In the online recording of his creative writing class at Brigham Young University, Brandon Sanderson a prolific and NY Times best-selling author of Young Adult and Fantasy fiction shares an anecdote
“And so when I was driving somewhere, my wife would say, "I know when you're thinking about a story, because if I say something you jolt, and you look at me like, 'What have you just done? I was in Roshar and it was cool.'" Now I'm in a minivan. Where is my Spren?”
Whilst Sanderson is sharing the anecdote as a warning of the effects that consistently losing yourself in your writing can have on your relationships, alienating those you could otherwise be spending time with or might be trying to build a real-world life with, I found it a powerful example of the magic and writing.
More than when I’m doing visualisation, when I’m creating a world for fiction - whether I’m taking a walk in the park or washing dishes and otherwise pottering around my flat, I too find myself transported and bringing characters and worlds to life is certainly a certain kind of magic.
Over the last decade, in various consultations with an elders and mentors i, I’ve been encouraged often to “use my magic”, and for a long time, I didn’t know exactly what that meant.
I explored working more spells, setting different intentions, practicing manifestation, amplifying my intuitive skills, divining ability and building a deeper relationships with deities and spirits, spiritual mentors and understandings of various traditions.
I also practiced showing up more fully as myself, and for myself - engaging with the world with more confidence and power.
Yet, in each session, sometimes years later, the same message came up.
People experienced in divination and spiritual circles will know that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m doing anything wrong, but my desire to make progress and demonstrate growth meant that hearing the same thing each time felt like an admonishment.
“What do you mean? I thought I’d made more progress in that” my brain would retort.
Despite it being obvious to me that writing can be full of magic as an avid consumer of fantasy, magical realism and sci-fi, I never considered that writing as a place my magic could lie.
Writing is necessarily a magical act. The act of bringing something out of nothing, turning empty space into something that transforms and transports, inspires and challenges and can bring people to laughter, sadness, madness or tears is something I’ve been in awe of since I was a child.
I excelled in literature and essay based subjects and was an avid reader. Growing up where Tolkien spent some of his youth, close to an area that inspired Middle Earth, my life was steeped in the magic of literature. My thinking, however, was shaped by a schooling that encouraged writing as a means to an end defined someone else - a grade, a report, an email.
As an adult, I’m now seeing with new eyes the layers of magical activity within this art form. Alongside creating something from nothing, words on the page can help us see the magic in the world around us.
The opening epithet of Jeannette Winterson’s Sexing the Cherry that our world is "empty spaces and points of light”, not only immediately dissolved the Birmingham childhood bedroom I was reading in (I also used to like to read completely ensconced in my wardrobe), further, it gave me a magical way of seeing the world that I carried everywhere since.
If that was true, why couldn’t a character move through walls or teleport or transport. Why couldn’t cars fly or the sky be magenta or purple with seven moons and cities be made of emerald.
Storytelling was a long celebrated magical art, before words on a page existed.
Sat round the fire listening to Anansi stories at Nne Agwu Storytelling Retreat, at a campsite surrounded by forest in South London, I watched as Eli Anderson, founder and director of StoryAid UK enthralled and transported his audience to a mythical version of Ghana, or the Caribbean where Anansi resides. Himself a master storyteller who works to “ensure that people feel empowered, gain confidence to tell their story, reduce their social isolation and reconnect and rediscover a balanced life”, Anderson is a a published author, poet and musician, who has also written for theatre and film.
In the movement of the fire the shadows thrown created a Plato-esque experience with shadows dancing and forming rabbits, spiders and snakes solidifying a magical moment in my mind for eternity.
Unfortunately, as a society, the power and magic of the stories we tell is not always used for the best purposes.
The stories we tell shape our world and tell us who we are and what we can be. In media and journalism, for example, the focus on entrepreneurs who raise copious amounts of funding creates a landscape where VC’s are overwhelmed with deals, and everyone thinks raising is a viable or even suitable path for them - despite the myriad other options in the landscape, and the fact that venture capital funds can be wrong for the vast majority of entrepreneurs.
For individuals, the focus on impossibly beautiful celebrities with weird and wonderful diets and insane morning routines creates a standard that lives in the collective consciousness that we all have unlearn, or at least, examine our relationship to, in order to stay sane.
Fiction allows us to examine and challenge our understandings and stereotypes and norms without feeling immediately guilty or the immediate pressure to change. Perhaps some more immediacy might be good for us - whilst stories of the outlier radical who fights to change the world have us celebrating Katniss Dean, the real life activists are maligned.
Some of these stories support some of us to change, but the world needs more. Whilst commercial goals in writing are cool, I’ve never been more aware of the pressing need for everyone with a story in them to get it out, however they can.
You never know whose life you are going to change.