Talking about a Little Magic

First off, I’m sorry for disappearing for the last few weeks. Sometimes, it takes a little isolation from things to get the job done. This time the job was finishing a book which should have truthfully been ended a month or so ago. It didn’t help that life went crazy. Not an excuse, just a statement of facts. Life gets crazy and you deal with it. Because, as great as writing is, the important things come first. Playing inside your own head will always come second. Or, it should. Writing like reading is an escape. There are just some things it’s best not to escape from. That said, let’s explore what’s going on inside my head this week, and no peeking behind the purple door. It’s off limits, so don’t even try. Trust me you don’t want to see what’s behind that door.

Okay, where was I again. Oh, I hadn’t even gotten started yet. Thanks, I’d lose my head if it wasn’t attached. This week my aforementioned attached head has been fixated on one thing and one thing only. Magic! Lately my life has been missing this key element. Reality has a habit of doing it to a person. As a result, I found myself reflecting on magic, and how it seems so fleeting as we get older.

I was born in 1969, to me one of the most magical decades of the Twentieth Century. Why? Because, it was the decade so many people truly believed love could solve everything. Love was the magic that drove the whole world. If we as a whole just forsook hate, bigotry and all the other things keeping us apart as a people, we could make the world a better place. Sure, most of those people thinking it were higher than a kite, but it seemed for one brief moment, peace and love could happen. So much of what we have today is a result of this type of thinking.

Just look at what the 60’s gave us. Men walked on the freaking moon! You can’t get much more magical than that. On television, Gene Roddenberry envisioned a future where humanity came together despite our differences to boldly go where no man has gone before. Jimi Hendrix made a guitar do things that defied belief. Bob Dylan showed us the face of humanity as it was, and what it could be. He also took us on a walk All Along the Watchtower. To me, personally this is one of the greatest songs ever written. The Doors broke free and opened new doors to perception for us. Janis Joplin made magic with the rawness of her voice that could make you weep with emotion. Andy Warhol gave us the everyday and it felt like new worlds opening from the mundane. Okay, I’ll freely admit the Beatles taught teenage girls the proper way to scream uncontrollably to teen idols.

I know every decade has its own magic. The 70’s had its. The 80’s had rampant commercialism to call magic. The 90’s had flannel, but the 60’s had something I can’t remember being in those other decades. It had hope. In spite of the horrors of reality, people were open to magic. Vietnam was raging. Drugs were everywhere. Civil Rights had everyone galvanized to the nightly news. The 60’s had its problems, but there was hope. Hope the world could be a better place. Coming out of the war, we as a nation and as a world learned that war without purpose had no meaning. Of course, it hasn’t stopped us from repeating our mistakes.

The magic of that time still lives today. I only had ten months of living in the 60’s, but I like to think the magic lives inside me. I truly believe love can solve anything. I believe hope is the key to overcoming adversity. I believe we’re all the same in spite of color, religion or nationality. I believe magic exists if we only open ourselves to it.

That is exactly what I try to do with my writing. Bring magic to people’s everyday lives. The real world is just plain real. We all have troubles. They give us acid reflux, keep us up at night and make us snap at the people in our lives. I for one don’t want to dwell on those things when I read. Growing up I enjoyed slipping into the realms of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I still do, only now I get to create those worlds for others to enjoy. Escaping the real world is fine for a little while, but it’s comforting to know when I get back from whichever universe is holding my attention I have someone waiting for me.

When people ask why I write Romance, I tell them it’s because my wife taught me what true love means. The reason isn’t as simple as that. Maybe the real answer is I write Romance because I want to share my own personal happiness with the world. So, if you happen to pick up one of my books, I hope you get sucked into the magic of love, just like I did sixteen years ago this year with my own true love.

So, here’s wishing you a week full of love, and enough magic to make the real world bearable. Unfortunately, you’re on your own when it comes to Mondays. Those things are the blackest of magic known to man.