We have a strange new critter in our neighborhood. For the past few weeks, a guineafowl has been roaming around our hillside, back and forth between our yard and our neighbor’s. We’ve named her Gertie.
Gertie
Gertie is an African bird, so we aren’t quite sure how she got here. Perhaps she escaped from a breeder. She doesn’t fly very well, so this seems unlikely. Perhaps she was dumped in the neighborhood. This, unfortunately, does seem likely. People who don’t live here in our hills think it is a public dumping ground, and we spend a lot of time and energy cleaning up other people’s messes. But how do you clean up a guineafowl?
She seems to have appeared as if by magic, and now, we’ve kind of fallen in love with her. She makes very strange noises, sounding alternately like a very squeaky bed and a goose being attacked by a hawk or something. And if you’ve ever doubted birds descended from dinosaurs, one look at Gertie is all it’ll take to convince you. She looks like a cross between a very large chicken and a blue Velociraptor.
All sorts of Gerties have popped up in my Work In Progress (WIP), The Storyteller’s Bracelet. Not guineafowl, these Gerties, but surprises that seem to have materialized out of nowhere. This shouldn’t surprise me as much as it does; the same thing happened when I wrote On the Choptank Shores and The Cabin.
But for some reason, these surprises are different. They are taking me into the realm of magical realism, something I experimented with in The Cabin, but which now has gone far beyond the experimental stage. And, quite frankly, I wasn’t sure I wanted this book to be classified as magical realism. I was aiming for historical romance. It contains a classic love triangle, one man and two women. He loves them both, they both love him. Both end up in serious trouble. He has to choose which one to save, and live the rest of his life dealing with the consequences.
My Storyteller's Bracelet
But then there was that pesky title item, the storyteller’s bracelet. I have one; it is what inspired me to write this book. And the bracelets—both the one in the book and the one I wear on my wrist every day as I write—seem to have magical properties I never imagined when I embarked on this writing adventure. My bracelet urges me on, makes me want to sit down and write each day. The bracelet in the story does the same thing, in a different way, to our hero.
Magic is everywhere in our world, if you just have the eyes to see it. I’m not talking illusions, which is what “magicians” like David Copperfield perform. Illusions are just that—a trick of the mind. Magic is what happens when an African bird appears out of nowhere in your Southern California yard. Magic is when bees pollinate your peach blossoms, and a few weeks later, fruit appears. As Malcolm Campbell wrote yesterday in his blog, Meditations on Seeds and Their Immense Journey, every single seed contains magic. Magic is when two People (and I capitalize that because I mean not only Humans, but Bear People, Otter People, Tree People, Lizard People, every Living Thing) come together, and a few months later, their offspring are born. Magic is when your best friend calls or emails you out of the blue just when you are feeling low and wishing she were there to comfort you. And, if you’re a writer like me, magic is when something unexpected pops up in your WIP, leading you down paths you did not expect to explore with your characters.
I’ve learned when magic enters your life, be it through an unexpected visitor from another continent or through your words, it is best to go with it. Magic is strong and best not be ignored.
And on that note, I think I best heed the magical call of my WIP. It is waiting to take me down a new path. I cannot wait to see what my characters and I discover today.
