Okay, okay, it's been a while.

Um...Hi. Remember me? Well if you don't, feel free to read my first blog post or, if you don't feel like doing that, let me recap.

I am writing a book about constellations. I love constellations and their stories.

There. I think that's pretty much it. Gee. Why was that first post so long?

Well, at the end of that first [very long] post, I talked about how I would be documenting my writing process and how I wanted to start querying agents soon.

Ha! I am so not ready yet. How did I discover this? By using this great site: Agent Query Connect
and learning from all the wonderful aspiring writers on there that I still have a long way to go. Through that site I found this amazing online conference: Write On Con 2012

Wow. Just wow. It was amazing. I spent two days watching webinars, stalking ninja agents, reading queries, visiting live chats and forum events and entering contests. In fact, I won a 50 first page critique by the lovely and talented Ms. Amy Christine Parker. Please visit her blog and support her as her new book comes out this Fall - Amy Christine Parker

I am very much looking forward to her awesome critiques and comments. (Though I still know I have a lot of work, I'm so excited!)

Now for something completely different...

After reading and watching workshops from Write On Con 2012 I found that it is a great idea to use blogs and twitter. I guess I already knew this, but seeing it up - all professional-like- was like a slap in the face. But I also realized that writers often have blogs about writing. Well, I think there are already plenty of those. So while my blog will also be about my book and writing process, it will also have posts about constellations and their myths. Often I will intertwine myths from different cultures and compare them.

You know, for fun. Because Comparative Mythology is FUN.

So next post I will be starting with a constellation and its story/history. Requests?

Thanks for reading! Maybe I'll get better at this whole blogging thing.

An Introduction

When I was little, my brother had this really neat book. It had Pegasus on the front and a deep blue and indigo background. To this day, I wish I could remember the title. After so many moves and storage places, I wouldn't be too surprised if the book had somehow gotten lost. Of course, even as I type this, I can practically hear my mother yelling at me ("How dare you think that I would lose a book! Are you insane?"). But I digress. The book was about constellations. It had all the really big ones with their stars mapped out, what hemisphere they were in and what time of year you could see them best. It also had the stories behind them all. The big dipper (also known as Ursa Major), Orion, Pegasus, Corona Borealis, Hercules...


But my favorite was the Perseus and Andromeda myth. This was partly because I was obsessed with the old Clash of the Titans movie. Clash of the Titans 1981. Nevermind the claymation and the over dramatic acting, the story and the adaption from myth to movie was amazing. Needless to say my brother and I watched the film countless times. Today, a poster of it resides on my wall and the DVD sits proudly on my shelf. At the end of the movie, Zeus, played by Lawrence Olivier, gives a great monologue: 


Perseus and Andromeda will be happy together. Have fine sons... rule wisely... And to perpetuate the story of his courage, I command that from henceforth, he will be set among the stars and constellations. He, Perseus, the lovely Andromeda, the noble Pegasus, and even the vain Cassiopeia. Let the stars be named after them forever. As long as man shall walk the Earth and search the night sky in wonder, they will remember the courage of Perseus forever. Even if we, the gods, are abandoned or forgotten, the stars will never fade. Never. They will burn till the end of the time. 


As so many scientists are so eager to point out, stars do not burn forever. It's fairly well known that the stars we see on earth may have been dead for millennia but because they are so far away, their light still reaches us. So yeah, they won't "burn till the end of time" but their stories will last forever. That's what makes the constellations so exciting! The myths and stories people have for them and the astronomers and navigators that created and named them. It helps these stars that seem so far away to come alive. 


So what's the point of this ramble? Well, I'm writing a book. Close to finishing it actually. Pretty soon I'll be sending off some query letters to various literary agents. My book is about constellations that come alive and a young girl who is thrust into this world of astronomy and myth. 


If this at all sounds intriguing, by this one sentence synopsis, I do hope you follow this blog. It will document the process of my writing, revising and one day... publishing (crossing fingers). 


I'll wish upon Polaris, Sirius, Proxima Centauri, and Toli that one day this story will "never fade. Never."