Chronic Alchymia

No, I don’t have a sexually transmittable disease. At least I hope not.

I have always been drawn to the mystical, the mysterious, the esoteric.

Ever since I can remember, I have suffered from a chronic desire to tinker with the natural order of things. Alter them from their original state, convert them into something different. Alchemy.

The introductory painting is The Alchemist, by Joseph Wright, of Derby. A fine fellow.

It’s no surprise then that, as a lawyer, I attempt to transmute the base into the noble, problems into solutions. I take everyday facts and events and apply the magic of centuries of common and codified law to it. Whatever success I have had in this profession over the past four decades – and that remains subject to zealous dispute – is directly related to my ability to think unconventionally, outside the box. Change the way we look at things. Apply the law in new and unexpected ways to command an adventitious outcome. Make the unlikely seem plausible, and, through the lens of the law, also just. Voila.

As a writer, my alchemy is far more powerful and even more unlimited, as I transmute often totally unrelated facts and events that I may have experienced along the way, or possibly dreamed of, during what each added day becomes a more unpredictable life, into fantastic stories. I am unrestrained by preexisting, codified rules other than my creative desire to capture your imagination and the only arbiters of my success are the readers who, by chance or luck, and sometimes shame, stop long enough to read a few words of my literary incantations. The only test of my success is whether the magic of my words bind you. Compel you to read on.

If I have done my job as an authorial Alchemist, I have altered the mind of each reader – even the most skeptical – and made them believe that whatever outlandish story I have shared just possibly could be true. And you would be surprised if you knew. More than that, if my magic is working, I make the reader become part of the story. Make you sit at the table with Claire’s motley crew of mystical misfits and smell and taste the food, the whiskey and wine, see the ghosts, fight, laugh, cry, pass through wormholes and, most of all, love the characters.

And if my Alchemy is successful, that is when whatever baser elements that I may have started out with in my life and imagination, truly becomes gold.

Now this Alchemist has blessed with a number of familiars, like my feral cat, Smokey, who loves to hang with the dragons and other magical creatures in Jack the Spruce Grotto.

We share secrets each morning with the Gnomes.

But the closest thing I have to an actual Philosopher’s Stone, is my dear companion and confidant, Claire the Mule.

Through her mystical intercession, I have created my Magnum Opus, The Claire Saga, and achieved a minor form of literary immortality. Alchemy at its best.

Without Claire, I would not have written word one of The Wise Ass, and you would not be here reading this blog. And that Alchemy has changed this Celt’s life forever.

The Claire Saga is an epic journey of transformation for its characters, its world and its galaxy. Each of the five novels shows an evolution of everything and everyone.

Indeed, over the course of the story the Claire character undergoes a transmutation from the loving and psychically gifted creature we meet in The Wise Ass to a spiritual tour de force that leads the motley crew to where we all hope to get to, no matter what road to Rome we may be traveling on, in Where The Ley Lines Meet.

Now, each of these blogs over the past three years has been an individual spell and incantation to make you want to begin and/or continue to read each book – The Wise Ass, An Alien Appeal, Kissing My Ass Goodbye and Finding Jimmy Moran.

It is just five weeks out from the publication of Where The Ley Lines Meet. If you have read the other books, I hope that their magic has caused you to already commit to the final book in the series. If its been a while, you may want to re-read the series back-to-back, I’ve been told that it amplifies the literary gestalt.

If you haven’t yet started The Claire Saga, the next five weeks gives you just the right amount of time to read the existing books slowly enough to mine every gold nugget that this Alchemist has left for you.

Everything and everyone comes back into play for the finale.

And since I channeled this story, and cannot remember the details, I will rely on the assurances of my “heavenly muse,” Claire, that it is the wildest of Hollywood endings. She hasn’t been wrong yet.

But enough of my own mystical musings, reality beckons.

Thursday, Friday’s handmaiden, awaits.

I have some feral kitties to cuddle and rounds to make.

You fine, five (and only five) readers have that last cuppa and go wrap your work week in a nice bow.

Tomorrow is for fanciful Friday planning of the weekend.

But while we get from here to there, let us remember to make today a great one. That is truly the magic of our lives.