Hello, and welcome back!
It's Kendra, and I'm gonna introduce you to a new guest blogger!
Olivia Brooks is a college student, editorial assistant, blogger, and, most importantly, an author, and she's going to be here every THREE weeks, sharing little nuggets of goodness with us.
I'm excited! I've seen some of her work, and wow!
So hang on, it's gonna be a fun time.
Ready?
- Kendra
Hi, I'm Olivia, and I'll be sharing my writing with you here! Who am I? Well, I am an avid reader, writer, and aspiring editor in the book world! I am the editorial assistant for Thin Veil Press, Black Thoughts Editorial Services, and the Florida State University English Department. There has always been a desire lingering in me to write and share my words with the world, but also to help others enhance theirs! I hope you enjoy my funky, whimsical words. Stay authentic to yourself, always.
Autumn’s air is normally crisp and thin, fresh fallen leaves and snapped twigs leaving a spruce pine tingle in my nose. It was not until my uncle opened my eyes to classic literature and Edgar Allan Poe shorts that I began to overstimulate my journals and friends in conversation with sensory details. Books are descriptive, steaming as if the author built up anger which fueled their pen.
When my uncle took my hand and led me into his home library, a space I was all too familiar with since the age of Adeline… since I was two, that is, it was far from the familiar feel I was used to. Libraries hone in on the shouts and whispers of proficient speakers who never told their stories aloud. The written word is a magical element with the substance of beauty, but no one ever believes in magic, especially when it comes to practical, daily materials that the average human uses to live and communicate.
But it was on that day three autumns ago that I gripped an inward feeling toward books harder than I held my uncle’s hand. I saw the words fly. Books once still and silent on too high shelving were flying around the room, flapping their covers and breaking spines as a whirlwind of noise equivalent to the sound of busy angel wings filled the room. I saw books flying, and I had no reason to believe otherwise or explain it away.
Is this what all authors possess? A moment of truth that lurches them from mundanity into the literary world of squirming words and broad strokes of creative freedom?
I sat on the plush rug in the middle of the library and let my eyes wander. My mind dragged with my sight like a dog pulling its owner while gripping the leash. Books left their space, moved about the room, and settled back down in a new spot. Some did not move at all. A few even flew straight down to me as soon as I sat, closed flaps and eager crisp pages waiting for me to thumb through and read.
What happens to children when they read vulgar dark fiction or works of feminist literature that can alter their brain chemistry from the norms and morals of their upbringing? It can lead to me, of course, a writer with notes and tunes of song that whisper in my mind and shovel into neat, fleshed out paragraphs on legal pads. It leads to inspired stories built upon words that reroute themselves from my mind right onto the typewriter. There’s no need for a wand or singular book of spells, a witch’s brew of potions or supplements to regenerate childlike tendencies in my brain. I simply smile at the page and let the words flow.
I will not tell you about my stories quite yet, though they are fruitful and locked in the dungeons of my brain. Maybe by winter or the coming of spring there will be a moment of mystical freedom. Perhaps pigs will fly or fairies will sprinkle pixie dust on abandoned lands, leading to built-up skyrises and urbanized landmines in a day’s time. Magic can do anything; did you not just visualize those cute, glittery wings flapping above a stray field sprinkling sparkles and dust over it all? Maybe you too are magic.
See, the problem is that magic is such a hypocritical term. To be magic is both a seeing and believing virtue, aspects we choose to look out for or not care to solidify. Am I magic because I said I saw books fly? Am I magic because I helped you imagine a simple child in your world seeing books fly? Am I magic for the written words on my pages? Is there any magic in this world at all, or is it simply the luck and thrill of imagination that seeks to be forever young?
Let the books fly. Let the words unravel and flow. They always know where to go.
