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Friday, February 4, 2011

Jane, What's Your Sign?

Those of you who have followed my blog for awhile know I like to run astrological charts on my main characters.  It helps me flesh them out with characteristics I may not have imagined.   I posted once before about Mary in Courtly Scandals.  Right now I'm working on Mistress Jane Radclyffe from my W.I.P., Courtly Abandon (btw, should I be punctuating it like a book title when it's only 10% finished?).

I knew I wanted Jane to be on the cusp between Aries and Taurus, but I had not done her chart.  For the record, the birthdate of 4/20 was strictly for the cusp factor, not for Hitler, legalizing marajuana, or anything about school shootings.  If anything, call it an homage to my long time friend Ed Rydzinski III.

In all, I was spot on with what I wanted for Jane.  Energy coupled with a sense of responsibility.  Passionate, earthy, and ambitious.  The reading really followed what I had already decided on.  It also gave me some new characteristics that will really help me make her three-dimensional.

Name: Jane Radclyffe

April 20 1990 (ideally, it would have been 1552, but that wasn't an option)
2:00 AM Time Zone is BST
taunton, UK


Rising Sign is in 07 Degrees Capricorn
You are practical and reserved but very ambitious. An achiever and a hard worker, you respect success. Older looking and very serious as a youth, things lighten up and you relax more as you mature. You have a serious view of the world as being a difficult place to be in. Very envious of those who seem to have an easier life than you have, relaxation and play do not come easily. It is important that you had abundant parental support as a child so that you do not feel lonely and isolated as an adult. Generally, you have a good, earthy sense of humor that can carry you through when times really do get tough. You are purposeful, self-willed, industrious, realistic and responsible.


Sun is in 29 Degrees Aries.
By nature, you are very energetic and high-spirited. You are fiercely independent -- you must be first in everything you do, and you enjoy taking risks. You are the one who will rush in where angels fear to tread. Quite brilliant at initiating new projects, you are terrible at following them through to completion. You are an enthusiastic leader but you tend to be a reluctant follower. Often you are quick to anger, but you usually recover just as fast, regretting later things you said when you were upset. One of your best traits is that you are simple and direct, blunt and honest -- just be careful you do not hurt others' feelings. Your need to be competitive at all costs may provoke resistance from others, but, as long as you maintain your usual Sunny good humor, this should not prove to be a major problem for you.


Moon is in 20 Degrees Aquarius.
Very freedom-oriented, you must always be able to do what you wish, no matter what. You become stubborn and recalcitrant when others try to force you into a mold. You are a true democrat -- you are not a follower, but you enjoy being with those who are like-minded. You appreciate emotional self-control -- you practice it yourself and you look for it in others. You solve problems, including emotional ones, with your brains and intellect, not your feelings. Try to be tolerant of those who have powerful and obvious emotional responses -- not everyone is as objective, cool, dispassionate and detached as you are.


Mercury is in 17 Degrees Taurus.
A slow and careful thinker, you like to present ideas visually and concretely. Abstractions are quite difficult for you to understand. For you, everything must be practical and useful in order to merit your attention. You are a perfectionist -- you enjoy being skillful enough to handle the dexterity required of fine craftsmanship. Cautious and conservative in your thinking, you are very slow to change your opinions. You are more apt to respond to an appeal to your feelings than to an appeal to logic or reason.



Venus is in 14 Degrees Pisces.
You have a dreamy, fanciful, romantic nature and a very creative imagination. Indeed, at times, your private fantasies are more appealing than the reality around you and it is difficult for you to leave them. You tend to be unselfish and giving in relationships and are extremely sensitive of the needs of others. Be very sure that those you help are worthy of your devotion and are not merely taking advantage of your innocence and naivete.



Mars is in 29 Degrees Aquarius.
Your ideas and opinions are usually inventive and original, but sometimes they are merely eccentric and offbeat. You are altruistic -- you will work hard for the attainment of group goals, as long as they meet your high standards. You tend to resent traditional authority figures because you think that your ideas are better thought out and more valuable than theirs. Very idealistic, you are a rebel WITH a cause!



Jupiter is in 05 Degrees Cancer.
You must be emotionally secure in order to grow and develop. You are happiest when your family and community support and nourish you and boost your morale. Whether your childhood experiences of love and emotional dependability were positive or negative will set the tone for your emotional growth and stability as an adult. When you feel at ease with yourself, you are able to offer assistance to those who need a helping hand.



Saturn is in 25 Degrees Capricorn.
Very serious-minded and mature, you have the ability to take on responsibilities and to carry out important duties. You can also be trusted to be extremely practical and thrifty. A good organizer, you are the ideal one to be counted on to take a clearly defined project through to its logical conclusion. An achiever, you pride yourself on your ability to focus your attention totally on some worthy goal and then attain it.



Uranus is in 09 Degrees Capricorn.
You, and your peer group as well, seek out practical solutions to a changing society's attitudes to customs, traditions and authority structures. Your logical and orderly manner of dealing with these matters will result in permanent and carefully planned, but sweeping, reforms.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

I love the detail you take with your characters. I never would have thought to dive into what their birthday was and what sign they were. That is another great way to develop a character!

THANK YOU :) HAPPY FRIDAY!

Michael Di Gesu said...

I always know the sign and birthday of my characters. Like you, I think they need to be fleshed out, although I don't usually get into the astrological details in the my novel.

Great job of the details...

Michael

Raquel Byrnes said...

You truly are a creative person, Erin! This is some great stuff for layering. And its so great that the chart mirrored what you had in mind for her in the first place.

Edge of Your Seat Romance

Unknown said...

I use astrological charts for my characters too! And, I like to reference the MBTI personality traits when crafting characters, as well. Fascinating stuff.

Can you believe "they've" changed the zodiac calendar?? I can't read Libra anymore, looking for my horoscope. Crazy! I am NOT a Scorpio. LOL!

Have a great weekend!

Anonymous said...

First - yes, you get to signify your projects as book titles even if you haven't started writing them at all! Definitely.

Secondly - I don't follow this astrology stuff much myself, (partly because I never seem to fit the Scorpio temperament,) but I think it's cool how you're using it as a characterization tool. As a fictional astrologer said in Douglas Adams' book 'Mostly Harmless':
"...The rules just kind of got there. They don’t make any kind of sense except in terms of themselves. But when you start to exercise those rules, all sorts of processes start to happen and you start to find out all sorts of stuff about people. In astrology the rules happen to be about stars and planets, but they could be about ducks and drakes for all the difference it would make. It’s just sort of a way of thinking about a problem which lets the shape of the problem begin to emerge. The more rules, the tinier the rules, the more arbitrary they are, the better. It’s like throwing a handful of fine graphite dust on a piece of paper to see the words that were written on the piece of paper above it that’s now been taken away and hidden. The graphite’s not important. It’s just the means of revealing their indentations. So you see, astrology’s nothing to do with astronomy. It’s just to do with people thinking about people."

So kudos to you for harnessing the graphite dust of astrology to get you thinking about your characters as real people.

Third - wishing you best of luck with the A to Z challenge. I'll try to find time to drop in and see how you're doing with it, as I try to keep up with the letters of the alphabet myself.

Erin Kane Spock said...

Thanks for all the comments.
Being a Leo with very few Leo characteristics, I am not a believer in astrology, although I do think the time of year in which you are born does impact our formative experiences and personality.
To me, the chart is almost like rolling a gaming dice, except my character gets her moon in Taurus instead of +5 dexterity. It all amounts to the same thing, a fleshed out set of characteristics that don't necessarily go together well (like a real person).
MTBI is a good idea. When I do my A-Z in April, my G is going to be for Gardner's Multiple Intelligences, another character development tool. I should have saved this post for A = Astrology, instead I have A for April. :)

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