Magic by Sandra Horn
How do we define magic? The dictionary isn’t much help: the supposed art of influencing course of events by occult control of nature or of spirits…inexplicable or remarkable influence producing surprising results (I like that one). Is it too fanciful to think that it applies to the creative process? Over and above the work – research, editing, re-writing, re-re-writing, sweat, blood, toil and tears, there seems to be something inexplicable, sometimes. Characters do something you didn’t plan or expect, or your careful plotting suddenly lurches into something else. Is this universal among writers, though? JK Rowling seems to plan her plots and people down to the last degree, she says, so are only some of us inflicted by inexplicable or remarkable influences? I probably believed in fairies for much too long – or at least, in the possibility of fairies. I remember a meadow of wildflowers and long grass and butterflies where I almost thought I saw something. How old was I? T...