I’m tired today, but I’ve made a pretty sincere effort to spend more time on my blog and I don’t want to get out of the habit. Afterall, I love my blog. Today, I’ve brought you funny critters.
Month: September 2015
Astrology and Writing
*Links to all information is provided in the text (hover your mouse and click). If you’d like to share anything else found on the subject, please leave a comment. All in the name of fun, of course.*
Strange bedfellows? I think not. I’ve compiled some different links regarding astrology and writing/writers.
I googled “Writers and astrology” and I came up with a long list of interesting things. The first of which, a blog post from fellow WordPresser, Michael Alexander Chaney. In the post, there is a complete horoscope for each zodiac sign pertaining to writing and a list of famous authors born in those signs. Nobody was born on my birthday, though (bummer). But, in the name of astrology and fun, here is what the post said for Cancer:
The Great Allegorist. Sensitive, driven by the heart, pleasantly reserved, the Cancer is a consummate writer. As poets, they have deep-seeded romantic tendencies, aware of beauty and the pull of a universal truth even when experimenting at the edges of reality. However modernistic or postmodern the primary strains of their writing may be, Cancers seek the truth. Typically prepossessing as individuals known for their beauty, the Cancer is suspicious of surfaces, grasping instead for that which lies beneath fair exteriors. This tendency lends their work a noticeable darkness, which contrasts against that other remarkable trait in their writing—a penchant for rigid moralizing. Many Cancer writers burst onto the scene with a blockbuster or a masterwork and then retire, crablike, to a more comfortable seclusion.
Another post found here gives a shorter horoscope, but is just as much fun to read as the others.
I found a list of each zodiac and one author born under each sign, too. Here it is:
Aries: Maya Angelou
Taurus: Shakespeare
Gemini: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Cancer: Dan Brown
Leo: J. K. Rowling
Virgo: Agatha Christie
Libra: Oscar Wilde
Scorpio: Sylvia Plath
Sagittarius: Jane Austen
Capricorn: Edgar Allan Poe
Aquarius: Virginia Woolf
Pisces: Anais Nin
And, there’s this:
If anybody knows of any more astrology posts about writing, please share them! There are links at the bottom of the page for other things I found, too. Enjoy!
About Rhiannon Mills
Rhiannon Mills lives, loves, and writes in the mysterious mountains of West Virginia. When she isn’t writing, she’s sewing, baking, blogging, reading, or watching documentaries about any number of things.
More Links:
If you want to be a writer, what sign should you be? From Ohio Astrology.
What makes a writer? From Astrolo Cherry.
What your zodiac sign says about your career, From CNN.
Author Crowdfunding Gone Too Far?
*Disclaimer: No crack was consumed during the writing of this post, or ever, by the author, Rhiannon Mills.
Being a writer is nothing like I thought it would be when I was nine years old. At that age, I read, for the first time of many, Anne Rice’s “Interview With A Vampire” after watching the film (Nine year old me did everything bass ackwards). I was hooked on writing from that moment forward because, though I’d always loved reading, I realized I could turn the mush in my head into something beautiful, too. From then on, I was a writer.
It isn’t a glamorous lifestyle for the vast majority of us, either. Writers have struggles like everyone else. We have bills to pay, children to raise (and eventually send to college), and, for many, there isn’t enough time in the day to accomplish everything we want to. I’m up before the sun to get my kids ready for school. After that, it’s laundry, grocery shopping, meal planning, and caring for home and hearth while my husband sleeps. But, it doesn’t end there. At 3:30, my husband wakes, showers, and dresses for work while I pack his lunch and stack his paperwork on top of his lunch bag. Then, the afternoon circus begins! The minute I’ve packed his last sandwich and he leaves for a long night at work, the kids waltz through the door and it’s homework and dinner time, which often takes hours. By the time everyone is fed, educated, and bathed, my brain is mush.
And, heaven forbid someone have a doctor’s appointment! I need a coffee IV and crack to get through those days! *See disclaimer at the top of the page.*
Somehow, through the disaster that is my life, I manage. My husband, bless his brave soul, is a coal truck driver. To help make ends meet, we budget every penny. I clip coupons, plan weekly menus, look for sales, compare prices on everything we buy and, on occasion, take small sewing jobs for a few extra bucks. We paid our taxes last year with money I earned baking my cousin’s wedding cake.
But, not once have I ever begged other people for money so I could write full time! Sure, I have my husband’s income, whereas a single writer would be on their own, but I really feel like I’d have more time to write if that were the case. Maybe I’m wrong about that. If I am, please leave a comment and weigh in with your own struggles (and cheers to you, too).
I’m quite certain that there are a lot of crowdfunding pages throughout the internet for very good causes. Examples of what I feel are good causes are:
- Families or individuals who lost everything to a natural disaster or housefire.
- Families or individuals inflicted with a medical crisis.
- Those trying to raise money for schools, nursing homes, or programs where the funds will go toward the greater good (example: new library books, walkers for the elderly, or new playground equipment to replace the faulty or unsafe).
Let me be clear.
Crowdfunding is not a means to survival! If an author cannot earn enough money through their books to live on, it’s time to evaluate needs versus wants. Example: You need to eat, but you want to sit on your butt and ponder the meaning of life.
It’s not enough to offer those who donate the prize of a few ebooks or audiobooks. Readers can just buy those from Amazon, lickity split, if they want them. Crowdfunding is not an unofficial welfare program! Your readers are not responsible for your Kibbles-N-Bits, YOU are! Your readers should be respected, not used as your personal ATM. If they enjoy your work, they’ll pay for it and you will earn a royalty check, not a handout from the magic social media fairy.
There’s a real meaning behind the phrase “starving artist.” If you’re ever going to make it to George RR Martin or Anne Rice status, you have to start somewhere else. Nobody starts at the top. Ask Stephen King about starting small. He talks all about his humble beginnings in “On Writing.” Before you make it, you might have to fold sweaters at GAP or stock shelves at Wal-Mart first. You might even have to serve umpteen Jager Bombs to jerks who like to call you “Sugar Tits” and “Princess Pretty Panties” at a bar that only plays country music (like I did). You might have to work long days, longer nights, and drive to work through snow storms, on icy roads, and work Thanksgiving and Christmas, completely missing out on Grandma’s baked ham and pumpkin pie. But, DAMMIT, those are life experiences and they are worth every miserable minute!
Every single time your boss tells you to work Saturday when you were supposed to have that day off or your paycheck is just ten dollars short of what you need it to be, you’ve added a dirty, scummy, gritty notch in the belt of your worthwhile life experiences. And, you can’t write without life experience.
I may only be a small fish in a big sea, but the water here is fine. I’m not saying I want to be here forever. All writers have goals and mine will one day take me into deeper waters if I’m lucky. Until then, I’m going to put the work in. I’m going to submit novels, novellas, short stories, and magazine articles until editors are tired of seeing my name in their slush piles. I’ll earn my stripes, thank you. The success will taste so much sweeter that way.
About Rhiannon Mills
Rhiannon Mills lives, loves, and writes in the mysterious mountains of West Virginia. When she isn’t writing, she’s sewing, baking, blogging, reading, or watching documentaries about any number of things.
LINKS:
Full Time Author by author Payne Hawthorne on GoFundMe.
NOTE–by all means, donate if you feel this is a worthy cause. Don’t let my opinions sway you.
Buy Stephen King’s book, “On Writing” from Amazon.
Back to Huntsville I go!
Several years back, I published my first two books with a vanity publisher because I was a noob and knew no better. I have since mended my evil ways and go with actual publishers (the kind that pay me lol), but those first two books are lost to me for seven years apiece. I could get my rights back, but it would cost me big bucks to do so, so I wait until the contracts for each book are up.
And, boy, I can’t wait until then!
In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about returning to the world in which those two books were written. After all, my first book was penned simply because I loved vampires and I don’t remember ever being happier than when I was writing Immortal Ties, a vampire romance. Vampires are my first love, you know.
*NOTE* – Don’t go buy Immortal Ties. I’m going to rerelease both Immortal Ties and Immortal Embrace when I get the rights back. I might even release them FREE because I’m awesome like that.
Here’s the basic premise of the Immortal books: There’s a demon named Lileth contracting vampires to work for her. When I say “work” I mean make little half-human, half-vampire babies. She makes them into incubuses (incubi? I have no idea–nobody does–and I’ve found books using each plural form). Lileth’s plan is to take these halfling babies to create an army for herself. However, along the way, some of these vampires get off track. Sometimes, mortals get involved by no faults of their own. And, sometimes there are vampire hunters. Yeah.
The reason I’m working on looking into writing another Huntsville story is because I miss that world. I really do. And now that I’ve shared this with you guys, I’m off to do writery things.
~Rhiannon
Rhiannon Writes On 