Because I like to ascribe meaning to all the doings of birds, I’m counting this secret clutch of chicken eggs I just discovered as a powerful omen of good Magic afoot.

It’s the time of year for magic (if there is a time). The harsh cries of crows in the pine boughs weave a rough incantation. The air is tinged with smoke and leaf-mould. I tossed and turned last night, jolted upright over and over again by phrases–not complete sentences even–just snips and threads–of a story insisting on appearing. A story of sisters, and magic.

I’m sure it was inspired in large part by watching Practical Magic for the first time a couple of days ago. Now I need to read the novel. The story is gorgeously magical, irreverently and wildly and joyfully so. Sometimes darkly. Always powerfully. It’s a kind of magic I think we could all use. But there’s something very upper-crust about that magic, too–about women in lovely clothes inhabiting huge houses bursting with everything anyone could possibly want or imagine.

I love that kind of magic, but I want the blue-collar magic, too–the working-class, trailer-park magic. The magic that pools in the hollows of Appalachian valleys where the sun only shines at midday. So there is a story now clamoring at my thoughts, coloring the way I see the woods today from the inside out.

Tell me about your magic. What kind do you need?

Filed under: animals, writing Tagged: birds, inspiration, magic, ornithomancy, secret eggs, sisters, stories, trailer-park magic, writing process