What would you look like if you were a witch? How would your life work? Imagination is what makes us writers, grammar is what makes us intelligible, and structure is a toy to set our minds afire. 

I am not a witch nor have I studied Wicca (though I have friends who are and do.) Nevertheless, I feel I can perform magic. Not only on the page, but in real life.

Magic to my mind is what happens when we make connections, when a spark flies from me to you, when empathy causes us to save that spider, or impulse makes us leap to do the thing that terrifies us. I perform real magic when I can make a reader understand someone else’s state of being, realize a new value, or even feel alertly alive for a spell. 

In that second, we are at one with something larger than ourselves. We grow, pop! into a new incarnation. Even if you can’t wiggle your nose and force your house to clean itself, you can reach for the larger moment, flicker something new into life.

Writing is an amazing thing.

Today I’m going to get back in touch with my novel, which I’ve had to neglect as I traveled during the last week. I’m going to lay hands on it, and, in between dashing to the store for candy and answering the door for trick-or-treaters, I’m going to let that spark fly from my fingertips. Try it. You may glimpse a new world entirely and share it with us all. 

Happy Hallowe’en. As always, I ask that you leave me a note to let me know you were here.