or not you felt like the muse was in or whatever, and you would just have to trust that like even if you don't feel totally in it at the beginning like it will come together slash maybe it won't, but like your best is still good enough.

I mean, not that I take this advice every day by any means. Like I've had stretches where I adhere to it and stretches where I absolutely don't. But I do think, I don't know, it helps to sort of take the fear out of it and be like you never feel like you're ready to do it, so you just have to start and then the feeling will come.

Michelle Tea: I agree with you, that's been my experience. And whether or not something feels good while I'm writing it isn't really an indicator of if it's any good or not.

Tavi Gevinson: Right, it's like just you're just sitting at a desk, so, like, it can only be so exciting. And also with a play, sometimes you're like, “I'm crushing it.” And then, like, the director is like, "Hey, so you were kind of in your own world. What's going on there?"

Michelle Tea: Which again, just makes creativity and creative expression feel so like, yes, it is in the realm of magic and the ineffable. 

Tavi Gevinson: Yeah.

Michelle Tea: Because like how are we channeling it and participating in it and engaging in it. And yet we don't even hardly know what we're doing half the time. It really feels like something's coming through us, you know, or that's my experience.

Tavi Gevinson: Yeah. I think so, too, I mean, it is it's like it can feel cliched, but I do think that is what it is and it makes it easier to take the responsibility off myself or to depersonalize it and be like, “Well, you do have to have work ethic, and I do have like, you know, taste and preferences around what I want writing to be, but there are so many things that are just not up to me.”

[Music]

Michelle Tea: I'm going to give you a tarot reading and I believe you would like it to be about the book that you're working on. 

Tavi Gevinson: That's right.

Michelle Tea: Do you want to tell me about it, what, what, what what is the quandary, what is the question?

Tavi Gevinson: The sort of event that the writing and initially came out of was a stretch of time when I was younger that involved sexual trauma and so naturally over the years, like my understanding of what happened has changed and some of the language has changed and you know, the way I am kind of thinking about the experience right now is like, the therapeutic process and healing and trauma processing and therapy like that is its own process, and I have like documents that are strictly for myself that are just like, [00:20:32]I don't think of them as publication that is just like the work of working through these things for myself. 

So, I have all of this material and it could be structured in so many different ways, and I know that you don't like have to choose between writing a memoir or writing a collection of essays. And I know many people like you have done kind of hybrids, but I had this experience and I'm used to thinking of it as like the book's arc and I find myself feeling like I need to choose between either the memoir version. 

This option is like linear and diaristic. Then there's like a nonlinear version of the book that's like a collection of essays that draw on that experience but don't center it so much and that draw on it in order to support larger arguments and explore ideas that are not exclusive to my own experience. And they are more like cultural criticism. On one hand, this version like yeah, it makes me feel more protected. But it also kind of loses some intimacy or immediacy that the other writing has. So maybe this is a false choice, but this is like the binary that my mind keeps going to. 

Michelle Tea: This doesn't feel like a false binary to me just because, like, you need to know what you're doing as a writer. Right? Like otherwise I feel like you get you kind of spiral out a little bit.

What I propose is picking three cards for what does it look like to do this kind of straight traditional memoir arc and then what is it? And then three cards for what would it look like for you to do this other sort of linked essay with a sort of background of the trauma informing it? 

Tavi Gevinson: Yes, I love this idea.

Michelle Tea: Great. OK so right now, I'm going to shuffle and I'm going to think about what does it look like for you to put all your energy into really crafting a more traditional memoir that tells the arc of what you experienced and draws in all those personal documents. So you think about that, too.

OK, so I'm picking three cards for that, I like to do it all at the same time. So now I'm going to pick three cards on what does it look like for you to have this maybe slightly more experimental structure to the book.

I'm flipping the cards for what does it look like for you to tell the the the kind of the straight memoir? OK, the first card that comes up is the Princess of Disks. She's a great metaphor for the kind of book you're talking about because she's standing before this tangle of trees. So the suggestion is she's come through this hard tangle of trees. She's hiked through this forest and now she's pregnant. She's got this little baby bump. And so she's got something to sort of deliver. She has something to give birth to as a result of this sort of like this this path that she's trod, that was very difficult. So it really is about like taking your experience and like a very creative, very creative card. 

And then the next card you have is another court card. It's the Knight of Wands. And he's like Aries on top of Aries. He's like fire on fire. He's like I'm going to go for it. So this is sort of like setting your mind to it and just being like, fuck it. Like, I you know, I might always be a little tormented by, like, my decision, like, is this the right form? You know, like neither one might feel fully comfortable because the other one might always feel a little bit alluring. But I am going to commit myself to this and I'm just going to, like, pedal to the metal, burn it out. I'm going to write the fuck out of this book. That's what that is. 

And then your last one is the Queen of Disks, which is really quite beautiful because it's like the princess that you began with at the end of it. You're the queen. She's a Capricorn card. She's very accomplished. Capricorns always like rise to the to the height of their of their field. And I mean, you see her she's gorgeous. She's sitting on a giant pineapple with her pet goat looking out at the landscape with the world in her arms. And so it's very accomplished. Like the feeling of accomplishment is really profound at the end of this. And and I would also say as far as just like the physical success of having created a document, a you know, an object, a book, it's going to be well received. It will be it will be a triumphant feeling. So this looks really good. 

Let's see what the story is of doing the more experimental one, flipping the cards for that right now. It also looks good. I fucking hate when the tarot is like this. It's like. Be black and white, help me out here. 

Tavi Gevinson: Seriously, make a decision.

Michelle Tea: Say yes or say no. So for doing it the other way, the first you is this Nine of Disks. You're getting a lot of disks card, called Gain. And so that's really interesting. There’s a sense of order and there's something tidy, something like aesthetically tidy and aesthetically attractive about this version. It's less messy and that's not bad. You know, it's like neither are bad. 

Like, you know in this other one we see the Knight of Wands just jumping into the mess of it and being like we're just going to get messy, we're going to burn through it and that works, you know. And here we see actually we're going to not do that. We're going to be very and there's something to be gained from that. It actually works to have that structure, you know? With the first reading, you're like, OK, I've been through this mess and I'm going to jump into it. And here you're like, OK, I'm going to organize this mess in a way that feels really clean and tidy. 

And then you're the Knight of Swords and you're jumping into it much more intellectually. Right? The Knight of Wands is all fire, it’s like I'm going to take on this mess. I'm going to struggle with it. I'm going to burn through it. And then here's the Knight of Swords being like, actually, I've organized this and now I can tackle it in a very intellectual way. It's nice that you have a knight in both places because they're both fire and they're both about really tackling the project once you kind of make your decision. 

Very similarly, at the end of your first pull, how you got the Queen of Disks at the end of the more the essay collection idea, you get the Ten of Disks, which is wealth. And it's very similar to the Queen of Disks. It's Capricorn and so, you know, it means that at the end of this, you're going to feel like I did it. I did a good job. You're going to feel a lot of satisfaction. And I mean, hi, it's the wealth card. It's going to be very successful for you. 

Tavi Gevinson: Great, i'm so glad that either way there is wealth.

Michelle Tea: I do. I don't want to keep you here forever pulling endless cards for you, but I feel a little bit like there's a there's something that you suggested while we were talking about this, like, is this a false dichotomy? Is this a false binary? Is this my, my first take on that was to say, oh, is it actually two separate books? But what is, is this just one book? Is it all of it? You had suggested when we were emailing about this question that it was possibly internalized misogyny lead leading you to be concerned. And what did you mean by that? Because that was so interesting to me.

Tavi Gevinson: I do think there's a part of me that's like is the memoir my story version, like a cringe-y one-woman play where part of the significance of it is that I'm sharing something bad that happened to me, that I'm you know, that it's functioning as a piece of representation. And then does that lead readers to judge it by standards that are less about the writing, less about creative choices, and more kind of condescending. And then I guess the wondering if it's if it's internalized misogyny part of me is like, well, why? Why does it seem like trite or cliched or boring to you to be a woman writing about sexual trauma? And why do you need to render the experience more special than like as and as a piece of representation? Like why do you need to believe that something about this is exceptional and therefore deserves like a more sophisticated book when actually these things are like so common and so impersonal? Like, it's actually given me a lot to render it un-special and be like, oh, that wasn't unique and it wasn't personal in it. It happens all the time. 

Michelle Tea: That maybe is the false dichotomy is trying to figure out like, is it is it special or not special? It's like both. You know, it's like your life is meaningful just by virtue of its existence, you know, it doesn't need justification. And all the things that occur within it are special and unique to you. They've never manifested in quite that way before and never been looked at in quite that way before. And now we are getting into almost like a spiritual dimension with it, right? But yeah, but it's very common and very relatable and it's very powerful. The work will be very powerful as a result of that as well. 

And I picked three cards on like is it is this a false question? And you've got you're getting so many court cards. It's very interesting because court cards represent people. I tend to read them as energies and have them be reflective of different aspects of the querent, but they, having so many people, it makes me wonder if you don't have a lot of spirit guides around you pushing you towards into this project and as well as maybe support in the physical world as well. 

Queen of Swords, she's an editor. She's a big editor. She has that bird's eye view. She has stepped back and looking at things very critically. And in a sense, she represents a little bit the sophisticated essay. She represents a little bit the sophisticated essay where she's able to pull back from the immediacy of what happened and see the larger ramifications and her vision is very valuable because of that. 

And then you got the Prince of Wands and he is up in the he's up in it and he's in the creativity of it and he's unafraid of the attention. He wants the attention given to it. I feel like this is like, yes, it's both things. It is like this is this is like the traditional memoir, this Prince of Wands. He's TMI he's all up in it. He’s like know me, love me, know me, love me. I love you. You know, like it's performative. He's performative. 

Tavi Gevinson: Yeah.

Michelle Tea: He's vulnerable in that way but he doesn't even know he's vulnerable. He's like a child. And I think this is a call for you to like even though the subject matter certainly is not playful, to add an element of play into like how you you know, it's like, yes, you need this Queen of Swords, you're making intellectual decisions and you also need this fiery play like you're you're enjoying the process of telling a story and even messing with the story. And it leads you to victory, you have the Victory card. And this is like I've wanted a more clear answer. You know, I think that we're getting a lot from those disk cards that whatever this this book is going to be a good book. You're on the right track like you. It's going to be successful for you personally and professionally.

So this feels like the clearest of all. And it also has a lot in common with your other ones, with the other cards pulled in that they're mostly minor arcana, they're mostly court cards. So to me, this is saying, like, it's one book that has two different perspectives or two ways of seeing. I think, yeah, this is the way to victory. Jupiter in Leo, I like this a lot for you. I like this. Yeah, this is I think this is the way with this Victory card. 

What I also do when somebody is in a situation that's just as a little bit of a struggle. I pick some cards from this other deck called Vessel that I really love. It's an Oracle deck. I feel like it offers like some guidance through the through the tangle. And so I was like asking like, what are some what are some things that could be helpful for you to recognize as you're dealing with the tough spots in this? One is Boundaries. This is really interesting. Boundaries is going to serve you. I mean, is that what you're looking for more than structure? It's like I get everything you're saying that, like, memoir is seen as a female genre and therefore it is not seen as very valuable. Women who write memoirs about the traumatic experience of being female often get lampooned. And it is seen as like, you know, a man writes a memoir and it's like a Pulitzer  Prize-nominated thing. And then the ground is littered with brilliant memoirs by women writing about female experience. So I see I see how you're concerned about like, oh, do I just not want to say that because I'm going to get shelved in this, like, chick-lit, tell-all memoir thing or do I need to flex my intellectual muscle so that you can see that I'm more than this. But it's like it's like looking at that. I feel like that's what this Boundaries card is about. 

Michelle Tea: It's like about boundaries more than structure and then Spirit, which is so interesting. So I'm like you. There is a, you are being guided by spirit through this and maybe to recognize that a little bit and let a little bit more of that in that there, you're not in this alone. You're not in your writing process alone. That magic that we spoke about earlier in our conversation, that's there's a spiritual dimension to this. And on some level, the act of writing this book is a spiritual act and these decisions that you're making have a spiritual dimension and I wonder if looking at it that way will be helpful. And then you have Move On, which is really interesting. And I feel like this is like make your decision and move on from it and write the book. Like, don't let the structural decision, like all of these things that you're reckoning with are so important and meaningful. But they also could become the process. And you don't want them to become the process. You want to just like make your decision, know that they'll all maybe there will always be a part of your mind that doubts that it was the right decision or sees the attractiveness in the road not taken accept that and move on and just finish a book because we're all dying to read it,

Tavi Gevinson: Oh, I feel so inspired and lucky and cared for. Move On is truly the name of the Stephen Sondheim song that I listen to when I'm stuck.

Michelle Tea: That's uncanny. I love that.

Tavi Gevinson: Yes, the line is "Anything you do, let it come from you, then it will be new." 

Michelle Tea: That's it! I mean, that's it, right? 

Tavi Gevinson: I really couldn't thank you enough. This is so. It's so amazing how, I don't know how much you're able to speak to both like these weird specifics of this writing process, including things I haven't even told you. And then also you know showing how the creative process is totally connected to this, these mystical forces.

[Music]

Emily Segal: Hello, I'm Emily Segal. I'm a writer, artist, trend forecaster, and occasional astrologer. This spell is for fresh and sweet writing. I think incorporating ritual elements into writing practice makes the whole thing a little bit cuter and a little bit more like going on a date with yourself which helps the whole thing feel less excruciating.

So you need some honey and if you are not a consumer of honey because you're going to drink it, you could use something else sweet that you do feel comfortable consuming. But honey is particularly special.

You need a cup. Eventually, you'll need some hot water. And you need something that you can play music with, and a pen and paper.

If you have an altar or a place where you put ritual objects then you can just use that. And if you don't have an altar, then I would suggest having a cloth and candle.

You should look up the hour of either Venus or Mercury. Mercury governs information, communication, transmission, information. So that's obviously good for writing. But Venus governs beauty and what brings us together and what we value, and aesthetics and sweetness. And so that's also excellent.

Figure out what time you want to do it. In a Venus hour or Mercury hour, and then you take some of your honey, and you put it in a cup. And you take the cup to the doorway. And so I would recommend going to a major entrance or egress so to the front or back door and it's a liminal space. So it's great for writing because in writing or reaching from this place into the next place and back.

And you ask the spirit of the doorway to bless the honey. And then you say thank you and carry the cup of honey over to your designated sweet altar — like spot or altar. You leave it there overnight. 

And then you take the honey and you pour hot or boiling water into it and you mix it all up. You might want to pick out at this point, like a song that you find it really easy and fun to dance to, and then you have your hot honey water drink and you stick your finger in it and just get a little droplet of it on your finger and you flick it at your butt and you say, “May my butt sit long and comfortably in my chair as I write.”

And then you take another little droplet and you sort of flick it at your head and you say, “May my head be in this world and the next.” 

And then you take another droplet of the honey water and you flick it at your other hand or hands and you say, “May my hands connect my heart and the page.”

And then you drink the honey water in full and savor it. Put on your headphones or turn on your music, however you wanna do it, and dance without stopping for the whole fun song that you picked out.

And then sit down right after you finish dancing like when you still kind of feel the music in your body and start writing. And I would recommend setting a timer and writing for 18 minutes as your kind of initial thing because 18 is a holy Jewish number. It means chai, it means life. And so doing things in increments of eighteen is always a blessed the thing to do.

And then if you feel like keeping going after the 18 minutes, obviously keep going. If you don’t feel like keeping going, don’t keep going. But hopefully whatever germinates in those initial 18 minutes on the heels of drinking the honey water and dancing to the song will be fresh and sweet writing that will sustain you.

[Music]

Michelle Tea: Hello, I had no idea that there is such a thing as the Spirit of the Doorway in our houses. I love this so much, and I love casting a honey spell upon my own butt to keep it sitting down and plugging away! Thank you Emily Segal. May I also recommend her book Mercury Retrograde as an excellent first-person narrative about auras and psychics and really finding your way as an artist. 

[Music]

Michelle Tea: Thanks for tuning into Your Magic.  Make sure you follow us on Twitter and Instagram @thisisyourmagic. You can subscribe to us right here on Spotify — do what you have to to never miss an episode. Also sign up for our newsletter at thisisyourmagic.com and get more musings from our team of spiritual seekers. And you can email us at hello@thisisyourmagic.com, we love hearing from you.

This episode was produced and edited by Molly Elizalde, Tony Gannon, and Vera Blossom. We got production support from Veronica Agard, Kristine Mar, and Raven Yamamoto. Our executive producers are Ben Cooley, myself, and Molly Elizalde. Our original theme music is by John Kimbrough. 

Tune in next week for a conversation with Saeed Jones.