The Banks Blog

Welcome to my astrology blog

laurabanks2 — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:55:11 +0000

Okay, here we go. I am launching my new astrology practice, www.TodaysTransits.com.

I will do both charts at no cost for the next month. What I ask is that you tell your friends.

Full name at birth

Place of birth

Time of birth

Want questions from you.

I can’t do this until early February so shoot me some dates and times. I usually put in a lot of time on these readings which is why they normally cost $250. Your transits, which is what is happening now with the planets I will include as well. So you’re getting a natal chart reading and transits.

Last night was a complete blast. I am taking the loss of my glasses as a sign – to look within even more. I found a penny in the oddest place yesterday, on my kitchen counter. I thought it was so strange at the time. I was reading my Get Psychic book in bed and it said that if you find a coin, especially a penny, it says: Smile when you see coins in odd places, especially pennies – they are tokens from a higher source to show you that you are on the right track, that you are loved and that everything will be okay! wow.

A Lid for Every Kettle

laurabanks2 — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 14:22:45 +0000

“There will always be a special person out there who fits your peculiarities just as you fit theirs, exactly as you are. You just need to figure out your peculiarities.” That quote was taken from an article on submission on the Web. Fast frame: Runaway Bride. The Julia Roberts character wants to figure out what she wants and who she is. She doesn’t know yet so she keeps running from commitments. I can relate. I have been running in some ways for a long time. I too, have never married. I’ve enjoyed an eight and eleven year partnership with two different men and when you add that up, that’s a pretty good marriage. But as a grown up (whom on occassion wears pigtails) I realized my running has more to do with having not articulated my needs with a partner, so committing made no sense. It’s the same in business. You need to know your niche before you can get rich. Now I know my niche market for myself – what will and won’t work for me, in the bedroom and out. It’s taken much self examination and the bitter pill of defeat on occassion to get this far. Now someone either will or won’t want to get on my train. It’s like going to buy a dress: knowing your choices in size, color, fabric, quality and style narrows the rack. Now I know I need a man who is open-minded and progressive in his thinking in sensual and sexual exploration, yet traditional in partnership. Oh, and he can’t have a comb-over or prefer the New York Giants every night vs. spanking the pony. Add to the recipe, he needs to really like me a lot. He needs to get who I am to my core and say, “All of it is good and my love is unconditional. Even the parts that suck.” Of course, that requires a proper dose of sanity and regular usage of Webster’s book. The journey continues.

So You Want to Be a Published Author

laurabanks2 — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:35:06 +0000

So you want to be a published author. Just do what I did. Tell everybody you are one before you become one. I was faced with multiple rejections with my first book Love Online. I wrote Love Online before lots of people were dating on the internet – basically the book was ahead of its time and I was an untried writer back in 1996, so I had the joy of getting lots of doors slammed in my face. But as my mother would say, “Laura makes doors where there are none.” I chose to go ahead and create my own small, self-published book; Modem Mating a Guide to Online Dating. I had just taken some courses at the New York School of Visual Arts and had learned how to use Photoshop. I took a normal page of white writing paper, 8 1/2 by 11 and folded it in half to create the book size. (It was more like a nice pamphlet, about 40 pages in length.) Presto! Now I had a book. At least I liked to call it a book. It wasn’t really a book. But I was an author.

Now that I was a self-proclaimed woman of letters, I started to call the local television news stations, saying that I was a writer and had a new book coming out. When the TV producers asked me to send over a copy, I thought for sure that it would end there. I sent the thing that was almost a pamphlet, and, actually, I started getting bookings on the local and yes, even national shows as an expert on online dating. MSNBC, Fox News, Good Day New York and others started calling me in to be on a panel to discuss the latest news on this growing phenomena. It was amazing! They even would photograph a copy of my book and show it as a graphic during the interview. I remember thinking how great it looked on camera, all lit up with pretty bright lights behind it. Soon, newspapers and magazines were calling for interviews and quotes. USA Today used a few of my quotes. Amazing.

I collected my TV appearances on a reel and made copies of my reel, then started sending my small book and video to literary agents. I signed with an agent, Jeffrey Hermann, a pretty well known guy, very fast. We got rejected by about ten houses, until Career Press Publishers took it on.

I got a small $5,000 advance and the book came out with little fanfare or interest. (Not enough people were dating online at that time.) My second book with Career Press went on to sell over 125,000 copies – that was written with my co-author Janette Barber and it was entitled Breaking the Rules, Last Ditch Tactics for Landing the Man of your Dreams. That became a USA Today bestseller with appearances on Rosie O’Donnell, ABC World News, and lots of morning shows, dozens of local and national radio shows, the L.A. Times, People Magazine and more. Now Janette and I have our next book Embracing Your Big Fat Ass, published by Atria, a division of Simon and Schuster. We got a pre-emptive offer before the book went to auction. That means Warner Books and Crown Publishers had also made bid and offers on the book. Publisher’s Weekly reported the story and we ended up with a six-figure advance.

That’s a long way from sitting by myself, teaching myself how to type with a Meavis-Bacon typing program on Love Online in a high rise apartment in New York City. Janette and I can wait and see how our new book goes, but what the future holds is anyone’s guess. There’s one thing that is for sure – no matter what, I will always find ways to make things happen. I can always write more books, somehow. Even if I get rejected – I will create the buzz and then get the deal.

The Fine Art of a Fat Ass

laurabanks2 — Thu, 29 May 2008 01:01:21 +0000

Isn’t she gorgeous? I have a B.F.A. in Fine Art and I can say that I have studied many a fine fat ass in art school, but none as fine and divine as this. When did we forget to worship this fleshy, often hidden portion of ourselves?

Embracing Your Big Fat Ass is coming out just in time to make some waves and break some wind – and to scare the media with the word “ass”.

What is wrong with the word ass? Why is some of the radio and TV stations we are talking to have such a hard time of it? I thought this was the land of the free and the home of the brave, not the land of the petty and the home of the hypocrite. It appears our book is not only about women acepting their body type, but it’s also about the issue of censorship in America. What’s the deal, we can watch crime shows at night like CSI, where killers turn human flesh into lampshades, and people are swapping wives in the burbs, but you can’t say ass on daytime TV???? Would middle America wish to re-dress this statue? Apparently, I hope to piss off alot of people with this book, I want to shake people up.

I use to cuss onstage doing stand-up. So what? I don’t walk around cussing in day to day life, and our book isn’t riddled with foul language, but it seems Janette and I are about to embark on a press junket loaded with little media cops and frantic, religious activists. Oh, well.

And what about David Cook winning American Idol? Nothing. I just love him. He has nothing to do with the rest of this stuff I’m writing. I just wanted to let everyone know that I am still thrilled he won. Yeah for a Kansas City boy, my home town. Now we have the Rock Chalk Jayhawks and David Cook all in one year. Now me. Cool.