Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

Midnight is upon us and so it's time to launch a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism, and with certain exceptions noted below, any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. Please note:  Any question or comment received after that point will not get an answer, and in fact will not be put through.  If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 341,928th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.3 of The Magic Monday FAQ here. 

Also: I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says.  And further:  I've decided that questions about getting goodies from spirits are also permanently off topic here. The point of occultism is to develop your own capacities, not to try to bully or wheedle other beings into doing things for you. I've discussed this in a post on my blog.

The image? I field a lot of questions about my books these days, so I've decided to do little capsule summaries of them here, one per week.  This is my eighty-first published book, the third entry in my series of occult detective novels starring eighteen-year-old Ariel Moravec and her adept grandfather Dr. Bernard Moravec. As I think I mentioned here already, I didn't intend these to be young-adult novels -- I simply wanted a protagonist who was in a good situation to begin occult training, and had plenty of entertaining problems of her own. Nonetheless I was delighted a while back to hear from a reader whose young daughter, a fan of these novels, has begun calling them "Nancy Druid stories." 

In this third installment, Ariel and her grandfather are caught up in a mystery surrounding a strange artifact from pre-Roman Italy, a bronze plaque with wolves and an inset moon of carnelian. The Heydonian Institution wants it for their collection of ancient magical items, but somebody else is after it, too -- and circumstantial evidence suggests that the somebody in question might just run on all fours and bay at the moon on certain nights. As Ariel researches the truth behind the old myth of the werewolf she hurtles toward a dangerous confrontation on the night of the full moon...

Copies? You can get them here if you're in the US and here elsewhere. Owoo! 

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I've also had quite a few people over the years ask me where they should buy my books, and here's the answer. Bookshop.org is an alternative online bookstore that supports local bookstores and authors, which a certain gargantuan corporation doesn't, and I have a shop there, which you can check out here. Please consider patronizing it if you'd like to purchase any of my books online.

And don't forget to look up your Pangalactic New Age Soul Signature at CosmicOom.com.

With that said, have at it! 

***This Magic Monday post is now closed, and no further comments will be put through. See you next week!***

Comments

[lukedodson]

Hi JMG,

I have a somewhat non-magical question this week, if I may, which I have saved since the lively Q&A on the Sunday of the Convention, as the session wrapped up just beforehand.

As regards writing fiction, my stumbling block is this: I am often quite capable of coming up with an interesting setting or backdrop for a story, but the actual meat of the story - the plot and characters - seems to evade me. Characters emerge as half-formed, hazy fragments of myself rather than tangible *characters*, and as for plots... well, forget about it. I have tried plotting out the arc of a story before writing, and just ended up staring at a blank page.

Do you have any suggestions for unclogging this block?

Many thanks,
Luke

you need a protagonist with a problem

[mskrieger]

Hi Luke,

Obviously I'm not JMG, but I'm a professional writer, and the best advice I can give you is this: every story starts with a protagonist with a problem. The meat of the story is how the protagonist tries to solve that problem, fails, fails again, and finally succeeds.

Some examples...

Moby Dick: Captain Ahab was injured by the White Whale and seeks revenge.

Ivanhoe: Ivanhoe must rescue Rebecca from the Templars and redeem his good name.

Star Wars: Luke must save the Galaxy from Darth Vader and find his real family. (Many good stories have both an exterior problem--saving the Galaxy in this case--and an interior problem--here, finding his family.)

A great setting and background help to shape the kinds of situations the protagonist find him- or herself in, but the driving force of the story is the problem and the protagonist's efforts to solve it.

I hope this helps, and good luck to you.

--Ms. Krieger

[ecosophia]

My advice? Talk to your characters and let them tell you their stories. Imagine yourself in a suitable setting -- a pub, say -- meeting one of your characters. Get them talking, and let them explain the story to you. That's how I always do it.

I mean this quite literally. Get your thoughts out of the way and let your imagination take over. If you let your characters talk to you, they'll take care of the plot and the rest of it.

Wow!

[(Anonymous)]

That’s great advice! Thank you. I’m not Mrs. Krieger, but I’ll take it.