what One Of My Characters Taught me

What nakes magic Tick …

Characters really are alive for us authors, you know, and they come into our lives like familiar spirits.

It was a stunning bright winter night, clear as a bell and the starlight so bright I didn’t need a torch, and the courting owls calling from the oak trees all round. the owls were calling to me too, so I went out. At the head of the lane opposite the house are three big old oaks. The first has made its roots into a seat and every time I go sit there an owl comes to join me, as one did this sparkling night. I sent out a thread and in a couple of moments the branches rustled and a soft ke-wick sounded above me, a female tawny had come. I told her how I was relaunching my first novel, Owl Woman, told her just how nervous and excited I was and asked did she have any advice for me.

At first nothing came, just the very soft purring croon of the owl overhead. I could see a lot of the sky from there and it’s the time of Leonids. I’m a Leo so I feel very close to these meteors and there in the sky they came. It was sort of like this but this is not my pic, it’s from Astronomy Now, I can’t take photos like this!

It was stunning. I just sat there gobsmacked for over half an hour, and when I finally came back to earth my fingers were freezing! But Oh! It was so worth it.

The owl still crooned above me. I asked her how I could take this. Her answer was, Be like that, shoot sparks, burn away old energy, make room for the new that’s coming to earth and make sure your goals take fire.

I blinked, realised I hadn’t taken a breath for quite a while and sucked in air.

I am the Owl Woman, she whispered inside my head.

‘B-bu …’ I stuttered.

Have you ever heard an owl chuckle? I did then.

I don’t have to be a barn owl, she told me, just because I am in your story. I am every owl, every wise owl, I see in the darkness, I hear a mouse whisper in the undergrowth and a worm wriggle among the grass stems. I hear the singing of the stars. Listen to me as you write.

‘Thank you,’ I said out loud as I stood up and bowed to the oak tree and the owl.

Like I said, our characters are our familiar spirits too, they know where the story wants to go and will lead us there … if we allow them.

This picture is the Owl woman by brilliant artist, Chesca Potter