The Place Where Magic and Reality Meet
The stories I'm working on these days are kinda sorta paranormalish. No werewolves, no vampires. Just real people with beyond-real abilities. It's not that I've stepped away from contemporary realistic to paranormal. It's just that I've always been fascinated by the place where magic and reality meet. Isn't that what being a dreamer is all about?
Even in BREATHING, my contemporary realistic debut, Savannah gets visions of things to come. In the editing process, we scaled back on those visions because they didn't seem to have a place in contemporary realistic fiction. But we didn't get rid of them altogether because they felt important to me, important to Savannah. So I guess I've been writing this type of story all along, I just didn't label it as such.
I'm crazy in love with the idea that magic can be real. One of the things I adore about the Harry Potter series is the way the wizarding world and the muggle world come together. Harry doesn't just live in a high fantasy world where wizards are the norm. He lives in our world, too. And that's what draws me in. Part of being a grown-up in our muggle-type world means letting go of the belief in magic. But what if? What if there are people out there with abilities beyond the norm? Maybe not wizards with wands, but regular people living seemingly-regular lives, but with just a little something more?
Being a dreamer means creating a dream in your mind and then make-believing, believing it to life. When my husband and I were long-distance teenagers that's what we did --dreamed up a life we might have together, fed the dream with the power of belief, and took whatever steps we could to nurture that dream. It's the same with any dream: imagine, believe, nurture. And with a little bit of fairy dust -- magic and reality find one another, and dreams come true.
So I guess it's not really strange that the stories that come to me wanting to be written are fueled by a little bit of just-outside-of-normal magic. In a way, they're representative of the life I try to lead.
Dream on :D