The Eclipse is in Aries, Not Cancer. Why the Crabbiness?

Image like you might have seen in Turkey as part of this archaeological tour.

This is not today's eclipse. I've had trouble finding anything but video as of yet. They probably all look fairly similar from this perspective, but it's the principle. Technical info from NASA here.

According to an astrological expert, this eclipse in Aries is supposed to be moneyriffic for me. Well, I'm going in to get the taxes done this afternoon, and if not too much is owed, I'll consider that windfall enough.

I'm not supercharged. I'm momentarily expended. I've been doing a lot of pimping and contacting and e-mailing lately, trying to stir up some activity with my second manuscript. And it's too soon to know if it's worked, but I have an overhanging anxiety. See, agents with whom I have had extended, face-to-face conversations where they specifically request samples don't respond after receiving them. Nor to the follow-up e-mail. Someone who requested the entire manuscript last year still hasn't responded either, despite multiple follow-up e-mails and the fact that Publisher's Marketplace shows she's back from maternity leave and doing deals. Of the blind queries I sent out last time, a full third never came back in any form.

I know that junior staffs are overwhelmed, overworked, and turn over frequently resulting in erratic mail handling. Thus my follow-up. I know that people are very busy with higher priority things, i.e things that imminently pay the bills. I try to be unfailingly understanding and polite about that in correspondence, though it excuses rudeness that I wouldn't feel comfortable dishing out to anyone but a telemarketer- and I'm even kind to them if I feel they're wasting their potential. It's one thing when I blitz someone with a blind query, the surplus entreaty they never wanted. It's another when we meet, chat, and they request some or all of my work. In that case, surely it must be standard (if not simply humane) to let the scribe know of the unacceptable suckitude in some platitudinous form letter at least.

But that's grousing about an otherwise pretty great life, so I'll stop.

2) Okay, just a little more. Getting sleepy in a 24-hour Wal-Mart for less than two days is not only "brilliant" but merits this kid agency and/or a movie deal? What could he possibly have learned in that drowsy odyssey of the soul that you and I couldn't guess?

3) From Lee Goldberg's blog, anecdotes about aspiring writers:

"Don't try to write what's selling," I said. "Write what you enjoy. Write the story you want to tell."

"The thing is, I don't know how to tell stories," he said. "But I write killer dialogue. Is a story really necessary?"

"Yes," I said.

"You people in Hollywood don't make it easy, do you? That's the problem with the Industry. They are constantly creating obstacles so people can't get in."

Read them all. At least I can claim to have a clue, if no better results.