Category: Imagination

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If magic was real, what would we conjure?

Book 4 The Lost Beginnings, features the Otherworld, a realm in which everyone can use magic, and there’s even a law enforcement officer to police unsafe and dangerous usage. Having re-read some of it recently, it got me thinking… if magic was real, what would I conjure? And what would it say about me?

The possibilities are endless. Or are they?

Asking others, there were varying responses. Having infinite pizza might solve the question of what to have for dinner for a while, and a teleportation device sure would cut that daily commute and give back some time. Most people initially start big, a large house and being able to have as much money as they needed. But then, money ultimately buys freedom and time, so why not go straight to that instead?

Now, let’s add a restriction to how much magic you can use. In Book 4, the use of too much magic causes the realm to become unstable and liquefy. It reverses what we see in Book 1 when Yas visits Victorian London and sees how magic can create the realm. So, think again about your choices. What can you achieve without constantly having to conjure? How much magic might be too much?

Whatever your response, it prompts some deeper questions. Why did you choose what you did and what might you really be seeking?

What are you really searching for?

Are you looking for more time, to be able to think without feeling under pressure, and to be able to get more done in the day. Maybe you want time for you, when all the responsibilities of the day are taken care of?

Perhaps you’re seeking clarity, looking to understand people and the world around you without having to second guess. What did that person really mean? What really matters in this situation and what choice can I make that I won’t be replaying in my mind later?

Or maybe you’d decide to conjure something that benefits others? Heal disease, solve hunger, help the climate?

Digging deeper into why you’d conjure what you decide takes us to the last and perhaps most uncomfortable question in this thought experiment, what does that say about you?

Choices speak words

Sure, in the moment you can choose to conjure anything convenient. But remember, if there’s a limit to how much magic you can conjure, you must be careful with your wishes. Do you still want to make it immediate and convenient, or should it be more meaningful for you?

To be meaningful though, you need to think about what that means to you. Do you want something grander for yourself, nobler for others or subtler for quality of life for you and your loved ones?

Whatever you choose, it paints a picture of you. And that picture may or may not be in line with the picture you feel like you’d like to portray about yourself. Ultimately the ability to conjure anything gives us a freedom. And with that freedom, how do we choose to use it?

What do the Word Guardians conjure?

The same dilemmas play out for Yas, Sam and their friends in the realms. Sure, they have battles and need to conjure weapons and shields in the moment for self-defence, but they still must think about those deeper questions. Do they seek defence or retaliation? Do they seek to win at all costs or use force only to regain balance? Ultimately, their ‘why’ is to protect the imagination of readers, and the magic that they cast is in service of this.

To learn more about the magic of the Word Guardians, and their enemies, The Controllers, read the book series. See also what resonates (or doesn’t) for you in how you’d like to react to the challenges that the Word Guardians face.

Click the button below to view and buy the books in your usual Amazon store (available in paperback and kindle editions).

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The realm visitor’s survival guide for the Word Guardians

If you could open a portal and step through to a magical realm, as the Word Guardians do, what should you take with you? I thought I’d explore the idea of a Realm Visitor’s survival guide in this week’s blog.

Travelling to a realm is different to adventures in the outer world. Assuming you can enter a realm, you can draw on the magic that’s present while you’re there to conjure food, clothing and more.

So, you don’t need much in your survival pack really. However, there’s two key pieces you do need though, for a visit to a realm.

Opening a portal to a realm

The first, and most important part of being able to visit a magical realm, is being able to open a portal. In Who can visit the realms of the Word Guardians series?, I talked about having belief, magical ability and a key.  We see how this comes together for Yas in Excerpt from Book 1: When Yas discovers magic and how Yas then comes to believe, develop her innate magical ability and open portals to other realms.

For Yas and Sam, they have several keys on the necklaces they wear. The faces of the dies, the pendants, help them both find doorways into realms and detect when a portal is nearby. They discover other keys too, but their pendants also help them with the second part of visiting a realm.

Getting home again

Like any adventure, you need to get back home again. When visiting a realm, that means knowing where the portal is that will get you back to the outer world. This could be the same doorway that took you there, as Yas and Sam find when visiting ancient Alexandria (Excerpt from book 1 – Escape from Alexandria). It might also be a portal that can only be opened by someone else, which causes Yas and Sam to become trapped in the Otherworld in book 4 – The Lost Beginnings.

An exit portal can be opened the same way as a portal to enter a realm. You need belief, magical ability and you need to know where the door is. Magical ability comes a little easier once in a realm and magic is all around you, but it depends on the realm as you’ll see in the upcoming book 5, The Story Thief.

What about surviving in the realm?

As I mentioned earlier, while you’re visiting a realm you can draw on the magic that powers it to conjure what you need to survive. Food, drink, clothing, can all be created to provide your daily needs. But, as you find out in the stories, you can also get injured, or worse. So, caution is needed, as you would exercise on any adventure.

What’s in the realm visitor’s survival guide

So, a realm visitor Survival Guide is maybe a little different from what you might expect, but important, nonetheless. You need the ability to open portals to visit a realm and get home again, and you need to have your wits about you while you’re visiting. Without the ability to open doorways, you’re not going to get very far on your magical adventures, and this learning is a big part of book 1 – The Battle for the Peacekeepers for Yas.

To see how this plays out for Yas and her friends, click the button below to view and buy the books in your usual Amazon store (available in paperback and kindle editions).

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If you could control the minds of people around you

Continuing the topic of mind control this week (see what if books could control your mind), here’s another question for you… If you could control the minds of people around you, would you? What might you do?

What could you achieve with mind control?

Would you use mind control for your own personal gain or to help others?  One might make you a villain, the other a hero.

Even if your aim is to help someone else, what about their free will and the ethics of using mind control.

Free will

We like to think we have complete freedom of choice, to make our own decisions and shape our own destinies. And if someone else is controlling or influencing us, then our free will is diminished. Living in a world where we are fortunate to have freedom, being controlled is an uncomfortable thought. What right does anyone have to make our decisions for us, or influence those?

And yet, there are existing influences around us that unconsciously shape our decisions. The people close to us, the environment around us, the news, media, advertising and more. What we see and hear seed thoughts and help shape beliefs that may influence our own future actions, without us being fully aware.

How core values affect mind control

If we saw that someone was being controlled and their actions influenced, what reaction might that prompt in us? Would we want to try to help in some way, would we treat them as ‘not my circus’, or would we want to jump in and take advantage of the situation?

Whichever choice you lean to, that speaks to your underlying core values. I believe that our values would drive our feelings and actions in these matters. There may be conflicts there, as Detective Wheeler had to navigate, but ultimately our values will help shape what we do.

The ethics of mind control

Ultimately, over and above our own values, the ethics of mind control are key.

It’s easy to dismiss the ‘bad’ of mind control and say that if it reduces someone’s freedom, then it shouldn’t happen. I think we can probably agree that if the mind control is not for someone’s greater good, then it shouldn’t be used. But what if it could be used for good?

If it could help someone recover from an illness or trauma, or help a convicted criminal reform, would that be an acceptable use of mind control? Perhaps yes, if that person freely consents.

If mind control is forced upon someone, then that further diminishes their freedom. However, if it is freely agreed to and for a specific purpose only, then that removes some of the concern. The scope or ‘specific purpose’ agreed to is also key. Privacy is an important consideration here too, and so any mind control should be constrained to that purpose and associated information.

Wrapping up

It’s a deep topic. If you had the power to control someone’s mind, the answer is complicated.

Aside from your own values and whether you thought you might be acting for someone else’s greater good, there’s their free will and ethics to consider. It’s a topic I touch on in book 1 The Battle for the Peacekeepers, when Yas has to make a decision in battle. (I can’t say more as it will plot spoil, you’ll have to read it for yourself.

To learn more about how mind control in the Word Guardians series, click the button below to view the books in your usual Amazon store (available in paperback and kindle editions). Buy book 1 today, read how mind control is used by the Controllers and how Yas handles the same challenge in the Battle for the Peacekeepers.

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What if books could control your mind? Could you resist?

I thought I’d give you a question to puzzle over, in this blog… if books could control your mind, could you resist?

A recap… what forms the worlds of the Word Guardians

In What are the Worlds of the Word Guardians I talked about word magic and how it forms the worlds, or realms, that the characters visit.

When reading, a scene forms in the mind’s eye of readers and the story plays out. This is not just imagination; it takes shape in a magical realm. It’s like a stage, where props and actors are formed from the magic and play out the scene. Many readers can unconsciously collaborate, witnessing and shaping the scene in the mind’s eye, and the realm responds, changing what’s presented to match the collective imagination of the readers.

How the Controllers control

In Introducing the Controllers, the Word Guardians ‘bad guys’, I described how this process of imagination can be influenced. Controllers can visit and change the scene in the realm using word magic. This can then be ‘seen’ by readers and influence their imagination. It can be mundane, or more impactful and that’s where the battle between the Controllers and the Guardians starts to play out. It’s a battle for control versus free will.

On a visit to Victorian London, Yas learns that most readers ignore things that don’t make sense. But subtlety is the key here. The Controllers make changes that readers accept as a seed and then that can be expanded upon to greater effect. It influences the thoughts of readers, placing suggestions of fake news, or as we see with Book 3 The Shadow Readers, readers can be incited to action to further the Controllers’ goals.

So if this happened to you, how would you know?

If someone was subtly influencing your thoughts, would you recognize the signs?  With so much influence in general in the world already, what ways can we safeguard our minds?

Like the Shadow Readers in book 3, if we’re being controlled and taking uncharacteristic actions, or performing unhealthy habits we hope that family and friends would challenge us. That would be one call back to reality.

If it’s more subtle though, as we’re influenced by stories, it could change our beliefs over time. Perhaps we might express those views, but other than that, there may be no external signs.

What about if a Controller influences us to say or do something that conflicts with our own values (see Waking up to core values in a time of crisis)? Would we become caught up in it or would it jar internally and cause us to pause for a moment?

Could you resist?

Ultimately, we must question what we read, see and hear and I’ve touched on this from the Guardians perspective in How do the Word Guardians determine the truth. We should ask who has presented a story and why now? What might benefit whom from the way in which it has been portrayed? Only then can we start to know our own thoughts and form our own beliefs, versus trusting what comes to us.

So, what do you think? If a book started to control your mind, would you notice? Could you resist? I’d be interested to hear what you think.

And, to learn more about how mind control happens in the series, you’ll have to read the series. Click the button below to view the books in your usual Amazon store (all the books in the series are available in paperback and kindle editions).

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New Year, old beginnings, here we go again

It’s the New Year, a time for hopes and plans for the coming year, new beginnings. But be honest, how many of us have had that thought of ‘here we go again’? That sense of old beginnings and we’ve tried this before, what will be different this time?

Whether it’s a new diet and exercise regime, to have more time with the family, or plan some bigger ticket items like travelling, it’s like we felt as though we had clarity during the holidays but now (for many of us) as the normal working weeks resume, the motivation and drive become lost.

With this in mind, I thought I’d share an excerpt for a character from Book 4 Lost Beginnings who had this exact same feeling.

Mira’s drive to work

The next morning, Mira Cornwalth was driving to work, listening to the radio. It was depressing, like the weather. Rain hammered the windows of her old SUV, par for the course really in the temperate rainforest of Vancouver’s North Shore. She mused to herself, as she did often, why she was here.

She slowed, approaching a red light at an intersection. She knew the logical train of events leading up to now, but there always seemed to be something that she’d missed in her story. Perhaps it was the rain and greyness of the day that soured her mood. She was also late, again, and wanting to get through the traffic faster.

The lights changed and she grew impatient with the car in front not moving.

“Come on,” she moaned. She ‘bipped’ her car horn “It’s green!”

The man in the car in front gestured angrily out of the window.

Mira lowered the window in response and shouted back. “Really!” She got a spatter of driving rain in response, and quickly closed it again.

The car started moving and Mira took the opportunity to move into the left lane, hoping to get past the driver.

She turned up the radio, as the traffic report started. She’d already been caught up in one slow line because of a flooded lane. She was hoping to avoid another delay. Her boss would not be happy with her tardiness again, and she was fed up with making the same excuse.

She pulled up at another red light, this time turning right and at the head of the line. Fortunately, no-one was crossing but her fifteen-year-old SUV decided to sputter and die on her.

“No, no,” Mira complained. “Come on,” she urged, gripping the wheel with one hand while trying the ignition again.

A car horn behind her bipped.

“Yeah, well, I deserved that,” she said to herself, seeing the irony of the situation. “Come on,” she urged the car again.

She closed her eyes, rubbed her hands and placed them on the steering wheel.

There was a flash of words running around the rim and then down the steering column and into the ignition. The car sparked into life as a second car horn beeped her from behind.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mira replied, gesturing her irritation with her hands. She shifted the car into gear and started to make the turn. “Jeez.”The next morning, Mira Cornwalth was driving to work, listening to the radio. It was depressing, like the weather. Rain hammered the windows of her old SUV, par for the course really in the temperate rainforest of Vancouver’s North Shore. She mused to herself, as she did often, why she was here.

She slowed, approaching a red light at an intersection. She knew the logical train of events leading up to now, but there always seemed to be something that she’d missed in her story. Perhaps it was the rain and greyness of the day that soured her mood. She was also late, again, and wanting to get through the traffic faster.

The lights changed and she grew impatient with the car in front not moving.

“Come on,” she moaned. She ‘bipped’ her car horn “It’s green!”

The man in the car in front gestured angrily out of the window.

Mira lowered the window in response and shouted back. “Really!” She got a spatter of driving rain in response, and quickly closed it again.

The car started moving and Mira took the opportunity to move into the left lane, hoping to get past the driver.

She turned up the radio, as the traffic report started. She’d already been caught up in one slow line because of a flooded lane. She was hoping to avoid another delay. Her boss would not be happy with her tardiness again, and she was fed up with making the same excuse.

She pulled up at another red light, this time turning right and at the head of the line. Fortunately, no-one was crossing but her fifteen-year-old SUV decided to sputter and die on her.

“No, no,” Mira complained. “Come on,” she urged, gripping the wheel with one hand while trying the ignition again.

A car horn behind her bipped.

“Yeah, well, I deserved that,” she said to herself, seeing the irony of the situation. “Come on,” she urged the car again.

She closed her eyes, rubbed her hands and placed them on the steering wheel.

There was a flash of words running around the rim and then down the steering column and into the ignition. The car sparked into life as a second car horn beeped her from behind.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mira replied, gesturing her irritation with her hands. She shifted the car into gear and started to make the turn. “Jeez.”

Hopes and dreams can get lost in the day to day

When we need to focus on the detail of our day-to-day activities, we lose sight of bigger picture dreams and plans. We don’t have the time or energy to get to them. Before we know it, tomorrow becomes a week and we catch ourselves self berating when we have a moment of space and stillness.

Typically, our working life involves our rational, logical, right side of the brain. Even if our occupation is creative in nature, there’s planning and organising, and that’s without considering all the other tasks in life as parents, adults, homeowners etc. It takes time and energy and can become overwhelming quickly, preventing us from getting to that extra thing that’s for us. We lose grip of our plans despite our best efforts.

Making it sustainable

From my own life, I know that letting go of a goal but having a sustainable practice is key to moving forwards with any dream and plan. With my own writing, I started out with setting aside an hour a week, typically on a Sunday morning. I didn’t set a goal for how much I needed to achieve each session, nor how long I might take to write a novel. I just sat and wrote. I found that I enjoyed the practice, it fit into my life, and I was rewarded with what I was able to create over time. These three things have not only enabled me to sustain it and make it a habit, but I find it’s something I look forward to each week, and it’s something that I continue with today.

Ultimately, dreams and plans don’t have to get lost in the day to day if you can find even some small way to include them in your week.

How will you make your dreams and plans sustainable in 2026?

Now turning it over to you, what plans and dreams do you have for 2026? And how will you make time for a sustainable practice in your week to start to progress towards these? Feel free to share in the comments below.

And, to learn more about Mira’s adventures in the realms, buy and read Book 4 The Lost Beginnings. P.S. You’ll want to read books 1 to 3 too as that helps give the background for the other characters. All the books are available on Amazon in paperback and kindle editions. Click the button below to go to your country’s Amazon store.

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The magic of the season, and how do we find it?

It’s the last month of the year, and for many cultures and faiths it marks a time of preparation leading up to the holidays. It also evokes a lot of memories, dreams and feelings too, so let’s talk a little about the magic of the season.

Memories, dreams and feelings

I don’t know about you, but I find myself thinking back to past holiday seasons, especially those as a child. The overriding feelings and memories is a sense that so much was possible.

Without adult responsibilities, there was a freer sense of curiosity, wonder and magic. I think as adults it’s something we try to recapture for ourselves. It’s a way of going back to that innocence of the inner child.

Thinking about the characters in the Word Guardians stories, for Yas it relates to her sense of curiosity and wonder when falling into her first realm in The Battle for the Peacekeepers. So here’s an excerpt of her realising she’s somewhere magical. (To set the scene, feel free to re-read the excerpt in When Yas discovers magic).

When Yas first fell into a realm

After landing on the forest floor, mentally she checked through her body for any signs of pain. There were none. A forest scene came into focus around her. Looking up, she saw the branches of a tree between her and a blue, partly cloudy, sky. A huge trunk was at the top of her vision, behind her. It seemed so tall that she couldn’t tell where the tree ended and the sky began. There were other trees around her, but not as tall or as full of leaves in their canopies. They let in wider shafts of sunlight. Remnants of leaves she had crashed through floated down through the beams of light along with twigs, branches, nuts, and flies that had been disturbed. The tree’s limbs swished and swayed back to their original positions. As the scene stilled around her, she noticed other sounds and smells. In the distance, there was bird song. She could smell a freshness she associated with morning dew, along with damp bark and soil. The whole scene reminded her of a forest she had once visited as a child on a school trip to England. The New Forest, she remembered it being called. And this place looked so neat and tidy, as if it was new.

She chanced movement into a sitting position, incredulous that she was where she was. One minute the shop, now a forest. She figured she must have taken a bump on the head and that the world was going on around her unconscious body. Soon she’d be waking up in a hospital with her worried parents onlooking.

“Wake up,” she commanded herself. “Come on!” She tried hitting herself on the arm. It didn’t work, so she figured that she’d need to deal with wherever she was.

She heard a light rustling nearby. Its lightness suggested a small creature searching through the leaves for food. She moved her head slowly, so that she didn’t frighten it. There was still no pain. That was a good sign. From what she remembered of the view above her, it was probable that she had fallen a very long way indeed and she should have been injured. Looking to her side, she glanced movement. About ten metres away was a small grey squirrel, searching.

“Where did I put it?”

That surprised Yas. A talking squirrel. It immediately triggered thoughts that challenged her perception of reality. What was she was experiencing right now? She was clearly concussed, she figured, but what state was she in physically back at the shop? Had McVale arrived back yet from her chores? Maybe she had tried to wake her up and failed? That was a worrying thought. She’d call the paramedics, Yas reasoned. They’ll be picking me up and carting me off to hospital. That’s what would be happening now. This was her mind’s way of keeping her from the shock of serious injury. Then another line of reasoning caught up. Hold on, I only fell from a kick-step. How bad could it be?

Marrying dreams and reality

As for Yas in the above excerpt, the challenge is in allowing dreams not to be closed off in our thinking. It’s all too easy to shutdown what seems to be unlikely or impossible, based on our experience and conditioning of the world around us.

But does that mean that the magic isn’t there?

The message is all around us

The message the magic of the season is all around us. We see it in movies, adverts, books and more. At this time of year, it’s pretty much everywhere and impossible to avoid.

So, if it’s there, why don’t we see it? Often, we’re too busy performing all that we have to do in our daily lives and in preparing for the holidays that we don’t find it.

The magic of the season

So, the question is, how do you find the magic of the season? Does that curiosity and good feeling arise from watching a movie, spending time with family and friends, seeing holiday lights, or something else?

Feel free to share below what evokes the magic of the season for you, and please accept this as a gentle nudge to take some time this season to do it.

And as always, to learn more about Yas’s adventures in the realms and how her wonder and sense of magic develop, buy and read Book 1 The Battle for the Peacekeepers. It’s available on Amazon in paperback and kindle editions. Click the link below to go to your usual Amazon store.

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season.

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The good and bad sides of loyalty

In the previous blogs What trust is and why it is important and Waking up to core values, I’ve delved into the relationship that plays out between Detective Wheeler and the vampire, Raelinn. Loyalty, and the good and bad sides of loyalty are related, and something I thought I’d talk about here.

Loyalty can follow from trust and respect in someone’s core values, but it can also mean that we end up saying and doing things that take us away from our own values.

So, to give a little more context, here’s a snippet from Book 2 The Twisting Tales (no plot spoilers, but if you re-read the excerpt in the Trust blog post, you’ll see that Raelinn and Wheeler are at least talking here).

The good and bad sides of loyalty

“How’s the diet of blood, blood and more blood working out” asked Wheeler.

“Are you deliberately trying to rile me, Detective?” Raelinn shot back.

“No,” replied Wheeler. “I’m trying to keep the storylines at bay. They are all around us here. We have to be close to something.”

“Close to what?”

“I’m not sure. Just trust me,” he said. “We’re better off here, in tree cover. If you look through the canopy, there’s stories swirling all the way up. Do you see them?”

“No!” she replied. “Only you can see them.”

Wheeler stopped for a moment, remembering something.

“Earlier, on the train carriage, you said the same. What did you mean?”

Raelinn sighed.

“It’s part of your abilities, Detective,” she said. “You’re able to see the story lines. It’s why Orfeo wants you alive.”

Wheeler stopped and turned.

“Why do I get the feeling you didn’t want to tell me that?”

“Because while you didn’t know, Orfeo was better able to use you.” She stopped, watching for what he would do next.

“Yet, you did tell me?”

“You’re our best chance of getting out of here, Detective,” she said.

“James,” Wheeler said simply, holding out his hand in welcome. “Call me James.”

“What?” Raelinn asked.

“I’m not a detective here, and I may not have a job… or a wife… to go back to. I’m just James.”

“Very well… James,” Raelinn nodded, shaking his hand. “You’re doing a good job of keeping me focussed. I have the sense that despite your flaws, your wife has chosen well.”

“I’m sorry?” replied Wheeler. “Maybe that kiss affected you more than I thought?”

“No,” replied Raelinn. “I believe you are an honourable man.”

James was stunned for a moment. “You’re complimenting me now?”

“You may not believe me,” Raelinn continued. “But I once tried to act according to values of integrity and honour also. My history with Orfeo… well… let’s just say that my loyalty to him has stained me in this war in ways I do not like.”

“Loyalties are always difficult,” he agreed. “How you come into them generally defines how they play out.” He sighed.  “I’m not innocent either. I had poor judgement when I agreed to work with Orfeo. It was for my own gain.”

When loyalty becomes a prison

As I’ve mentioned before, Wheeler had a history with gambling and debt, driving him to take advantage of an easy way out. However, to achieve his goals, he had to be loyal to Orfeo and take actions that were against his own values. It became a prison for him, something he had to try and escape, while not hurting anyone around him.

For Raelinn, we get a glimpse here of the loyalty she was born into when she was turned into a vampire by Orfeo. His protection has been offered in return for her servitude, to carry out deeds that affected her greatly over time.

Freely given or demanded?

The dictionary definition of ‘loyal’ mentions being faithful to a person, cause or group to whom loyalty is due. To me this is talking about earning respect and trust and loyalty being given freely, willingly.

However, the flip side of loyalty is when people who want it, demand it. They use the threat of fear, uncertainty and doubt to ensure that a person’s loyal. We talk about this as loyalty, but is it really? Is it just masquerading as control?

Who and what causes and groups are you loyal to?

So, I’ll leave you with this question to reflect on… thinking about your relationships, how did that loyalty form and how does it serve you in your life?

And of course, if you’re more intrigued to learn what happens between Wheeler and Raelinn (and what that kiss was about 😊) then buy and read Book 2 The Twisting Tales (but read Book 1 The Battle for the Peacekeepers first to set the scene). Both are available on amazon in paperback and kindle editions at the link below.

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Being mindful, why readers are unaware of visitors to realms

Another week, and another piece of self-reflection, this time to ask you how mindful are you and what do you really see when you look around you. 

I want to do this by sharing an excerpt from A visit to Victorian London which touches on why readers can’t see visitors to a realm. They typically ignore things that are unexpected.

Read on below…

McVale’s explanation of readers to Yas

McVale continued, switching topics again. “The human mind has a great ability to ignore things that don’t make sense. On some level readers do see everything, but they are expecting to see a particular story play out in their mind’s eye, and so they ignore anything else that doesn’t fit.” 

Yas heard children’s laughter somewhere above her and looked up, straining her eyes against the fog. She glimpsed children flying, holding hands, before they disappeared over a rooftop. 

 “We each imagine things slightly differently,” explained McVale. “To a reader, the realm offers Victorian London. Different stories, different paintings of scenes can be played out here, without a reader of one book consciously aware of what another is reading or seeing in their mind’s eye.” 

“Like theatre stages?” asked Yas, remembering something her grandpa had said to her a long time ago. “So, the realms are a collection of stages on which different stories can be played out by readers?” 

A quick reminder of ‘readers’

In the Word Guardians series, remember that readers unintentionally collaborate. What they each see in their mind’s eye powers the magical ink that creates and reshape the realms. 

As Yas realises above, the realms form theatre stages that play out a story in the mind’s eye of the readers, and they typically only see what fits with that storyline. It enables visitors to the realms, such as Yas and McVale in the excerpt, to move around undetected. They might be spotted, but because the reader is not expecting to see them, they are filtered out of the experience. 

What do you see when reading?

When you’re reading, what do you see in your mind’s eye? You probably see the storyline playing out, a scene and characters moving to match the description and action on the page. But do you ever notice anything you’re not expecting? I don’t know that I do, but it’s interesting to think about when you’re next sitting with a novel. 

What about in life?

In life too, we tend to look around us and see what we expect. We move through life with a particular set of goals and tasks to perform and only see what’s relevant to those and the settings that we travel through. If we’re driving, we notice other road users, pedestrians, road signs etc but whose to say what else might be there that we don’t notice? 

Mindfulness

Ultimately, I’m touching on mindfulness. I’m talking about how much we are fully present. We typically see what we expect to see given what we’re thinking about and imagining. But how much more is there, and how does that change our experience of life? 

I’m likely not doing enough justice to mindfulness by what I say here and it’s a worthwhile topic to dig into further. In the meantime, if you want to learn more about how The Word Guardians, buy Book 1 The Battle for the Peacekeepers. It’s available in both paperback and kindle editions. 

Enjoy reflecting. 

The Word Guardians book series

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Imagining a better way to travel, a magical portal

I had the opportunity to travel recently, part business and part visiting family. It was lovely to visit but I have a love, hate relationship with travel. It takes so much effort. Busy airports, being sat in an airplane for hours with many people around you, long travel days, the list goes on. So, I find myself wondering, is there a better way to travel?

Could it be as easy as stepping through a portal?

In the Word Guardians series, our adventurers can enter different realms simply by walking through a doorway. Could we?

Yeah, you have to have a strong magical ability and a key to the doorway (as detailed in Who can visit the realms of the Word Guardians), but in The Battle for the Peacekeepers, Yas and Sam manage to do just that. They visit Victorian London and ancient Alexandria, and more.

Just imagine the possibilities of simply stepping through a doorway to your destination. You get to skip airport crowds, the waiting, delays and the effort. If all this was possible, where would you choose to go? 

The journey is the destination

That old adage of ‘the journey is the destination’ came to me while I was thinking about my answer to ‘where I would go?’. While stepping through to a destination sounds exciting, what you visit and do while there is equally important.  

If we just visited a beach, looked out at the sea and then return to our own world, it’s pleasant, but have we really experienced the place? If instead we spend time there, the place starts to become a part of our story, and our experience is richer as a result. 

What I’m trying to say is that why you choose to visit somewhere, what the intended story of your visit is and what your experience becomes, is important.  

We see this in the Word Guardians realms also. Each realm is formed by readers in the outer world unconsciously collaborating. Their imagination powers magical ink which builds worlds, creates actors and enables stories to play out. When Yas and Sam visit realms, they interact with these worlds and change the storylines. If it fits with what a reader in the outer world might expect to see, then it becomes part of the story.

So, what’s a better way to travel?

I started out in this blog by thinking about how we could avoid the inconvenient parts of modern-day long-distance travel. And I stand by that. Travel takes effort and its toll on us.  

If we had the ability to step through a doorway to a destination, that would be amazing, but I don’t believe it’s the complete answer. I think that by being more intentional about the stories we’d like to have when we visit somewhere, that’s an important part of it too. Whether planned or not, that forms a story that we’re part of forever.

Both Yas and Sam, typically have a purpose in mind when visiting a realm but then the story often unfolds in unexpected ways. How they take opportunities and adapt to the changing stories, that’s their story and one that I feel privileged to have been able to imagine and write. To learn more, please buy book one using the link below. 

I’d love to hear about your thoughts on travel too. Feel free to send a comment below or by using the contact form. And to journey with Yas and Sam through the realms, read The Battle for the Peacekeepers, available at the link below.

The Word Guardians book series

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Who can visit the realms of the Word Guardians series?

In my last blog, An excerpt from book 1 A Visit to Victorian London, Yas and her mentor McVale travelled to a realm that portrayed storylines and scenes from a period of history featured in many fictional books. You’ll have the read the book to see who opens the portal to the realm and how they did it, but I wanted to answer a question I’ve been asked a few times – can anyone travel to a realm?

Here’s my answer…

Through the tales of the Word Guardians series, there are three things that people must have to open doorways (or portals) into realms. First, they have to believe, second, they must have some magical ability and lastly, they need to have a key.

Belief is important

A visitor to a realm must believe that it’s possible. Think Alice in Wonderland and doing six impossible things before breakfast.

We see this in Book 1, The Battle for the Peacekeepers. Yas can’t open a portal to a realm until the idea is seeded in her mind. She’s closed minded and dismissive of the idea because of her upbringing and what she’s learnt in the world around her – ultimately her conditioning. Gradually though through her friendship with Sam, she becomes a little more open-minded, starts questioning things around her and that helps her discover a doorway to a realm.

Magical ability is a must have

The second part of visiting a realm is having the ability to open the magical doorway into a realm. What we learn from the books is that the magical ability can either be innate or learned. Ultimately, like anything, if it’s not practiced then it becomes harder to do. Again, we see this in, Excerpt from Book 1 When Yas discovers magic, Yas has an innate ability and with curiosity, a doorway opens for her.

Finally, a key is important

In Book 1, The Battle for the Peacekeepers, the keys are the individual dice pendants of Yas and Sam’s necklaces. Like runes, individual faces of the die open specific locks, hidden in books. To find a doorway relevant to a specific realm they must solve clues and find the book and page for the doorway to open. In later books of the series there are some variations but always along the same theme.

All together, visitors to the realms are like a secret club

You can think of visitors to realms being a secret club. First, these people have to be readers, because otherwise they can’t relate to what they see in their mind’s eye when they read. Books are key because without them readers wouldn’t be able to co-create realms, and finally the visitor has to possess magic and believe.

Want to learn more?

To learn more, please visit the link below to buy book 1 and start reading the series.

The Word Guardians book series

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