Writers are Thieves

For writer's advice I consider great, please visit HollyLisle.com. You might recognize her as a fantasy author but she has also written some romance. She was formerly a R.N. and had a bumpy road to writing success and wishes us to know that it shall always be bumpy if you choose a writing career. She is frank and to the point and not wordy, something I find refreshing. It is something of a paradox as to why a writer would help for free so many struggling to write, there are some who say that writers do not compete with one another. I don't remember the origin of the quote, but a famous writer said that truly Norah Robert's sales will not hurt for instance Stephen King's because people follow that genre and who read King's stuff wouldn't read Ms. Roberts books anyway. It seems, if you just surf the Web, that everyone wants to be a writer these days. I think that people believe that it is easy, but once attempted, one will never think that again. Some I think just want to be a struggling writing and not do any writing at all, inspiration is skittish and our lives are busy and demanding. I am reminded that creativity often takes time. I am impressed at how often writers say that they start by doing nothing, idly taking long walks or working in a garden, or any activity that doesn't use a lot of brain power. Then, at odd moments, inspiration comes to you they say, when least expected.

(I find that I never get an idea when I have a pen in hand and blank paper in front of me and start commanding myself to think of something. It kills the process it seems, at least for me.)

I know that I have these wild and wicked dreams, to live off imagination seems as far away as dragons, or clouds. There is a great deal of work involved also, book writing is like ballet you know. Ballet is said to be "Making the difficult seem effortless." I think writing is the same.

I think "Know Your Ending" before you write good advice, tho' not written in stone by any means. Stephen King, that great writer who has earned millions, does not write this way. However the Harry Potter books were thought up at least, from the ending to the beginning, backwards. Reading how she created Harry Potter was one of the most fascinating things, she literally tells every detail of how she worked her books out. Amazing.

I hope that computers and great generous people like Ms. Lisle will create even more writers, because there is nothing I like better than to read. There can never be too many books in the world.

I am a great borrower of books and recently I read a post at Absolute Write that says that when you spend money on books you help the publishing industry. This is so obvious it shouldn't need to be said but I never thought about it that way. I spend as little on books as I can, wait for the paperback to come out on new books or for friends to loan me theirs, I am quite wicked. Now I buy more and I hope you will too. Let's support the bringers of dreams.

Where is my Manuscript?

The time it takes for a publisher to get back to you can drive some people bananas. There is an online magazine named "Clarksworld" which I hear accepts a manuscript in a mere 3 days. There is a lot of great fiction on the site and a request for donations and you can buy the fiction in book form. It seems a sci-fi magazine but it has good writing. Most publishers recommend you enclose a postcard so they can let you know that they've recieved your manuscript. Good Idea. There is even a site called The Black Hole which keeps statistics on how long it takes publishers to get back to you, which is a sci-fi, horror, fantasy site it appears also. There is a lot of help online for those of sci-fi persuasion. Cobblestone Press has a community you can join with workshops to help aspiring writers. It's all helpful, especially if you're wondering if your manuscript you are waiting to hear about so desperately isn't, really, lining someone's birdcage and catching poo.

Can You Judge A Book by it's Cover?

I think we do judge books by their covers, it's like a promise made to us of what is inside. I remember seeing "An Accidental Tourist" by Anne Tyler and I just had to read it. I was wondering about the title. For me it is the title that makes me pick up a book, and not the cover. They say men are more moved by photos and women more by the written word, so it may be that since I am female it is the title that draws me. I know a title drew me in and before I knew it I had devoured over five Anne Tyler books. Tyler is married to a phsychiatrist, which seems to contribute some to her style of writing since there is always a psychological reason for what the characters too. None of them seem to suffer from out there abuse or poverty and that is just so, just 'cause the author has been in this sort of sheltered life where the biggest problems seem to be in just finding one's way and identity.

Andre Norton, who took a man's name because she wrote man like books and who would read them done by a woman?, has passed away. Mercedes Lackey seem to fill that void very well with stunning language in the Norton tradition. Andre Norton refered to herself as a "staid teller of old-fashioned stories". The Norton title that first drew me in was "Moon of Three Rings" and in it were people who changed to animals and back again on a world where the Moon had 3 rings. This world of villages where people live in the Middle Ages is one we come to again and again, as if this is the home we best understand.

I remember seeing the "Sword of Shanana" and I had to read it this book in the Tolkein tradition.

I guess I will keep on judging books by the title and for the most part, this seems to work in helping me find a good book, very well.

Americans Don't Care

I was watching the news during the gasoline crisis when prices kept going up and it seemed there was no end in sight and some commentator on there said that Americans didn't care about the environment or higher gas prices because we kept buying SUVs. Then the other day it was said that Americans don't care about the new health care plan. I'll tell you what I think, I think it doesn't matter what we think. Sure, we have opinions but there is no one who cares about those opinions, and someone who talks about politics at our break is wasting our time and they get strident and sometimes start yelling, I guess because they are powerless and the whole thing is pointless anyway. I think if there was a place we could go and be heard we would go there but there is not. What is going to happen is going to happen by the powers that exist today and Rosie from Poonatkee doesn't matter. Pulic opinion polls do show that people think they are being lied to, imagine that!

The Path to Fortune

Mr. Garth has written the "Five Pillars of Fate" about 2nd century astrology and the Arabic lots. This means that the lot of fortune in your birth chart is also an Ascendant and there is another second house. The second house is what you do for a living and my birth chart has a second house of Capricorn but my fortune chart has a second house of Gemini. Gemini rules writing, teachers, wordplay, communications and twins. Capricorn is an earth sign ruling government, banks, time honored institutions, things from the earth such as gold or minerals, and older people especially men. The first house of your fortune chart rules you, your physical body and what type of person you are as well as your birth chart does. The ruler of both of my charts are in the fourth and the second house repectively, I mean the Ascendants. I am a person who loves books and words and also being at home. I took my last 2 vacations at home actually.

Still there is one more thing representing our life force and that is the lot of Spirit. Valens says to us from the second century "The Spirit and it's ruler govern matters concerning the soul, intellect and actions thourgh discourse and through giving and receiving." Here we are in all our glory or messed up condition as it may be. Mine is Gemini.

Fortune is our portion given to us, it is walking across the street and being hit by a bus because it is something that happens to you. You don't have any control over it. Spirit is ourselves deciding to cross the street. Our Sun Signs are us too more in the matter of personality. Our spirit is our style of doing things. Garth has his fingers on the astrology of Valens in an easy to understand book. The ninth house is the house of higher thought, of kings and queens, of where you are noble yourself, the ninth from the lot of fortune may tell you where you outdo yourself in royal style. I have Aquarius and Leo respectively. Dramatic and quirky. The tenth house of career will tell you public reputation and what you do and is along with the first one of the most powerful houses. The 10th house from the Lot of fortune and any houses in it have a lot to do with your success (or failure). I have Mercury in the second house as the tenth in my fortune chart and indeed Mercury rules my Lot of Exaltation. So it is how I see that this planet, more than any other, is what will power any success I will have in life. Astro.com will calculate the lot of fortune for you and then make a new chart with whole signs with the sign the lot of fortune is in as the first house. This new fortune chart is very enlightening. It is thought that if you were born at night then this lot is actually the Lot of Spirit as most reverse the formula for night births. Night people you count the degrees from the Moon to the Sun counter-clockwise and then count the same degrees from the Ascendant in the same counter-clockwise direction. I found this very difficult and actually mixed them up for many months. The ancients counted one two three and so can we, we can do it exactly as they did the Lots.

In some unclear way Neptune is tied up with your fortune, I don't understand it but cannot deny it is so. Jupiter is very important of course but Saturn figures karmically as signalling when we recieve what we are due.

We cannot decide our fortune but we can take the portion given to us and do with it what we can. Our fortune, like our talents, are given to us at birth.

The Anaretic Degree or Extremes in Motion or Pink Floyd's Roger Barrett

The 29th degree of Leo is the Ascendant of Pink Floyd's guitarist Roger Barrett. His use of LSD in the 60's has been talked about and it's been said he was a victim of the times he was born in, for drug use among muscians at that time was at an all time high. What is interesting is that this 29th degree means "being at the end of one's rope" and for Barrett it was issues about identity or "who am I?" Your entire life is supposed to be focused on that point as well as bringing out the extremes of that point. Leo is all about self-expression so his whole life was about expressing himself and doing so vividly, (Leo rules show business).
It is called the degree of fate for it's karmic implications.
He also had Pluto in the 12th house even as Kurt Cobain did which implies living on the edge of an abyss, ever in danger of catastrophe, always with things hidden deep within the self.
Since houses always work in pairs then 2 houses come into play. For me, it is the second and the eighth houses. I thought this amusing if rather sad that these are the money houses in one's chart, for lack of money dogs me like cigarette smoking or a black cloud that follows only me. A smoker must have their cigarettes and chosing between cigarettes and food I've always chosen the former as any smoker knows. These houses also stand for things we value, including ourselves. Self-esteem issues dog me, for I don't want to think of such things; I don't want to think about money at all. Other sources say the 29th degree is one of wisdom and of the fullest expression of that sign, others say it is a place of indecision, of not knowing what to do. Astrologically speaking, things are uncertain and not well understood. Certainly we know some things, for me the important real world house called the second falls on the 29th degree of Sagittarius and the rest of the house is in Capricorn. Now Capricorn in the second house is considered very good, Capricorns are quite good with money and get value for their dollar. However I am not good with money at all. The second house also represents assets, this is the plus side of the equation, this is how we make our money. It is called the house of survival. Here I have Mercury. I don't have a Mercurian job I have a job ruled by Saturn as I work in a poultry plant. Saturn rules Capricorn. Small animals are ruled by the 6th house, the house of work. What does it all mean?
I think it means that in a sense I have failed. If there was a test I missed it, I was absent that day.
According to some astrologers the planet ruling the house is more important than any planets actually in the house, and so free-wheeling Sagittarius who can't hold on to a buck or anything but their own heads is the sign on the cusp. Sagittarians are ruled by generous Jupiter because God takes care of drunks and children and this sign needs all the help it can get. Luck comes into play for this sign and being saved at the last minute. Now a Jupiter ruled house can't be all bad, can it?
These 2 opposites of poverty and wealth are in my second house, Jupiter and Saturn. I see this in my life. I see unexpected good luck but a steady never-ending river of bad luck to swim in. I feel that I must, absolutely must get in control of my financial life or face ruin of dynamic proportions. I am literally on my own, there is no help for me from family or inheritance, or retirement I mean nothing. That sounds like Saturn to me.
In the end I think it is Saturn that influences the second house and not Jupiter and so the 29th degree does not seem to be doing it's karma for me, though money issues are extremely a problem for me. So to study this in the realm of personal experience I say Sagittarius doesn't rule my second house, Saturn does so the idea of cusp rulers is a bunch of crap. The Ascendant is the most important personal point in the chart so in Barrett's chart it might be a different story. The second house is interesting to me because survival is the first and most important thing after all, and it isn't hard to understand the second. I don't know a great many things but I know who signs my paycheck.

The Tarot

I was given a deck of tarot cards at a young age and I have an opinion about these cards. You can also use a regular deck of cards to forsee the future, if you've a mind to do so. I think that time stands still in front of us sometimes for if the future was not already written then how could anyone see it? I just got a tarot reading online that was spot on, which shows me you don't have to have the actual cards in your hand for it to work. The cards "knew" what question I had asked, and that it was about work, but it's not the cards that know things. Who does? Why yourself of course.

I had a friend who told me that she had noticed that after you "cast" the cards over and over again that the cards ceased working, well your mind does get tired. Your subconcious seems to put the cards in their correct positions, telling you things you already know, just not consciously sometimes. You "find out" things you already sort of knew but were not acknowleding in this symbolic and lovely form. The cards aren't evil any more than it was true that witches can give you the evil eye as was believed for a century or more. People believed that someone could curse you just by looking at you. In a way, people's belief in the magic value of the tarot has me somewhat frustrated. It is magic in the sense that we all carry magic within ourselves. They don't make life better or worse, for much of life is just boring. I see a lot of hard work ahead for me, and I didn't need tarot cards to know that.