Professor X as Heirophant

Here's Professor X as the Heirophant in my continuing Marvel (tm) Tarot pictures. I didn't write anything in my tarot journal after drawing it because it turned into a busy day, but here are my thoughts now.

I picked Professor X to be the Heirophant after reading the section in my WitchSchool.com Tarot 101 course. The instructor talked about the Heirophant as a guardian of arcane knowledge, and in many ways Prof. X is a kind of hero's school for mutants. You really can't be a good guy mutant without getting past the door marked "School of Gifted Students." He is the headmaster of the School, and, in the very beginning when it was just the five X-Men, the sole instructor of everything from math to "Superhero 101."

The two figures in the front take the place of the kneeling monks. I didn't intend them to be any particular characters, though I considered Jean (Phoenix) and Scott (Cyclops), though they will be making an appearance in the LOVERS card. I decided that the figures should remain sketchy and naked to represent the "anyone" aspect, though I did make them white/Caucasian, which given the diversity of the school kind of limits the characters. I suppose I could have colored them purple and green, also given the nature of the characters that are often admitted to the School of Gifted Students. :-)

The Point of No Return... Or Something Like That

I FINALLY past the half-way mark for me, 40,000 words yesterday. Although this has been a very messy process give how quickly I've been writing. I've been doing a lot of "ah-ha!"s and realizing what I SHOULD have written, and going back and layering in a lot of that. For instance, yesterday, though I ended up writing nearly 2,000 words (which is my daily goal,) most of those where a paragraph here or a couple of lines there. And I realized last night that there's a scene I've worked on maybe three times since I wrote it that STILL needs some massaging to get right.

Happy Imbolc!

Yesterday, my family and I did our usual Imbolc ritual where we added beads to our charm/magical necklaces. Mason really enjoys this one, and he always ends up doing an extra project. This time it was making a necklace to ward off the monsters under the bed.

I also have a new Tarot card I need to post. Maybe tomorrow.

Hope you all are keeping warm as February returns to Minnesota with a vengeance.

X-Posted Cat Blog

Normally, on Fridays over at Wyrdsmiths' blog, Kelly McCullough posts pictures of his cats along with silly captions. He's out of town today, so I decided to step in. I think this one kind of makes for a nice "story arc" (that's Mason, obviously, MUCH younger...)

Mz. Peep sez: "What the frak?"

Mz. Ball sez: "What the frak?"

Kittez sez: "OMG, there's a baby in teh condo!"

How I Spend My Free Time

Here's what me and my family does on the weekends:

Many Bloody Returns... in Polish!

Here's the Polish version of MANY BLOODY RETURNS, the anthology my story "Fire and Ice and Linguini for Two" appeared in -- somehow I neglected to post this here when I first found out about it. Cool, huh?

Realms Closing!

I heard about this through a list I'm on: http://sfscope.com/2009/01/realms-of-fantasy-closing.html. This is bad news for fantasy writers everywhere.

Hopefully, I'm the Tortoise

As I've reported here before, my friend and fellow writer Kelly McCullough and I are racing to each finish our novels by the end of February, as we have other irons in the fire. I've been keeping a tally of my progress in the sidebar of the Wyrdsmith's website: http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com. Kelly is currently handing me my a$$ on a plate.

The worse part is that I've been writing and working non-stop on this novel. I just don't have anything to show for it because I realized that I needed to do some massaging of the first 2/3rds in order to write the last bit. Yesterday alone, I probably cut 3,000 words. Yet miraculously, today my word count is still in the positive, which means I must have seriously kicked butt.

Not that you can tell just by looking at the word count.

I comfort myself by telling myself that winning is good, but having a good novel at the end is my actual goal.

The News!

I'm happy to announce that my agent brokered a three-book deal with Penguin for a new series! I'll be writing an YA (young adult) about a fifteen year-old girl living in Saint Paul, Minnesota who has a vampire prince for a father and a mother who's a real Witch.

The only draw back is that I agreed to write this book by October of '09, and, as you know, Bob, I already have two books with deadlines this year. So... if I come and go on the blogisphere, that's the dealio.

Anyway, whoot! Many whoots!

Argh! I'm Sitting on a Great, Big Secret

And I'm just about ready to explode. All I can say (as a great, big TEASE) is that it involves more books, my agent, and my editor.

And I'm really, really happy!!!!!!

Mason and Obama

I wish I'd had my camera last night as we were all watching the inauguration speech I'd taped. In the middle of it, while Shawn and I had tears streaming down our faces, Mason hopped up and gave the TV (which showed a close-up of President Obama's face) and gave him a big hug and a kiss. It was SUPER cute.

I managed to get some writing done yesterday, even though I was very distracted by an overwhelming feeling of joy. The biggest problem with having written this novel so fast is that I find I've gotten sooner to the point in the novel where I wonder if a huge revision is in order. A lot has happened in this novel, but there's no clear villain or tah-dah to head for and I'm feeling a tad lost. I may have to take part of today to do a little thinking and re-reading.

It's okay. It's part of my process and part of what seems to happen to me during these waning moon periods, you know?

As a friend texted me yesterday, "Happy Obama Day!"

Life Interruptus

I've been doing PRETTY well with this writing competition that I have going with fellow Wyrdsmith, Kelly McCullough. But, yesterday, life happened.

I had way too many errands to do. I panicked about it for a while, but then I called my partner Shawn. She said, "You know what? Sometimes you have to do other things. It's OKAY."

And it was.

So I only got 461 words written. It's still 461 closer to "THE END." Some days, that's the best you can hope for.

Uh....Thanks?

Google Alerts found this gem for me: Review: Tall, Dark & Dead and Dead Sexy.

The last line made me laugh out loud. Though written by an Australian, it could have been written by a Minnesotan: "you could certainly do worse [than read these books]."

Uh... wow. I feel extra warm and fuzzy now. Although to be fair, the review, up to that point, is really quite nice. And, in context, the whole bit about doing worse is really quite positive. Still...I feel like calling my publicist and yelling, "Stop the presses! I need that tag line on the cover my next book: 'Could do worse!'"

Medusa as Empress

According to my tarot journal, I drew this card on January 3, 2009. It's the first image in my new tarot journal for 2009, which I got from Shawn for Solstice. Anyway, here's my "mystical rambling" about why I drew it the way I did:

Here's Medusa, Queen of the Inhumans as the Empress. It's not totally rocking awesome, but there are still things about it that I like. One of the things I was fascinated by in the Rider-Waite version of this card was how the Empress seemed to be sitting at the boundary between civilization and wilderness. I really wanted that idea reflected in my own version, thus Medusa sits on a cushioned chaise lounge in front of a window that looks out on the moonscape (because, as you know, Bob, the Inhumans are currently based on the moon.)

I gave her the Venus shield and an orb with the equal armed cross because otherwise this card is devoid of the usual symbolism. You'd have to know me to know that I've always been fond of the Inhumans, particularly of Black Bolt, Medusa's consort/husband/king. He might have made a good Emperor card because responsibility is certainly his watch word given that he only has to utter a single whisper to destroy worlds. But, the relationship between Medusa and Black Bolt has also always fascinated me because, thanks to his awesome sonic power, she speaks for him. (She may be telepathic or, I don't know, they've maybe just been married that long.)Either way, there's got to be a lot of trust there, don't you think? Plus, if you like the Grail interpretation of the Empress and Emperor cards this makes her the "kingmaker," without her Black Bolt could not rule (as he could never make his wishes known.)

She's always seemed sexy to me, too, and -- though I can't point to any particular issue that makes me believe this -- I've always thought that she and Black Bolt had good sex and had a very sensual, loving relationship.

I feel like she's someone's mother, too, though I was corrected on LJ that she's Crystal's sister, not mother. Anyway, she seemed a good fit: mother, lover, ruler.

Getting my Butt Kicked

Yesterday was not a GREAT writing day for me. I only managed to get just over a 1,000 words written, though I did have a nice visit from a friend I hadn't seen in some time. So, there was that social upside thing. (Damn my need for friendship! How will I ever crush the competition if I keep having friends!!!)

Oh, and I should have a Marvel Tarot (tm) up tomorrow, as I took a picture yesterday. I'd get it up today, but I'm already late to start writing.

Wicked Cold

It's seriously ARCTIC outside today. Wind chills make the air feel -36 F, which is just... well, polar.

Mason, of course, was super excited. I think he was hoping to see my face ACTUALLY freeze off.

Meanwhile, yesterday was a good day for the race of words between me and Kelly. I wrote nearly 2,000 words (actually 1,784,) and am now at 26,220 words total. However, today has started out rough and I'm expecting a guest this afternoon which is going to completely derail me.

This is the problem with competition. There's no accounting for life.

Well, now that it seems the race is on, I'm going to be very motivated to keep my word count running. Have I mentioned that I'm very much motivated by competition? Well, it's true. I like to win. Or, really, I like to race, I'm not all that motivated by winning. I just just like the elbow jostling of a good competition.

Oh, and my digital camera seems to be working again thanks to the brilliant and technical mind of Shawn, my partner.

What else? I worked out today. My muscles ache.

Oh, and it's snowing, like really awesome, huge, white flakes. I kind of wish I had time to go for a nice long walk in it.

Other People's Tarot

I got a great email from a reader in Des Moines who has been following my Marvel (tm) Tarot (and has also read my books), and she sent a long an awesome link to her sister's Stick Figure Thoth Tarot Parody. These are quite charming. You should check them out.

In the meantime, as I think I reported, my digital camera has decided to freak out so I haven't been able to post my Empress card. Since I've done Iron Man as the Emperor, it's time to start Professor X as the Heirophant.

My other big hold up drawing mor cards is that I've been writing HONEYMOON OF THE DEAD like a squirrel on crack. In the past seven days I've averaged 1,300 words, and in a caffeine induced haze last night at Wyrdsmiths I challenged fellow writer Kelly McCullough to a duel of words. We're each going to try to finish our novels by the end of Feburary. Once we work out the "rules," we're going to post results/updates/etc. over on the Wyrdsmith's blog. So if you're interested to see how competition motivates me, check over there periodically.

It should be noted that as a Scorpio competition is my lifeblood.

Numberology and Years

So, ever since I first discovered Tarot, I've been keeping a journal of the various readings I've done for myself. It was an idea I got from Mary Greer's influencial books TAROT FOR YOURSELF, which I love deeply. One of the things she has students do is some numerology stuff for each year that corresponds to one of the Major Arcana.

This year, my card is: DEATH.

And, I want to be honest: I'm completely freaked out. It's not that I'm expecting to physically die, but there are so many ways to DIE in the publishing industry that I'm on pins and needles.

Not to mention that word... DEADlines. Of which I have two this year (so far.)

Maybe that's it. Maybe this is the year of the DEADlines....

Okay. That's a little less scary and a lot more positive.

I can LIVE with that.

Out of the Broom Closet!

There's no keeping secrets if you have a five year old.

I was waiting for Mason to make sure he had something with him at school today and his teacher pulled me aside to tell me a funny story. Apparently, while they were sharing stories about things people did over the holiday, Mason piped up with, "I went sledding with Barb and Gerriann. Well, actually, I went with Barb. Ima and Gerriann stayed at home because they're practicing to be Witches, but that's another story."

Oh, isn't it just? :-)