Magic

She thought about some of the grownup mindscapes she'd seen with nothing but work and sleep and TV and dishes and laundry in them.  People moved away from magic all the time, as if the world squished it out of them, stepped on its hem and the people went on walking without noticing that the magic got left behind  -- From Red Heart of Memories by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

My grandma baked bundt cakes and wore leopard print shirts that showed too much cleavage.  She drove a Buick and did voodoo.  She sent me panty hose in the mail, and endless packs of blue ink pens.  From the time I was little, she told me I was a writer, in a voice both stern and reverent, like she was reading my palm.  One of my first published short stories, Rides Like Heaven, was inspired by her and her passion for cars.  I wrapped the magazine up in leopard print paper and gave it to her as a gift.  She bought a special leather bag and carried copies of the magazine with her everywhere, showing off her grand daughter's story - dedicated to her - to cashiers and clerks and waitresses. 

For a long time, I stopped writing everything but letters.  I wrote my grandma at least one letter a week in blue ink pen.  When she died, I wrote nothing.  No letters, no stories.  Then the recurring dreams began.  Grandma was alive somewhere, waiting for one of my letters, but I hadn't written in years.  I'd wake up, heart pounding furiously, tears of anguish on my face.

Finally I began writing stories again.  It took three books for me to core down to my essence, super romantic girl, and discover the story I was meant to write.  For the last year and a half, I've been writing River Magic, a love story set in Iowa on the Mississippi River, where I grew up.  It is contemporary realistic fiction, not fantasy, and yet it is full of magic.  Because love, and this life, who we are - and who we are to each other - this is powerful magic.  Dreams are powerful magic, too.  Ever since I began writing River Magic, I no longer have the dreams about my grandma. 

She wanted me to write, and I did.