Horological Astrology Makes Area Writer's Head Explode

[dr_pretentious]

Next time I write a story from the point of view of a professional astrologer, I'm building an orrery in the living room to keep track of how the plot points align with the stars. What was I thinking?

Okay, the story rocks, and rocks more in part as a result of my insane formal discipline. But it would have been less work to write it in sestinas than to pin the plot down in real time to one month of real astrological aspects in 2004.

Comments

[shades-of-nyx.livejournal.com]

Natal astrology is hard enough. Horary work is crazy making. I've now taken several classes on it.

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

The only branch of astrology I'm any good at at ALL is electional (which amounts to a magical weather forecast), and I'm an armchair scholar at best. Basically, I can read my favorite astrological calendar well enough to notice good days and bad days for particular purposes. Sorta. I mean, I know enough not to sign contracts during a void of course moon, but not much more than that. :-)

[showingup.livejournal.com]

It's all rather daunting to me. Lots of symbols and lines and... oh dear.

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, these days, you don't have to be a math whiz -- let the computers do the math, it's what they're good at. Then all you have to learn is interpretation. Or you can get that from someone who already learned it, of course. :-)

You don't even need your own software; I've never heard a professional astrologer say anything but good about the accuracy of the charts produced by astro.com.

[showingup.livejournal.com]

I have gone online and got a couple of charts done - one by astro.com and... another which eludes me.

I ended up staring at 2 circles with loads of lines on, and Other Half saying, "Bloody hell - you've got all but one of your planets in 2 houses!" and then saying he wasn't sure about what all the rest of it meant. So I still need someone to sit down with me and walk me through it. Because either I'm being particularly obtuse, or I've just not found the right way for me to understand
what the parts are or how they fit together.

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

Ideally, you want someone who knows what they're talking about to interpret. But if you're interested in learning anyway, and want to get a head-start on it in self-study, the book you want to start with, my astrologer friends tell me, is some edition or other (there are several) of Parker's Astrology.

[showingup.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much indeed!

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

After writing Ria from the inside for a couple of years now, I am very sure I don't want to know much more horological astrology than I do right now. Her full-blown OCD make my tiny touch of it look pretty wimpy, but it would not be a good thing for my brain to get hooked on another body of lore that can become an infinite time sink.

[spiffnolee.livejournal.com]

You could have written it on a laptop from a sidewalk cafe in Prague, using this as your reference. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h25UOCtniZI

[showingup.livejournal.com]

Oooh! That prompted me to search YouTube for astrology lessons, and actually find some: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCnVUo4cDYM

Hey, onyxtwilight - there's hope for me yet!

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

Cool! :-)

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I will take any excuse to go to Prague. It's one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen. (Once Venice is done sinking into the sea, Prague will have no peer.) I was there for a few days in 1990, when the Velvet Revolution was recent and the Soviet soldiers, not yet ordered home, were selling their uniforms on street corners to buy food. Weird times.

I just finished reading Vaclav Havel's obituary. The world needs a whole bunch more like him. I may need to blog about that.

[thunderpigeon.livejournal.com]

I was about to comment:
"My damned story outline can't get past the marmalade..."
then I remembered that was not a sestina but a villainelle. Ah well.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

It's been a long time since I thought about that poem.

Clearly, it's time to pick a date for the Bad Poetry Party.

Oh, while we were clearing out heaps of paper in my study, we discovered an early draft of the Poetic License you and I made for leapfaith. That was one of the best gift ideas ever ever ever.

[thunderpigeon.livejournal.com]

That poem pops into my head from time to time. While it's not the most moving of your work, it scores high on the "nothing-else-like-it" meter.

By the way, did you see the post to this contest:
http://www.winningwriters.com/contests/wergle/we_guidelines.php

It seems like a great market for some of the old Queen of Cheese poems. I'm likely to send them "The Tygger" this year and then start working through my backlog. I figure at one poem a year, my backlog may last quite a while, even if I never write another humorous poem again (and how likely is that?). But it would be great to see some other QOC winners up there.