A friend, one of the best people I know, at 21 years old, took off for Coober Pedy, Australia, and set up prospecting for opals.
It was a gruelling adventure, mining is not for the faint-hearted, and it was mostly fruitless, but I think she loved it anyway, and then right at the end, she found what she came for, a beautiful opal.
Whether she had struck rich or not, she had a year she would never forget, and she point is not what she found, but that she went and looked.
Every day I write, looking for something, specifically the right words to complete the books I’ve committed to completing this year, a new novel, a coaching manual, sort of, and this blog, and I’m also creating a magic show, and performing everywhere I can.
Most of the time I feel like I’m panning for gold.
Most of what I write I can’t use, unfinished stories that set out with purpose but turn out not to have a point, words that just don’t hit the mark, thousands of words that I wrote but then wouldn’t put my name to, best left in my notebook.
For every twenty magic routines I start to make, putting together the effect, coming up with a method and a script, making prototype props and gimmicks, learning new sleights, I end up with one that works, that is actually magical, and it may end up in the show.
Sometimes, try as I might, I can’t write for toffee, and sometimes every magic trick seems hollow, sometimes I’m on the edge of despair, but it’s an important part of creation, and I love it, just don’t always have something to show for it.
When I’m shifting through the sands, scanning what I wrote the night before, or looking through the magic ideas I scribbled down, often as diagrams, and I see something standing out, clear as you like, a tiny nugget, perfectly shiny, then all is well in my world, and on I go, working away, looking for something.
Whatever you want, Dear Reader, be a seeker, go looking.
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