No Pot of Gold at This End

by Kathryn Magendie

Lots of supernatural magic happens in the Smoky Mountains. And if some of it is unbelievable to you and you and you,  well, there’s no way to prove that, now is there? We can hide more deeds in and among these mysterious mountains than city dwellers can (and I say “dwellers” as if it’s not spelled and pronounced that way, as if I am saying “fellers” all mountain south way).

But there are some things that need no proving. You must believe them! For in believing them, you can take away a piece of the magic for yourself—you can look for what you must find.

I once was hiking along a ridge-top when I saw a rainbow arcing across the sky, touching the next ridge-top over from where I was. There was something different about this rainbow, something more solid though it undulated, sparkly, and it was beckoning to me. I was mesmerized, hypnotized, and didn’t even think to consider the distance I’d have to trek to find the end of that strange rainbow.

But in the way that magic happens, when the earth aligns just so with the moon, and the stars although unseen bare their sparkled supernatural gifts, with only a few long running steps I soon arrived at my destin(y)ation.

When I tell this story, seeing as it happened on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, people will ask, “Did you find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? A leprechaun?” I just shake my head. Seriously? A pot of gold? A leprechaun? Those kinds of things are for other legends and other fairytales in other lands. Not for here. Not for me. And they will then ask, “What did you find, Kathryn?”

“I found,” I then say, “a cup spilling over with brilliant color that washed into the cup and over its sides, and down the mountain . . .” . . . on it flowed, as if a creek where many colors of paint were spilled. I didn’t hesitate, but threw off my clothes and dived in. The water-colors were warm against my skin, and when I lifted my hand, it was red, green, purple, blue, yellow, orange—and all the colors among and between those. Glancing down at my body, it was just as my hand appeared. My hair streamed out behind me, brilliant golden silver.

I then drank some of the water, unafraid, for the rainbow whispered promises to me—“It is good; it is good; it is so very good, dear one.” And it was. I tasted sweetness, a sweetness that entered my body and then spilled out from my pores. I sweated colors, and then, quite suddenly, because it was so very lovely, I began to cry. I sat upon the grass tinted by the colors, my feet emerged in brilliance, and I cried for everything I ever lost and gained and would lose and gain again. My tears fell upon the grass in gemstones of emerald, ruby, sapphire. I did not pluck them from the ground for my gain, for they belonged to the rainbow.

The waters then rose up and washed around me, hugging me, and I knew the rainbow would soon have to leave. The cup tipped and spilled all of its wonder and I lay upon the ground and let the colors wash me clean. I saw my life before and ever since. But I could not see what was to come, and that was okay, for the rainbow eased my worry.

Soon, the cup was empty, the water-colors rising up out of it and back into the rainbow, and then, as if it had never been there at all (but it was! I saw it!), the cup and the rainbow disappeared. I mourned it for a moment, until I saw something glimmer in the grass—one perfect tear still held there, garnet—deep blooded red. I touched it and it melted into my skin becoming a part of my blood that raced through my veins. I smiled, rose, and hiked back down the mountain.

I would never be the same.

When I tell this story, people think it is a metaphor, that I have some grand reason for telling it, some purpose.

That is up to the listener. I only know what I experienced that March 17 in a year that is secret to everyone but me—perhaps it is this year, and I simply saw the future. Perhaps it was a hundred years ago, and I saw a past.

I long to hike up to the ridge-top once more, to see a rainbow, where I would not look for pots of gold or leprechauns, but instead for the beckoning. I long to search until I find it again—though, I know in that knowing way, it happens only once in a lifetime, in ten-thousand life-times. I know that now comes the time that I must leave it behind and never ever will I ever see it again.

Check out Kathryn Magendie’s novel – THE LIGHTNING CHARMER – today on Amazon!

Just click the link! 

Living the Dreamy Dreamland of a (cray-cray) Writer

Kathryn Magendie

Oh, the joys of being a writer! Why, we see the world in ways unlike mere mortals. Yeah. We do. Of course we do. We walk about with our heads in the clouds, or huddle inside our little spaces with far away dreamy dreamland eyes that rarely blink. I think I once didn’t blink for a week—no! Really! When one of my eyeballs fell out, I thought, “Dang, woman! For gawd’s sake blink!” So I did, and believe you me, I make sure I blink every once and a while. It’s much better that way; take it from me, the voice of experience.

I’m more the reclusive kind of writer. There’s only rumor that I really actually do exist at all. No! Really! There’s no one actually to prove it—okay, there are some who have seen me, waiflike and ethereal, meandering in an otherworldly way with clouds hovering over my wittle head. I’m so incredibly cute!—um, in very very weirdly dangerous to myself way—but I promise I am absolutely not dangerous to others. No sirree. I don’t even see others most of the time to be of any danger to them. Yeah. I just think of really strange things because my characters are doing all this cool stuff and I want to do it along with them. I do! I want to have all that excitement, and mysterious happenings, and!, all that good hot sex. Woooowheee.

Yeah, while writing The Lightning Charmer, I was so in to that book, I actually considered running outside nekkid while calling out to the lightning to “Take me! Take me, lover! I want you! Oh yes yes yes YES!” And without one shameful bone in my little body. Yeah. I surely am telling you the truth. I mean, Laura, that’s the main character, bless her heart, got to have sex with a lightning bolt!—how hot is that, my friends? How dagum hot is that? And Ayron? He’s the love interest, and so much more (I have a crush on him to beat the band so I won’t gush on and on about his awesomeness while I sigh with breathy sighs *cue rising music that fills the chest with longing.*); well, Laura has Ayron, that big hot sexy man who calls down the lightning for her. Oh, to have me an Ayron calling me down some lightning, mm hmmm—why can’t I go find a secret place in the woods and a big hot sexy mysterious man who charms the lightning comes take me in his big ole arms . . . *Kat will return in a moment—she’s having a quick fantasy daydream . . . nothing to see here, move along.*

Welp, luckily I have good sense god gave a goose and won’t go outside nekkid calling to the lighting to give me some hot sex. Huhn. And if I go up in my woods looking for a man, well, I just may find one, but what if I find a Flem and he takes me off to his nasty old shack like he did Laura? Ewww. He was some nasty. Dang it.

Sometimes I think of chunking this writing life. I do! You don’t believe me? Well, buh-leeve me I do. Sometimes I think I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s such a strange business. One that sometimes is unforgiving, and lonely—*sobs quietly for a moment*—and as for money? Good lawd! Let’s don’t go down that sad road.

But then, if I didn’t do this, who would I be? What would my world be like? How would I think of all kinds of cool things I’d love to do, even if I really can’t do them. Even if I can’t sex it up with a lightning bolt or a sexy lightning charming man, my character can, and I can live vicariously through her, and the others I create (or are they creating me?—stop the existentialism, Kat!). And it’s fun. And exciting. While I’m writing it, I am living it, y’allses! I am!

And when I’m not writing it, I’m thinking about it. And when I’m not writing and thinking about writing, on the seventh day, I rest. Dang, that might sound blasphemous, and in the south and mountain south you just don’t DO that kind of thing. Even if you might not believe in God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit, it doesn’t matter—you by gawd better respect it! So, let me rephrase that: I never rest. At all! Yeah, even a god will get to rest, but my brain is on electro-dynamic-zippity-do-dah-day seven days a week, even when I’m sleeping—you don’t EVEN want a peek inside my brain, or my dreams. No. No, you do not *shivers.*

Now. If you are a writer, then you might be nodding your head, or you just might be going, “This woman is cray-cray! Good lawd!” And if you are not a writer, you might be going, “This woman is cray-cray! Good Lawd!”

Later y’all! Oh! Before I go: thank you all. Thank you all for supporting us writers by reading our work and encouraging us and staying ten feet back from us when we stare up at lightning with a gleam in our eyes. Teehee. But I adore you all. I do!

(A big P.S. The Lightning Charmer is on promo for one day only! For $1.99—wooowheee! That’s pretty danged cheap, y’all!)

Make  sure you head over to Amazon today in order to get this great deal on THE LIGHTNING CHARMER!! Just click the link!

Christmas Lists: Then and Now(—Are we thinking of the giver?)

By Kathryn Magendie

At various stages of Kid-dom, my Christmas list would read something like this:

Real Candy, with chocolate – not that hard stuff, or fruit

Baby Doll with a Stroller

Pretend, but really works, Spinning Wheel with Yarn

Barbie

Bike – a new one would be nice, but used is fine, too

Pack of Old Maid Playing Cards

Parcheesi

Checkers

Horse – not a pony, but a Real Horse, preferably a black stallion that rears up and paws the air

Books  – connect the dot, puzzle books, Black Beauty, Black Stallion books, Call of the Wild – any book about dogs or horses or wolves

A pair of black and a pair of white shiny vinyl knee-high boots

Blacklight and Poster

And, with the exception of the horse (dang), at one time or another, I received those gifts. Thing is, all of those gifts are tangible. One can go out to the store and purchase the item, wrap it up, and put it under the tree—again, with the exception of the horse, but that didn’t stop me from racing to the window every Christmas and checking to see if a horse was tied up in our suburban front yard. Yeah. Hope springs and all that.  But the list is simple enough, although at various times in my life we were pretty danged poor, so those items weren’t easy to come by. Somehow, though, my mom always found a way to have presents under the tree for us. And the magical wonderful thing about that is this: whether we had asked for a certain item or knew it was best not to ask because times were hard, it didn’t matter, because once we dived under the tree and began unwrapping, we thought how everything we received was just what we wanted no matter what our list, spoken, written, or just dreamt, was—we were happy, even with the sack of fruit and hard danged ole candy.

Fast forward to my Older-dom, the post-published author phase of my life, and the list reads something like this:

New York Times Best-seller

Win a Literary Award

Number 1 (again please!) on Kindle

People to love me and love my books and think I am AWESOME!

Yeah, yeah: Love and peace and health and all that jazz, etc etc etc.

Write a book that goes viral

Oprah saying “and a Magendie book for YOU, and a Magendie book for YOU, and a Magendie book for YOUUUUUUUUU!”

Book to movie

Do you see the difference in those two lists? Other than the obvious, of course. In the second list, the items aren’t tangible; one can’t go to the store and buy them; someone can’t place these things under the tree where I’ll rip them open, happy-shiny paper flying willy-nilly, the givers grinning their fool heads off because they’ve made someone joyful. The gift wishes in the second list are Hah-Uge and for all but a few, could be almost unattainable. With a list like that, one could be forever unhappy at Christmas, forever feeling slighted, forever just a little bit sad. One could sit there among the twinkly lights feeling sorry for oneself while all the others are ripping open their packages with glee.

So this Christmas, I think I’ll alter my thinking. I think I’ll make me up another list. One that makes someone else happy in the giving. One that GMR, or my friends, or family members can happily and sneakily purchase, wrap up, and place under the tree, anticipating my reaction. For when year after year I say, “Oh, all I want is (above list),” I take away something magical and wonderful from Christmas. I take away someone else’s joy of giving.

And you? What about you? What is on your Christmas List this year? And is it similar to my second list? And if so, want to join me in hoping for something tangible, something wrap-able, something we can tear into on Christmas morning with joy and abandon? All the rest is dreams—and dreams can be dreamt any old other time. Christmas is for plain old greedy want of material thangs—just say’n! Yeah!

Merry Christmas, all y’allses!

Kat Magendie, author, Publishing Editor of Rose & Thorn, is the author of The Graces Trilogy (Tender Graces, Secret Graces, Family Graces), Sweetie, and of the novella Petey in The Firefly Dance. Her next novel, The Lightning Charmer, will be released fall 2013.

Is the Novelist Work Not Valued, or Under Valued?

Kathryn Magendie

  it’s not magic . . .

How much do you pay for a haircut? What about going out to dinner? Or a Supreme Latte with extra supreme? Do you like manicures/pedicures? Do you enjoy massages? Do you have a personal trainer? Is there something you value enough to collect?

And of all those things that you purchase and enjoy, do you ever expect to get them for free, or for the Service Provider to do their work for deep discounts?

Of course for most of those things you don’t, right? So why is it when authors talk about money they feel uncomfortable, as if they are embarrassed to even consider the idea of making money from Their Craft?

Is a writer’s work not considered Real Work?

You can buy a book and you can enjoy that book and the feeling it gives you as many times as you want. You can lend your book to a friend or relative and the author receives no royalty on that. You can sell your book to someone and the author receives no royalty on that. The author receives his/her one-time royalty when a book is purchased and that one-time royalty is a small percentage of what the book sells for—and often at discounts, which isn’t a bad thing, for who doesn’t want a “deal,” right?

An author takes months, a year, or for some even longer, writing their book, then they must rewrite and rewrite, then they may go through rejection and uncertainty, then when they have that contract, their work is not done—more editing, more waiting, more stress. When the book is published, their work begins again: marketing, promotion, personal events, etc etc etc—and many things the author pays for out of their own pockets. They must also, during the marketing and promotion, create more work, and the cycle begins again.

Through all of this, the author does not know if his/her book will be loved or hated or ignored or somewhere in between; he/she does not know if it will sell well or will not sell well.

It won’t matter how hard the author worked, how much money the author spent, he/she never knows what their paycheck will be. Anyone who goes into the Novelist business to make money should not go into the novelist business. There are simply too many unknowns. There is a lot of work, a lot of stress, a lot of rejection, and there’s a lot of feeling that your work is Not Of Value—imagine going to work every day and doing the best danged job you can and your boss quibbles with you over your salary and makes you feel as if you should be giving your work away for free or whatever he decides that day to pay you based on whatever he’s feeling about you compared to some other worker.

In matters of art and the heart, it’s hard to place monetary values, but frankly, we have to. Novelists have to make a living, too, and for the Novelist to feel guilty for hoping his/her works sells so that he/she can pay the bills or contribute to the household makes this business seem as if it’s more a Hobby than Real Live Work.

Is it because unlike the stylist or the restaurant worker or the oil tycoon or the actor or the football player or the ice cream man we can do our work in our pajamas tucked in our little houses? You can’t see us working? It looks like lots-o-fun? It’s “easy” or “anyone can do it” – well, even the person who digs a hole gets a paycheck, and just about all of us can dig a hole, right?

Or is it because the writer, the novelist, does not teach people to value his/her work? Did we start it all by being apologetic about what we do? Is it because many times we readily admit we’d do it all for free because we love it so much? It’s all we ever wanted to do. We are begging someone/anyone just to read our work and love us, please please please just love us.

And the thing is, despite my wish to be valued monetarily for “making a living’s sake,” all I ever hope for is to be loved and appreciated by my readers, respected by my colleagues, to have my books in the hands of people who see the love and care that goes into every word I write. I guess that’s a value in itself, right?

No, it’s not magic—it’s hard work, but I don’t want to do anything else, and I go into this with eyes wide opened.

BY KATHRYN MAGENDIE

ME AND CHARLIE SHEEN

Kat Magendie is the Amazon.com bestselling author of TENDER GRACES, SECRET GRACES, SWEETIE and a contributor to the upcoming anthology, THE FIREFLY DANCE. Visit her at www.kathrynmagendie.com 

I’ve just dragged my poor tired bulging bloodshot eyes over more articles than I can ever mention here (my brain hurts); although I don’t need to mention them because chances are pretty durn good you’ve read them or someone has forwarded them to you or shared them on twitter or Facebook or you know someone who knows someone who knows.

Yup, this old girl just lifted her heavy head from hours of reading about ebooks and ereaders and eauthors gone wild, traditional versus “indie” publishing and how the two are facing off in a battle the likes we haven’t seen since Luke battled the dark side *cue laser sounds here,* writers who are selling their books for fewer than three buckeroos (and sometimes ninety-nine centerinees) and becoming thousandaires and sometimes, GASP, millionaires.

I read about “everyday ordinary people” who suddenly went “viral,” and I don’t mean only writers, but just about anyone who can put together a pretty decent YouTube video and watch it race across the airwaves; and I read about the discovery of gifted and talented homeless people and the rush to exploit them, er um, I mean make-the-homeless person-and-not-the-discoverer-famous.

I’ve watched Charlie Sheen in fascinated wide-eyed open-mouthed wonder as he does the equivalent of what self-published authors are doing (see epic battle mentioned above)—“Aw, to heckles with you guys, I’m going this alone and I’ll make wads of cash doing it, too! I don’t need you anymore;” then there’s the finger raising and all—I won’t show you any cussing or finger-raising because my momma will read this, but you know, dontcha?

Thing is folks, I could sit here minute after hour after day after month after year and read up on how these people are making themselves Famous and Rich and Well-Known, and still I won’t be able to figure out how they’ve done it. If I could, I’d package it up in a cute little tube with a little stopper and sell it for ninety-nine cents. Just sayin’.

Seems everywhere I go I am confronted by news and images of someone who is suddenly viral and suddenly famous and suddenly millionaires and suddenly everywhere and all over—sometimes they stay that way and sometimes they disappear in a poof of magical sprinkles that rain down upon the heads of no one who notices anymore. And added to those voices are the thousands of others joining in the chorus who attempt to become virally rich and famous, and underneath those are the ones who are trying to figure out how they can eat a piece of the magical pie (as I admit I did this morning), and it’s this loud cacophony of voices and screams and, “LOOK AT ME’s,” and “ME ME ME HERE I AM MAKE ME FAMOUS ME! WHY NOT ME?”

I’m exhausted. I’m over-stimulated. I’m fascinated. I’m discombublated. I want a vodka and about sixty-three hundred million hours of quiet in my little mountain cove where I stay mostly reclusive (and isn’t it somehow against the law for a reclusive like me to become viral and famous and find sudden Bieber-like status? I need to look that up, later, yes later I will).

What it really comes down to in my little pea-headed brain this morning, other than I wasted a lot of time online when I should instead do what I do—write my books, is the need to separate my thoughts about making lots and pots of money and many sprinkles and tinkles of fame OR just do what I do and do it the best I can and let the pennies and accolades fall where they may. I mean, what is my responsibility here? What is my purpose? If I don’t try to find the formula, or the formula find me, to become Rich and Famous and Viral, am I somehow lacking? Am I considered unsuccessful? Am I a fool for not jumping on the Viral Bandwagon (if that were even possible, for again, becoming “viral” is somehow magical!). Or, is my modest success, just, well, okay. Is Okay okay anymore these days?

The thought of it all sends me back to bed and under the covers, so I can drown out the noise of all the “ME ME ME!” but also so I can drown out my own voice of, “Why isn’t it YOU YOU YOU? What’s wrong with YOU; why aren’t YOU rich and famous. WHAT ARE YOU DOING WRONG, WOMAN?” And even though I tell myself I’m being ridiculous, still the little pricked thoughts prick, the little pricks they are. My un-viral success feels un-successful. Whaaa?

I suppose until I become Viral, I could just keep writing my books the best I can write them. They’ll be out there floating around in all the madness, adding my own tired-arse little voice to the crowd. But they’re my words and characters. I created them. I breathed life into those words and characters. I did something right, right? Right? Please tell me I did something. Right?