A Cure for Writer’s Block – Part Two

In my last post on March 19th, I told you I’d found a cure for writer’s block, by joining Authonomy.com.   My novel-in-progress had been lanquishing on my shelf and the encouragement and suggestions I received from other writers during the past few months helped me improve my book, also unlocking my “writer’s block”.   In order to go public (work showing on the site) a writer must upload 10,000 words of their manuscript.  I uploaded about 13,000 and my present word count is 37,000.

However, I ran into another block, this one created by the need to spend too much time on the site, reading, commenting and, quite frankly, being affected by the changing ranking numbers based on how much we commented on other books.  Two ranking scores are involved.  The TSR (Talent Spotting Rank) is based on your ability to choose other writers’ books to place on your “shelf” (you’re allowed five) that other writers also support.  If your ranking is high (which means the lowest number) then your support of other books counts more towards the ranking of the book you comment on.  Therefore, other writers are more likely to seek your comments by giving comments on your own book.

It also becomes necessary to frequently change the books on your shelf.  When favorably commenting on your book, a writer will give it a “spin” on their own shelves.  For many writers it reaches a stage of intense competition to get to the Editors Desk.  The top five books in ranking (numbers one through 5) reach the Editors Desk each month-end and receive a review by an editor.   From the reviews I’ve seen posted it appears some excellent books (most of which I’ve read at least the first few chapters) are said not to be commercial enough. 

One interesting one was chosen if the writer would change the actual premise of the book and rewrite it to the editor’s satisfaction, which I understand she is doing.   To my understanding this is the first book chosen from the top five since Authonomy began.  Another book was chosen to be published from much further down in the ranking (which never reached the ED) but it had been self-published by the author as a POD (print on demand) book before being uploaded. 

From estimates I’ve seen there are between 4,000 and 6,000 writers and/or books on the site (some writers have several books) and, from the ranking a writer is first assigned, in the 3,000 range, I would assume there are at least that many active manuscripts.

The higher (meaning lowest number) your book ranking the more you need to read and comment on other books in order to rise further.  This is fine if your book is complete and you’re only seeking feedback and suggestions for improvement, but if not, you find less and less time to work on your own.

You hear of people “stopping when they’re ahead” (probably in order to preserve their pride!).  My book ranking when I took my book down on July 5th was 178 (it had been as high as 167 I believe).  When the book is going up (lower score) it has a green arrow headed up, and when the ranking falls again (to a higher number) the arrow turns down and turns red!  This happens frequently to all books – the arrows keep turning green and then red – especially if you’re not getting enough comments and shelf space from other writers.   Naturally writers get anxious when the arrows turn red and offer swap reads – “I’ll read yours and comment if you’ll read mine and comment.”

Although I offered no swap reads I accepted them if I looked at the book and thought it something I wanted to read and comment on.

But I decided on July 5th to take my book down so I could have time to work on it.  I may re-upload it when it’s complete – or not, depending on whether I wish to at that time.  If I do, I have lost my ranking and will start over again at the bottom of the heap.

Also, with its Appalachian background it would probably be called a “niche” book, not likely to sell well (not commercial enough).  I’m writing it because I love to write and that is what I write.  In other words I write because I have to, whether my book is ever published or not. 

I believe there are many other writers on the site who write for the same reason I do and some of them are able to ignore the rankings but it’s hard not to get addicted to that green arrow!

I feel I’ve managed to pull myself away from one more addiction I allowed to take over my life for the past four-plus months.  But I gained from it and am glad I had the experience.   I bless all the writers there and wish them health and happiness.

A New Cure for Writer’s Block

Just in case you’ve missed me, and of course I hope you have, I’ve been busy since I found a new cure for writer’s block. That is, for a writer who keeps intending to get back to that Great American Novel (ha!) but keeps getting distracted by telephones, emails, kids, dogs, mealtimes and potty breaks. Join a writing group, and suddenly you’re fired up again. Because other writers are reading your work, making comments and you’re reading their work, making comments, etc.  Actually, we even give each other helpful advice. It’s fun!

I found out about Authonomy.com in mid-February and joined up. Although Authonomy is located in the United Kingdom the site welcomes writers from all over.  I uploaded Calliput Mountain-Hanged Man Holler, parts of which is on this blog, but since joining Authonomy my word count has gone up another 7000 words or thereabouts (in just over a month!).

So join the fun. Meantime, the ice and snow have melted in Iowa and I’m walking Winston again, which is when I get my ideas for my blog.  I hope you will drop in again soon! Y’all come back now.

BTW, you don’t have to be a writer to join (and it’s free). You can register online, read works in progress in any genre, commenting on them like a real editor

Obama and the Ocean of Myth

“The old Chinese saying is fitting: the plans of man are no match for the plans of the heavens. What people must now ask is, can Obama become the proverbial hero made by the times?”  Watching America by Tao Wenzhao November 5, 2008

In a recent comment to a post in which I said McCain would win the presidency, a reader mocked that since Obama had won by a wide margin didn’t that prove astrology doesn’t work. I gave a rather lame response, answering in part:

“-many things go into the final selection (of the president). Not the least of which is the collective need of the people.”

I’ve been mulling this over ever since. “The collective need of the people?”

We saw the results, but what is this “collective need”? During the entire election process I was puzzled by the overwhelming aspects of Neptune in the charts I drew, of the candidates, the United States, and the transits. Its other-worldly vibrations seemed to be everywhere, its symbol peering at me from every chart I drew. At the same time transiting Neptune, a very slow-moving outer planet, had been squaring my natal Mars for the past two years. I repeatedly asked myself: Where am I being pressured (square) by my inner spiritual needs, to direct my energies?

And then I ran across a statement by Dane Rudhyar:  “Transits of Neptune refer to the pressure of collective or group factors upon the individual fighting for his right to be an individual.”

A Small Collective Event

On June 13, 2008 my home was almost destroyed by the Cedar Rapids, Iowa flood, and is still being rebuilt. Neptune also rules water and Mars also rules injury — my property was injured by water. However, about 4000 homes were damaged or destroyed in the flood. How were the other 3,999 related to mine? In a mundane sense we were all in physical proximity to a flooding river, experiencing a collective event. However, as a student of astrology I’m impelled to search for a deeper personal meaning for my life,  but I’ll save that for another post.

Neptune and the Larger Collective

Psychologically, Neptune represents our ideals. Some will find it in religion and it puts us in touch with the need to have faith, to trust in what is unknown. It gives inspiration to the arts and to the mystic, the humanitarian, and has been called the higher octave of Venus, the planet of love. It reflects our perception of the divine and the urge to merge with something greater than ourselves. It represents our dreams.

But some dreams die in tragedy and myths are made. Our dream of Camelot ended many years ago with the assassination of a beloved president, and the dreams of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were cut down in their prime. The fading myth of Camelot remained only in the collective conscious of the people. Since then we’ve been starved for myth, even as the world exploded with new technology, and other changes initiated by Uranus and structured by Saturn. Neptune’s influence was there too, moving slowly through our subconscious, casting its ethereal glow into the hearts and minds of the people.

All these influences are only influences and are neither good nor bad. It is up to us how we chose to use them, for good or ill. Some felt the warming rays of universal love, while others found new paths to deception, hiding their deeds in a Neptunian fog.

So the people suffered and the call went forth in a collective cry, and was answered with a riddle. Which myth doth thou want? That of the old warrior who has been tested by the proverbial fire and proved his mettle, or the untested youth with a head full of dreams? The vestiges of the myth of Camelot was awakened as a new warrior appeared, by the name of Obama.

As for McCain, although he had the ability and experience, at the end he fell on his sword. If he’d gone to DC to slay the dragon instead of voting for the bailout he may have won. Who knows? The myth of Camelot was strong, fed by Neptunian illusions throughout Obama’s candidacy.

The collective need of the people was for a hero, a conqueror who would solve all their ills. If Obama comes even close to meeting those needs, then he has been ordained by fate to serve the people, not only of this land but of the world. But he is already being tested and Neptunian delusions created by those who would use her influence for ill-gotten gains still hide within the fog.

A future collective event looms in the mist; will Obama become the proverbial hero made by the times? Or will the times expose and break him, sending yet another martyr  into the teeming ocean of myth?

The Inauguration: Champagne in DC Beer Here

You know that old saying – champagne taste and beer money. “
Well, the champagne will be flowing in DC next week (while Michelle dazzles us with her new clothes). Meantime, the rest of us are out of beer money. The new administration should be ashamed of the ostentatious display the press is going gaga over. Is this to be a coronation (of the Crown Prince of Duplicity) or is it the installation of a responsible leader?

First the government bails out the rich banksters flying private jets, now the incoming administration is emulating their rich lifestyles while they talk about more bailout money. Don’t fool us with talk of stimulus money – if any of it reaches the pockets of  the peons , it will end up in the coffers of the rich the country is bailing out. 

I dedicate the following song to all the people who, like me, find the whole thing disgusting. Presidential inaugurations should be celebrated, not choreographed like a line of dancers in a top hat burlesque show.

BEER BARREL POLKA
Writers Lew Brown, Wladimir A. Timm, Jaramir Vejvoda

There’s a garden, what a garden

Only happy faces bloom there

And there’s never any room there

For a worry or a gloom there

Oh there’s music and there’s dancing

And a lot of sweet romancing

When they play the polka

They all get in the swing

 

Every time they hear that oom-pa-pa

Everybody feels so tra-la-la

They want to throw their cares away

They all go lah-de-ah-de-ay

Then they hear a rumble on the floor, the floor

It’s the big surprise they’re waiting for

And all the couples form a ring

For miles around you’ll hear them sing…

 

Roll out the barrel, we’ll have a barrel of fun

Roll out the barrel, we’ve got the blues on the run

Sing boom tararra, ring out a song of good cheer

Now’s the time to roll the barrel, for the gang’s all here

Da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da

So, if you can find enough people still employed who can swing for the beer, let’s all emulate Washington: Dance! Sing! Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Andy Adams – Kentucky Coal

The above video of an interview with my brother Andy Adams of Hazard, Kentucky in Appalachia took place twenty-seven years ago when he was fifty years old, and had achieved the American Dream.

His photo on the cover of my family book Stories of a Kentucky Mountain Family was taken when he was just sixteen, with our youngest brother Hale, who was six. When our dad died, leaving eight children, Andy quit school and went to work in the coal mines of eastern Kentucky to support his mother and siblings.

Later, after being injured at the mines during a dynamite blast, he forged a birth certificate to prove he was eighteen and drove semi-trailers across the country. He also worked in the factories in Detroit, and when he came home he paid our debt at the general store.

Andy was my hero. Hale and I, the two youngest, often watched for him to come home. Memories still linger in my mind of him coming up the path on crutches after the blast at the mines, smiling at us through his pain as we waited on the front porch, and later, watching him swing down from the giant cab of a truck as he came home to check on us.

In the video he tells you himself that he achieved the American Dream, a man who only finished the eighth grade and was self-educated. He was also self-directed, with a can-do, positive attitude towards life and work that he passed along to all of us.

When he passed away on March 14 2001, I was with him. A few hours before, he had pointed over my shoulders and said “Your brothers.” I turned automatically towards the wall and said “Where?” He had a disappointed look on his face, realizing I hadn’t seen them. It was the only time I remember disappointing him. But I knew at that moment that the three brothers who had already passed on were waiting to greet him.

Andy was a hero for our times. A young man of sixteen who became a substitute father to his siblings. He set an example for all of us. I hope he knows how much he was loved.

Astrology Harmonics for Obama’s Birth In Kenya

Obama 47thHarmonic Based on Kenya Birth

I believe Obama was born in Mombasa, Kenya at 7:24 in the evening. If so, why does it matter? For one thing, it would make his natal Ascendant 27 Aquarius, which exactly conjuncts the Moon in the United States Sibley chart, ruling the people, and he apparently appeals to the majority of the people in this country, in spite of all the doubts and unanswered questions that have surrounded him and his past.

I don’t care if his mother was only eighteen years old at the time of his birth (and why would that not make her a citizen?) or if he was born in Kenya and she later registered his birth in Hawaii.

What I do consider questionable is the way the cover up has been handled. Why did his campaign try to hide the truth? Why not be up front and get the question of his natural born citizenship out of the way before the election instead of assuming the question would go away if simply ignored?

Harmonic Charts

I’ve become enamored with John Addey’s Harmonics in Astrology, especially when he relates the possibility of the age harmonic giving indications for that year of life, i.e. that a 47th harmonic chart might well describe the 47th year in a person’s life. I did a 47th harmonic chart for Obama, born on August 4, 1961 for his birth in Mombasa, Kenya and another for his birth  in Honolulu, Hawaii. I would naturally assume that his mother, when registering his birth in Hawaii, would’ve given the time he was born in Kenya, as a mother would be wont to do, and which is given as 7:24 pm.

I’ve come to the conclusion the Kenyan chart is more indicative of the Obama we’ve come to know throughout this turbulent election cycle. Although the birth for Hawaii has favorable aspects, the one for Kenya is packed with plutonic power. The midheaven at 7 Virgo conjunct his natal Pluto (which sextiles his Neptune) also expresses the cosmic energies of Mars conjunct Pluto–indicating the super power with which this candidate, in spite of his sparse record as a junior senator from a state well-known for political corruption, was able to overcome a questionable background, despite all obstacles, on his way to becoming the president-elect of the United States.

Also, not only is his natal Ascendant, if born in Kenya at 7:24 pm, exactly conjunct the United States Sibley chart Moon at 27 Aquarius, but it is also conjunct his natal South Node (conjunct the United States Moon) opposing his North Node on the 7th cusp, conjunct his Uranus, the planet of “change”.

A Strange Full Moon on December 12, 2008

The full moon on December 12th had transiting Saturn T-square the Sun and Moon. What is strange is that transiting Saturn at 21 Virgo is also on the Ascendant of Biden’s 66th Harmonic chart and the Ascendant of McCain’s 72nd Harmonic chart, which would also conjunct, of course, Obama’s natal Mars, McCain’s natal Venus and the United States Neptune (and close to Biden’s natal Midheaven). What does this mean? I wish I could tell you, but the truth is, I don’t know. But it makes me uneasy. Maybe a worthier student of astrology could give you an answer, or, as they say, time will surely tell.

As a parody of what politicians say “I was for him before I was against him”, I saw Obama on TV when he spoke before the Democrat Convention in 2004 and was impressed. “This man,” I thought, “is so inspiring! He has a future in politics.” But later, when he ran, I was appalled by his questionable connections to people who hated America. I am still suspended in disbelief.

In spite of that, I don’t believe the status of his birth, whether in Kenya or Hawaii, is relevant. If the electors vote him in on the fifteenth, I will honor him as my president come Inauguration Day in January–should it come to pass. I still feel twinges of doubt that it will happen. I don’t know why.

Is somthing else going to happen before Inauguration Day on January 20th? Less than a week later a Solar Eclipse occurs at 6 Aquarius, which conjuncts the United States chart’s South Node. Plus Saturn is still opposing Uranus. I believe more revelations may be coming, but I have no idea  what, or from which direction.  

Thought for the Day: November 13, 2008

If you wonder who you are, just be yourself and you’ll find out. Let your inner light become your outer expression.

Thought for the Day: November 12, 2008

Love is never wrong. If professed love does harm, it is something else.

Amanda’s Thought for the Day

We’ve all heard that the world is divided into two types of people, the givers and the takers. However, there’s also a third type: the ones who are happy to give yet refuse to be taken.  They are the foundation of democracy.

Robin Williams as The American Flag