Lily Iona MacKenzie's Blog, page 38
July 2, 2018
“Be someone on whom nothing is lost.” —Henry James
Many writers try to live up to Henry James’ advice: “Be someone on whom nothing is lost.” We writers need to approach our internal and external realities in a mindful way, taking in as much as we can so that when we write description, create dialogue, and develop characters, we have plenty of material to […]
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June 25, 2018
Do Published Writers Need Media Kits & Sell Sheets?
Until a few months ago, I had no idea what a media kit or sell sheet was. They seemed like something only a publisher or publicist would need to create, not an author. In some cases, my assumption might be correct. But for those of us who are published by presses with limited marketing budgets, […]
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June 18, 2018
Taking the mystery out of Landing Pages
In my last post I spoke of the difficulties I had upgrading my WordPress blog to a new theme. Today’s post is an extension of that one. Landing pages have become an important tool for bloggers and others that have products to sell. They offer an opportunity to collect followers’ info more directly before that […]
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June 11, 2018
Thinking of changing your WordPress theme? Think again!
Well, I certainly didn’t expect that setting up a new WordPress blog theme would take over my life, but it has. It started so innocently. I began browsing through my then free WordPress themes, searching for one that would give me a more professional online look as a published author. There were many to choose […]
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June 4, 2018
How To Shut Down Discussion in a Reading Group!
Dear Fellow Readers, An experience I had in my reading group has caused me to think about how to read and respond to literary fiction without shutting down discussion. One of our fellow readers tends to immediately jump in and express her opinions before there’s an opportunity to explore a book’s many themes and characters. […]
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May 28, 2018
Are Writers Shapeshifters?
During a visit to Calgary, Canada, the city where I grew up, I conducted a workshop at the event “When Words Collide.” It was entitled “The Origins of Fiction: A Personal Odyssey.” Preparing for the occasion had me thinking about narrative seeds, especially mine. What starts me on these explorations of others’ lives? One of […]
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May 22, 2018
What’s in a Name?
I’ve been thinking about names and how they inform our lives. When we’re born, our parents select our name that starts us on a journey. It might have some mythical weight to it, like Adam or Naomi. In that case, we’re already embedded in an archetypal story. The Biblical Adam makes me think of a […]
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May 17, 2018
test post 7
Still checking to see if this new theme works.
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test post 5
I’m still can’t get the literary theme post page to work.
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May 14, 2018
Writing’s Magic
[image error]The word magic gets thrown around loosely and can have many different meanings, depending on the context. For a child, the world must seem forever magical as s/he explores and constantly makes new discoveries. Even for adults who have retained their childlike enthusiasm for life this state still exists. Seeing sunrises or sunsets that astound viewers with color variations is just one example, but so, too, is the miracle of tiny, dried-out seeds eventually producing plants that can nourish us. Those who have done a little gardening know how magical this process can be.
But even as I describe a few ways in which magic makes its appearance on a daily basis, I’m doing something quite extraordinary. Through arranging letters on the page, I create words that then call up associations and images in a reader’s mind. Everyone has seen a sunrise or sunset and has visual memories of them. Yet not only do I make such things appear for readers, but I also can weave these words together in a way that they make a statement. They make sense! And it isn’t just writers who have this special power. We all do.
There is a difference, though, between words that make statements, that relay information, and those that conjure up other worlds. Again, one needn’t be a writer to do this. The oral tradition has a very long history, and storytellers/bards had an important role in entertaining and instructing their listeners. While many singer-artists still carry on this tradition, it’s also broadened to include those of us who, metaphorically but some actually, take pen in hand and write a wide variety of poems and stories.
Writing, then, in itself is magical. It opens us to possibilities we may never have considered if someone hadn’t taken the risk and dipped into his/her memory bank, unleashing settings, situations, and characters, both familiar and unfamiliar, depending on how much the person’s imagination was activated. I’ll never write another sentence without being aware that these letters I’m plunking onto the computer screen are amazing in their power to tantalize, a great response to those who may think what we’re doing as writers is not magical. It’s true that anyone can write sentences. But not everyone can create new worlds!
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