Love/hate

I get annoyed with myself when a wrong astrology calculation means I have to back up and rethink, then rewrite, a series of scopes.

That happened yesterday morning. Just a little back tracking, an error on my part with a calculation and the time zone thing, and the computer didn’t make a mistake, what happened, I forgot to check my own input of data.

I did like rereading what I’d written the day before, that much was stimulating. I had to read a little closer, too, as I was fact-checking, and, at best, it’s an arduous task for me.

Of course, there is a school of thought that suggests horoscopes don’t have to based in astronomical fact. I just find it a little better if they are – for my own peace of mind.

Hamlet pastiche:
A palm reader handed me a book and I’ll admit, it’s a funny text. Murder, mystery, mayhem, in the Danish court.

Quentin pastiche:
I’m easily amused. This amused me greatly. I actually feel kind of sorry for the T-guy.

If I sent an unsolicited manuscript, and it got copied, verbatim, I’d be pissed, and I know enough hungry lawyers so that I could recover damages. But ideas? I wonder how many of my horoscopes could be turned into movie ideas.

I wonder which horoscopes, as they appeared here first, have been turned into movie deals – for someone else. And why am I not rich from the process?

One item contained in the terms of service, which you agreed to when you accessed this site, anything that passes through the mail gateway here is mine to use. How and when I want. For profit. In perpetuity.

In the after word to Stuart Wood’s Stone Barrington novel, don’t ask I don’t know, one of them I read a few years ago, there’s an excellent piece from the author. To sum what he said, “Don’t send my ideas for novels, they won’t be considered. E-mail gets an answer quickly, postal mail takes longer.”

It was a little terse, and not being a novelist, I don’t have that problem. But I do gather my own ideas, and anything sent to me is usually discarded.

I liberally swipe material from a wide variety of sources. That isn’t a problem. So far, no one’s ripped me off, and I’m not too worried about that happening. I mean, how many amateur Shakespeare scholar, redneck fishing, Latin quoting, “Fishing Guide (to the Stars)” are there?

A certain Sagittarius sent a me a funny card. That card lived on the coffee table for over a year, as bookmark, then as scratch paper, and finally, almost two, maybe three years later, I used the message on the card as the basis of a horoscope. I wasn’t stealing from Hallmark, perish the thought, but I did use the comedy as a jumping off point.