Mary O'Gara

What do astrology and coaching have in common?   At one time, I’d have defined them as wildly different myself.   But consider this:

1.  Both coaching and astrology focus on moving from the present into the future.   Astrology is a tool for looking at the present and future symbolically and making responsible and responsive choices.   Coaching looks at our dreams and visions and develops strategies for resolving internal and external conflicts and building moment.   So they share a future-oriented perspective (as opposed to therapy, for example, which focuses on the past and its impact on the present moment.)

2.  In the hands of an experienced astrologer, astrology opens a conversation that expands rather than restricts a person’s options.   Coaching and astrology both look at present resources, risk factors, and commitment as factors in planning a successful future.

3.  Coaching raises questions–and while you’d think of astrology as answering questions more often than it asks them, astrology actually excels in asking questions, too.   The symbols of astrology are open-ended enough to expose multiple possibilities for each event.   And I often think good coaching begins with asking enough questions to help people find a goal and develop at least three potential ways to reach that goal.

So it’s not surprising that I sometimes reach for a coaching client’s astrology chart when we work on timing questions or shift gears with an astrology client and raise the kinds of questions that coaches ask.   What once seemed like an either/or choice now seems to me to be the best of both.

Today is a fine day for a writing dialogue with someone you loved–or might have loved if he or she had returned from a war, any war–or perhaps for writing a heartfelt prayer for the ones who did come back.

In Red Oak, Iowa, my home town, they still fly the funeral flags of our hometown veterans on Memorial Day.   Among them are two men I loved who came back:  My father and my grandmother’s brother, who was my surrogate grandfather:  Charles Arthur Reese and Philo Douglas Clark.

The stories they told me as a child were wildly exaggerated and made war sound like a great adventure.   Today I might dialogue with Uncle Philo about his real memories of World War One.   Dialogues aren’t limited to living people.

You could also dialogue with the condition of living in a world at war, and you might be surprised at what you discover for your own life and your writing.

Or this may be a chance to say good-bye in dialogue–or hello to someone you never got to meet.

Dialoguing is simple:   Sit quietly and breathe slowly and deeply.   Write a name on the journal page and make a short list of up to a dozen milestones in that person’s life, remembering that you are only one of those milestones.   Then close your eyes and imagine that person or something representing the situationn in front of you.

Close your eyes.

Write:  Hello or some other greeting.

Listen and record what you hear or understand.

Write your next sentence.   Continue until the conversation drops.

Ask if there’s anything else.

Sit in silence a little longer, waiting.

And when it’s really done, jot down a summary sentence for yourself or maybe a reminder about what you want to take into the rest of your life from this moment.

If you’re a writer, writing every day is as important to your creative health as brushing your teeth is to your physical health.   I don’t remember whether it was Heifetz or Menuhin or Casals who said that if he didn’t practice scales for a day, he could tell; if he didn’t do scales for a few days, the audience could tell.  Twyla Tharp writes about the importance of exercise and daily practice for dancers.

Daily work is probably the best-kept secret of the top artists in every creative field.   It’s certainly the secret the wanna-bes overlook.  You can work in a journal and keep your notes or work on napkins and toss them.   Personally, of course, I favor journals, but the essential part is working however you can on a particular day.

And here’s the bottom line.   If you don’t love writing so much that you’re willing to do five minutes a day of work on the craft of writing, you don’t love it enough to sustain the ups and downs of a career.

Why are writers the only creative group that actually seems to take pride in not working?

Why do I teach The Artist’s Way workshop (based on Julia Cameron’s book)?  Because it’s easier to coach writers who do their daily work.   Cameron makes it simple:  three pages of flow writing every morning to let the subconscious mind spill its contents, whether those contents are brilliant plots or threadbare whines, plus an hour a week devoted to filling up the creative well and entertaining your muse.   In later books she recommends a weekly exploratory walk.

Natalie Goldberg recommends timed writing, with a topic or starter sentence.  You still just let the words flow and let the subconscious mind pour out its thoughts.

Recently, I’ve been intrigued by the possibilities of sentences, and I’ve been spending my daily time playing with sentence structure.   But soon I’ll return to morning pages.  Maybe I’ll do morning pages and sentence structure, which feels like a musician’s scales.

For you it might be making lists or vocabulary study or some other skill.

However you do it, that daily five minutes keeps the mind focused on stories and looking for material.

Saturn’s dipping back into Virgo, so the time is right to restructure your plans and goals, revise your manuscripts, and revision your future.   If it needs adjusting, Saturn retrograde in Virgo is the time for easy adjustments.

Saturn is not only structure, but also accountability, so checking each and every plan and plot you have is a good thing right now.   Look for acocuntability–and make changes or eliminate goals and projects for which you’re no longer willing to be accountable.   Revise plots with structure in mine; sure you can keep those crazy characters, but you have to decide when the reader will know what they’re doing.

As for revisioning your future–just weed out those goals you wouldn’t be willing to have manifest right this second.   And take at least one step toward the ones you keep even if that’s a minor step like a phone call, a blog, or a note in your day planner.

Saturn’s retrograde until the end of May.  It hangs around its station degree and minute from May 27 to June 2nd, so get your work done before then.

You won’t be done, of course.   After Saturn goes direct, you can still polish that structure and shine up the dream, reworking them happily until Saturn goes into Libra again on July 23rd.

You goals for Saturn in Libra:  Be ready to recognized great critique partners and other team players to help you reach your goals.   Sadly, you may also need more distance from some of your present colleagues.

I’ve already updated the Moon page for April, but we have a few days left in March.   So for those of you who didn’t already copy the March void of course Moon data into your personal computer calendars, here’s a quick reminder:

On Sunday, March 28, the Moon will oppose Uranus and go void at 12:55 AM MT Since Uranus rules both creative brainstorming and windfall profits, it’s probably not your best day for buying lottery tickets, and your brightest ideas today, tempting as they may seem, should probably be rechecked on a brighter day.

The Moon enters Libra at 5:21 AM MT on Monday, the 29th, and goes void at 6:13 AM MT on Wednesday the 31st.  Its final aspect is an opposition to Venus, so not the best timing for working our relationships with women or money, and it isn’t the best time to renegotiate any relationship.   The Moon and Venus are basically harmonious energies, even though the Moon tends to be more emotional and spacier than Venus, so it’s a better time than the previous period that ended with Moon opposing Uranus from Virgo.

And finally, the Moon will enter Scorpio at 6:41 AM on Wednesday the 31st, after a void period that only lasted a few minutes.   And the rest is on the Moon page.

We’ve got a new Moon–and a few more days before it reaches the first quarter and enters a new phase.  So here are three things to do right now:

1.  Starr over.  Take a fresh look at a project that’s gotten boring, or take a new step in a new direction if you’re blocked or out of steam.  Just try something new.  If that doesn’t work, try something else.  Keep testing new approaches until you find one that works.

2.  Stake your claim.  Quit wishing and decide what you want.   Make it a goal with rewaards that are just big enough to make your palms sweat a bit.  A little anxiety is fuel for the road, just as stage fright gets an actor moving.  Play in a bigger game now, and go for a goal that’s new to you in some way.   Plan your reward, your celebration, and decide–in writing–how deeply you’re committed.  (Hint:  The bigger the commitment, the more likely you are to follow through.)

3.  Start a new habit.   Don’t worry about letting old habits go until the Moon is dark again.  Just start a new one.  Walk every day.  Drink water before your morning coffee.  Do morning pages.  Have a salad at every meal (which could mean pappers and onions in your breakfast scrambled eggs.)   Pick a new habit and make it yours while the New Moon supports you.

Mars made its direct station Wednesday, and it’s also out of bounds until the 13th.  That’s a huge rush of Mars energy.   Undirected, that’s a big rush of negative energy; just watch the news.   So you want to harness it with your personal moment-by-moment intentions.

Yes, moment-by-moment.  Forget multitasking.  Choose one action, focus, and direct all your interest and intention and physical abilities in one direction.  Prented to be as mindful as a zen master.   Scattered Mars energy is like walking through a minefield or picking up after two-year-old triplets with huge boxes of toys.

It’s time to break through barriers, clear our excuses, and get rid of clutter.   Mars is direct and energetic in Aquarius until it goes void at 6:57 AM MT on Saturday, March 13th.   Take Saturday morning off (adjusting for your own time zone, of course) and walk, exercise or play with the kids and a dog.   By 11:44 AM MT, Mars will move into Pisces and you’ll have at least one more day of high physical and mental energy.

Mars isn’t at its best in either Aquarius or Pisces, so you need to consider your actions carefully.   Preplanned strategies work well in Aquarius so long as you include surprises and windfalls and changes of direction in your plans.  When Mars moves into Pisces, intuition is your only safe guide.

Would you change jobs if you had a boss like you?

Are you a slave driver to your creative muse?

Yes, writing’s a business.  If you want to write full-time and haven’t won a lottery recently, you probably do need to spend some time every day on marketing and being business-like.   But there are laws against slave labor, and your must shouldn’t be abused just because she can’t sue you.

Workers deserve to be paid.  It’s in the Bible:  ”The worker is worthy of his hire.”   Muses get paid by having fun.   A gold star means more to the muse than the dollars that go into your pocket as “business owner”.  Muses like to read or play with fingerpaints or go to museums.   And they like to go alone with you; like any child, they want attention, praise and a little comfort at the end of the day.

Good managers assign tasks on the basis of skill, talent and interest for the most mercenary of all possible reasons:   It’s the beset way to get top performance year after year.   Some businesses do run from crisis to crisis–but the good ones ask workers for favors during a crisis and then manage well enough to avoid that particular crisis in the future.  Should you do less for your muse?

One bad contract shouldn’t become a career.  Don’t say “no” to your muse, but do say “no” on behalf of your muse.

Reassess your talents, abilities, and emotional needs on a regular basis.   I take the week between Christmas and New Years and the week before my birthday for major assessments and take a day in between for minor revisions as needed.  Once a week, I do planning to be sure i’m working on my own and my muse’s top priorities; if I don’t take the planning time, it’s too easy to live by someone else’s priorities.

Entry level jobs in the fast food industry aren’t the standard for creative workers.   Check out the film industry in your area.   Richard Gere’s contracts give him holiday time with his family.  Nicolas Cage assures himself a congenial living space wherever he works.   Give your muse the attention actors’ managers give their talent and begin making the changes that will make your muse adore you again.

And, finally, your muse is going to hate it when you do all or nothing things like deciding to quit writing forever because you’ve got a bad gig.   Just finish the gig and do better by the muse next time.  And while your’e doing the gig, give the muse some great music and a cup of hot chocolate at the end of the writing day.

Perfectionism rears its ugly–and I do mean ugly–head in as many ways as we allow it.

Sure, it would be lovely to have your own office or even a room and a private computer tucked up under the eaves in an old house.   And a maid, a cook and a nanny to make it easy to stay in that perfect world.   Would you like a personal maid to iron your lingerie for erotic evenings after a day of perfect writing?

That’s part of the pleasure of a writer’s conference, isn’t it?  Elegant mornings in a plush hotel room with no distractions? Other than old friends, exciting meetings and workshops, parties, the food, the bar, the new city to explore.  And even there the leaders in any writing field manage to disappear into their hotel rooms for part of the day and <gasp> write.

I used to write in a city newsroom with clanging typewriters.   Since my whole family knows about the newsroom, I can’t get by with complaining about a little television noise.   “Please, you’re breathing in my space and I can’t write” doesn’t work at my house.   I’ve been looking for that ivory tower, but I think we forgot to build it.

And you don’t need one either.   What you need are good habits.

If you don’t have a computer that’s dedicated to your writing in a space that’s all yours, find a small habit that tells your body it’s writing time.  Rituals are an important way to tell your body something is going on that’s more important than the usual daydream.   So create some habits for yourself.   Make them simple so you can do them day after day.   Make them inexpensive.  Create no new excuses for yourself.

The best habits are portable and rely only on tools you can replace easily.   You might,for example, get up in the morning and grab a bottle of water.  Take time for brushing your teeth, drinking coffee, giving yourself time for meditation or whatever makes the morning pleasant.   Then take that bottle of water to the computer and take one sip.  Now it’s writing time.

Make the habit strong.   “Any time I drink water while I’m sitting at my computer, it’s writing time.”

Or maybe you put on a baseball cap and it’s writing time.   Just be sure it’s a cap you can replace if the dog eats it or the cat hides it.

Small triggers lead to solid habits.  Habits lead to production.   And if you produce the writing inventory, you can revise and whip it into shape.  Voila!  One sip of water leads to a career.   Just think what you could do if you ate an apple a day and kept the critic away.

How about taking a tumble with the whole world watching your Olympic ski run?

Or tipping your own team mate and costing your country two medals in front of the world?

I’ve been glued to the Olympics, awed by the courage of the contenders.  And learning even more about the amazing combination of talent and habit I admire in writers like Nora Roberts and artists like Twyla Tharp.

In one of the interviews, a skater talked about performing on off-days.   The skater says it’s in the muscle memory; you just do the moves day after day and the muscles remember.

In The Creative Habit, Tharp talks about the car that waits for her every morning, the habit of going to the studio.   Nora Roberts interviews talk about her commitment to writing day after day.   You hear the same thing from writers like Suz Brockmann and Anne Stuart and Rebecca York.  Whether they’re talking at RWA conferences or sharing their insights online, all four writers emphasize the importance of getting words on paper, day after day, week after week, year after year.

Watching the Olympics made me so grateful I’m a writer.  I don’t have to wait four years for another chance after a rejction, and I don’t have to run zamboni’s all night to afford a ticket to the next competition city.   I can send a story out again the next day.  The cost of postage and paper and ink is insignificant compared to the cost of flying around the world and paying for hotels on practice days.  Some editors even take email submissions.

And if everything I write tomorrow is garbage, no one will know until it’s been fixed.   Those of us who do our work alone and revise before the public sees it incredibly lucky.

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