“If you don’t know what it is, don’t mess with it.”
~ Fats Waller, b. 21 May 1904
http://pinterest.com/pin/39406565462186070/
Ernest Hemingway: “A true writer should always try for something that’s never been done.”
20 May
“For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.”
~ ERNEST HEMINGWAY
http://pinterest.com/pin/39406565462181456/
Blues Tutorial #10: Good places for the blues – highway, jailhouse, empty bed, and bottom of a whiskey glass.
19 May
Blues Tutorial #10:
Good places for the blues: (a) highway, (b) jailhouse, (c) empty bed, (d) bottom of a whiskey glass. Bad places: (a) ashrams, (b) gallery openings, (c) Ivy League institutions, (d) golf courses.
http://pinterest.com/pin/39406565462175469/
Warning: This novel contains trace amounts of astrology!
19 May
The other day I was browsing through some recent Amazon reviews of my hard-boiled mystery thriller Harm’s Way. It was originally published years ago under a pseudonym at St. Martin’s Press, but I rewrote it in 2011 and self-published it under my own name, eventually offering it free in 2013 to pique interest in my other mystery/thrillers.
In one review the reader complained that Montreal wasn’t Los Angeles and I wasn’t Raymond Chandler. Although I’d suspected the latter already, I was still pleased he’d correctly identified a writer whose style I’d emulated in writing the novel.
The reader went on to grumble, however, that the novel contained too much cat, as well as too much astrology. Just to paint the big picture, my private investigator owned a cat which was savaged by a rogue Doberman in the first chapter, thus requiring the attentions of a lady vet with whom my hero subsequently became, um, intimately involved.
As for the astrology, my hero had a longstanding astrologer lady friend with whom he occasionally sought counsel. In the novel, astrology was discussed in two scenes totalling less than 1400 words; in a novel of approximately 80,000 words, that’s roughly 1.7%.
Although little more than a page and a half every hundred pages, it was obviously too much – constituting a near-toxic dose for my reader, whose belief system was apparently so challenged by those few pages that he fell into a fever of intolerance, almost shutting down his reading experience.
In all fairness, perhaps he does suffer from allergies – probably to cats, but maybe also to open-mindedness. There’s a lot of that going around. Even among some of my own friends, who know I’ve been a professional astrologer for 30 years, there’s this attitude: Practice astrology all you want with the kooks you call your clients, but when it comes to writing novels, please don’t inflict that nonsense on the rest of us.
Luckily, I’m still amused by the ignorance of people ever ready to criticize things they know nothing about. Ironically, many of astrology’s harshest critics never read any serious books on the subject, nor consulted professional astrologers. Everyone wants the easy route, and clearly it’s less effort to develop an uninformed opinion than an informed one. As Sir Isaac Newton chided a fellow scientist critical of Newton’s interest in astrology, Newton said, “Sir, I have studied the subject. You have not.”
Anyway, that review got me thinking… Do we now live in an age where the public’s attitude toward astrology is as virulent as its allergy to peanuts, shellfish and soy? Do I need a consumer label on my book covers, saying: “Warning! This novel contains trace amounts of astrology. Those of a fragile mind are cautioned to browse elsewhere less you catch a New Age virus.”
Good thing this particular reader hadn’t discovered my New Age noir mystery thriller Scorpio Rising, whose content dedicated to astrology, palmistry and other esoteric subjects runs to 10%. If he’d read that, he might have died of anaphylactic shock, and I’d be facing a lawsuit.
~~~
Alan Annand is an astrologer (Dipl-FAS, Dipl-ACVA) based in Toronto. He is also the author of several mystery thrillers, and some of his novels feature shockingly-realistic depictions of major and minor characters who are also astrologers.
Tina Fey, b. May 18: “A rectal thermometer’s the best way to take a baby’s temperature. Plus, it teaches the baby who’s boss.”
18 May
“A Harvard Medical School study has determined that rectal thermometers are still the best way to tell a baby’s temperature. Plus, it really teaches the baby who’s boss.”
~ Tina Fey, b. 18 May 1970
http://pinterest.com/pin/39406565462171560/
Heinrich Heine: “There is no Sixth Commandment in art.”
16 May
“There is no Sixth Commandment in art. The poet is entitled to lay his hands on whatever material he finds necessary for his work.”
~ HEINRICH HEINE
http://pinterest.com/pin/39406565462163084/
David Byrne, b. May 14: “An artist’s creativity comes from torment.”
14 May
“I subscribe to the myth that an artist’s creativity comes from torment. Once that’s fixed, what do you draw on?”
~ David Byrne, b. 14 May 1952
http://pinterest.com/pin/39406565462152762/
Blues Tutorial #9: You can’t have no blues in an office or shopping mall.
9 May
Blues Tutorial #9:
You can’t have no blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting is all wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.
http://pinterest.com/pin/39406565462131523/
Peter Benchley: “Writing is sweat and drudgery most of the time.”
8 May
“Writing is sweat and drudgery most of the time. And you have to love it in order to endure the solitude and the discipline.”
~ Peter Benchley, b. 8 May 1940
http://pinterest.com/pin/39406565462126868/
Harry Truman, b. May 8: “A statesman is a politician who’s been dead for 15 years.”
8 May
“A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who’s been dead for 15 years.”
~ Harry S. Truman, b. 8 May 1884
http://pinterest.com/pin/39406565462125892/
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