Radical Departure: Borrowing a Cup of Sugar

 

© 2011 by Joyce Mason

All Rights Reserved

In case you’re wondering what on Earth is going on here, see No Small Change on The Radical Virgo. During October and November, I’ll be doing short posts to take you along for the wild ride of rewriting and getting my humorous, metaphysical mystery book ready for submission to the St. Martin’s Press annual First Mystery Novel Contest.

Since returning to my current rewrite of The Crystal Ball, I’ve felt like an out-of-era Betty Crocker trying to bake the perfect cake by the end of November. I’m up to my ears in flour and various ingredients, apron full of splotches. I thought I had everything I needed. I thought Life’s Companions, The Crystal Ball’s unpublished predecessor, contained most of the necessary ingredients. I figured I’d only have to rework it a little. I went to borrow a cup of sugar from the last incarnation of this book and discovered there were only a few tablespoons left.

In other words, I have changed the plot and focus so much, there isn’t nearly as much that I can borrow—at least in the first two thirds of the book. That means more creative writing in a hurry. Just when I was starting to freak out at the size of the task and its time pressures, I stumbled on an inspiration. If people across the country can write a book in a month during the annual NaNoWriMo event, I can certainly come up with the rest of this one in six weeks. Or so I keep telling myself! November is National Novel Writing Month, what the acronymn NaNoWriMo stands for. Maybe I’ll inspire you to join me on your own writing ride!

This would be a good time to discuss my writing process. The two extremes of writing habits are people who outline and those who fly by the seat of their pants or make it up as they go. I’m primarily a seat of the pants writer who works with a skeletal outline or story arc. Other writers have told me they outline more, the more they write. I’ll be thanking God for Sr. Fabian, my 8^th grade nun who was a fanatic about teaching us how to outline with all the appropriate Roman Numerals, numbers, and parenthetical numbers and letters. I never thought such an excruciating skill to learn might come in handy some day.

As far as my mystery is concerned, I know whodunit, howdunit, wheredunit, and whydunit. It’s just the middle of the Oreo—the filling—that needs a little more substance. I’m sure it’ll look like a cake, or at least a cookie, before I know it—I hope.

There’s nothing novel about a tablespoon of the good old Virgo self-doubt!

Halloween’s around the corner, Maybe I should throw in some eye of newt.

As an update from last week, my visit with my niece and family has actually confirmed the authenticity of many nuances in the relationship of my protagonist, Micki, with her nieces. I see I drew deeply from my Auntie Joyce role (the actual one, rather than the slightly snarky comedian you sometimes see on this blog.) I also got quite a surprise, an example of art imitating life in an intuitive preview. Something that I’ve been planning for Micki’s nieces in the second book in the series is likely happening to my actual nieces in real life.

Art imitating life just proves life is art!

Hope you all had a good Full Moon in Aries this week. Seeing Dawn, my stellium in Aries niece with most of her close-knit family? The most literal manifestation of an Aries Full Moon I’ve had in years!

~~~

Photo Credit: © Scott Griessel - Fotolia.com

Don’t forget the October Fiction Fest Comment Contest!

You may be the lucky winner of a free mystery anthology.

No Small Change on The Radical Virgo

Bell Rock rings and whispers oracular things.

Dear Radical Readers,

Welcome to the World of Rapid Evolution! The current astrological patterns in the sky reflect that dramatic change is required of all of us in our current time/space continuum. The Radical Virgo is not exempt from this atmosphere. I have much to share about some transitions that I’m beginning to make on this blog. I hope you’ll enjoy the new direction as much as you have our adventures together in the past.

Voices on the Vortex. Last May, I was blessed with a huge cosmic hint near Bell Rock in Sedona, AZ. A sentence entered my mind out of nowhere: You need to get a master's degree in mythology. I knew I’d never think of such a thing myself, so I figured it was divinely inspired. Like anyone who follows her Moon as her inner GPS, I went right to my motel room and Googled "master’s degree mythology" plus my zip code. What came up was the Joseph Campbell School of Mythology at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, CA.

To make a very long story short, after scratching my head for months on how I’d afford this program in both time and money, I ultimately realized that this message was figurative, not literal. This realization followed another aha. After being steeped in the Chiron archetype of unresolved pain for nearly two months with my Chiron 101 class, I was ready to have fun! A lighter weight project cried out to me, and in keeping with my vow to take on nothing new till 2013, an unfinished project on the back burner jumped to mind. Maybe it was time to complete the rewrite on my humorous, metaphysical mystery book. Hmm, I thought. The St. Martin's Press annual First Mystery Novel contest usually occurs in the late part of each year. If it were late enough, I'd have time to enter. The deadline is Nov. 30. I realized the Bell Rock message had another translation. A master in mythology is a master of storytelling or fiction.

The cosmos has opened in every way to say YES to this interpretation! When I first came back to astrology in 2009 after a long hiatus, one of my goals was to re-establish the great audience of readers I had enjoyed in the past. Not only did I want to share more cosmic ideas, but I'd hoped I could bring many of you with me to my writing in other genres. You probably won't be surprised to hear that the protagonist of my novel is an eclectic astrologer--and the president of a longevity association. Whether or not I win the contest, the Oracle at Bell Rock has spoken! I'll have a salable manuscript by December 1. If I win (visualize that with me), Yay! If not, I'll start looking for an agent or self-publish.

Transitions. This new direction means I can no longer devote the many hours to blogging and my monthly newsletter that I have done during the past 2.5 years. There are things I'll have to let go in order to claim what has been my dream for as long as I can remember. That's not easy for a Plutonian person who has more than her share of attachment issues!

When I was a college freshman, if someone asked me what I wanted out of life, I would say, naïve as it sounds, "to make people happy." I feel this new direction will allow me to slip readers a Mickey of wisdom through laughter, adventure, and storytelling. (I guess that's a pun, because my protagonist is named Micki.) I want to leave people smiling and thinking, and in the fiction genre, I can pull out all the stops for hilarity.

The Changes. My recent New Moongram will by my last monthly newsletter. The Moongram will now come quarterly at the Solstices and Equinoxes and offer more eclectic news. Even though it won’t necessarily be Moon-focused, the Radical Virgo Moongram still feels like the right title, because everything I share with you is colored with intuition and lunar guidance.

Many other astrologers blog about the New Moon, and I know you'll find new sources and perspectives to explore to get your monthly New Moon booster shot. (Those not on the e-mail list have probably done that already, since the Moonwalks and the Moongram merged and became exclusive to the mailing list.) After 23 years of conducting ceremonies at the Cardinal Turning Points, celebrating the solstices and equinoxes is one of my biggest contributions to my local community--and soon my virtual community through The Radical Virgo Moongram.

During the next two months of intense writing, I'm going to do short journal entries sharing the experience with you on The Radical Virgo. This transitional feature will be called A Radical Departure.  It will give my readers a vicarious chance to experience writing a book with me. I hope that you'll also share my excitement about where I'm headed.

I have several late-year posts ready, and there will naturally be some holiday fun. In 2012, I plan to convert The Radical Virgo to a website. It's likely to have blog component for alerting you to occasional new articles, if you subscribe to the feed or by e-mail. The beauty of the website conversion is that it will offer you easier access to material by topic. There are nearly 170 posts on The Radical Virgo, most of them full-length articles. (You’ve probably not read them all, and there are likely some new finds for you in the old archives.) Articles are more difficult to locate in the journal-style chronology by date that's the standard template of blogs. I'm envisioning tabs for major topic areas. As the spirit moves and time allows, there will be new articles.

And to you, my loyal readers, I say, Stick with me. The fun has just begun!

Jupiter is currently trine my Moon, and in late March (just about the time the contest winner is announced), T-Jupiter enters my 1st House. I hope you're as excited for me as I am about where the Moon has led me. And since you've gone with me to the Moon so many times before, I hope you're "in" for the next ride!

Once The Radical Virgo becomes a website/blog with occasional blog notices to alert you to new articles posted, it will be more important than ever to subscribe by e-mail or feed to be on top of what’s new. Joining my e-mail list is also worth your while! Discounts on books and services will continue to be given through the Moongram e-mails. If you haven’t signed up, take less than a minute to do it now on the top of the sidebar. You won’t miss a thing, and the communiqués are spaced far enough apart that I hope you’ll be happy to hear from me.

I can’t wait to share with you a mix of astrology and other esoteric arts mixed in with storytelling, adventure, and humor. In my next post, you’ll hear just what this novel is all about. I’ll be back between now and late November to share the process!

Thanks for your continued support,

Joyce