Making Magic

“There’s a myth among amateurs, optimists and fools that beyond a certain level of achievement, famous artists retire to some kind of Elysium where criticism no longer wounds and work materializes without their effort.” -- Mark Matousek

Among the multitude of excuses and explanations put forth in service of the force of Resistance, the claim that great stuff is produced through some magical process is the most tragic. This is a disservice to the creator and to magic as well. Do I believe in magic? Oh yeah, I do.

The difference is that my Magic wears jeans and work boots. She doesn’t sit on some flower brushing her hair and fanning her gossamer wings until just the right moment to appear and shower fairy dust on my creative output. Magic is a blue collar gal, who gets up in the morning and goes to work with me. She inspires me mainly by prodding me in the buttocks when I start kidding myself about the reality of creative productivity. And I am here to tell you, those boots of hers really hurt!

She’s not just a taskmaster, though. She’s right there by my side when I’m working, encouraging me to put in my time and rewarding me with shimmering insights when I finally get it right. And nothing truly fresh and original springs forth fully realized. If you think it does, you aren’t there yet. In the land of creative endeavor, things that look to good to be true are just that.

Ideas are the first step in a long and torturous journey to powerful creative output. They must be turned, polished, revised, deleted, and pursued down tangential pathways to places no one would ever think of going. The best friends a writer has are the six questions: what, when, where, why, how, and who? Journalists use them to mine and define their material; novelists use them to ferret out the implausibilities, omissions, and follies in their imagined worlds.

I’m currently investing significant energy in world-building for an alternate-reality project I’m developing. I started out with a pretty mundane (dare I say hackneyed?) idea about a girl, a sword, and an elf. Then I started twisting it and at this point, I’ve got humans, self-exiled magical species, demons, and the delicious possibilities that arise when you thrust these disparate creatures together after a millennium of separation. Underpinning it all is the simple question that led me there: What would happen if all the magic left the world, and then suddenly came back?

The answer: All kinds of Hell would break loose. I am so looking forward to it. What’s turning your world on its ear? Just Think Differently.