…sometimes, when I’m lucky, I can channel some magic into my own writing and voice, as well.

So I suppose I’m a Word Witch. But to be more accurate, I’d say I’m a Story Seer. 😏

…and learned he was an actual practitioner. I knew Frances Hodgson Burnett was tapping into something real. As much as the pages of novels formed my masks, they shaped my interior life as well. And even more now, I can see the prophecy, allegory, truth and raw magic underlying the fantasy.

And…

…and made it real.

And perhaps because I’m a gestalt processor, I could do the reverse, too: I could read these fictions and pull the truths out of them. I could read The Secret Circle by LJ Smith and sense the real magic under the plot. I wasn’t surprised when I read Omega by Stewart Farrar…

…what to expect, played out the future in hundreds of Choose My Own Adventures. I constructed my own reality, my masks, from these tales. I took fiction…

…in my social knowledge. Perhaps because I’m neurodivergent, friendships and social subterfuge didn’t come naturally to me. Meanwhile, fiction was my special interest - particularly teen novels, mysteries, spooky stories, and a touch of sci fi.

In the pages of these fictional lives, I learned…