Dear Magician,
Have you departed through your mists back to your Island? I didn’t ask you if the Princesses lived there with you, but I get a feeling you’re all alone. I know I should ask permission to use your Internet words (do they at least have Internet on your island?), but I have attributed them to you, see? And I don’t know if I’ll ever hear your writing again. You left me with the vision of “grains of golden sand sifting through your fingers to the deep. While you weep. (Poe)
Your self-image of tragic despair and your defensive archaic manipulations must crack up and flake off like your proverbial eggshell. I know you are pure light inside.
You are a tricky magician. (Aren’t all magicians?) I love to be magically manipulated (doesn’t everyone?) But it’s your turn. You should enjoy the delight, also. But I think maybe you are too attached to your tragic image. Not once did your words sound like laughter.
You will not escape the literary world if I can help it. I’m going to talk to you here–I’m sure you’ll hear it there for water carries sound–and at the same time take care of my blog that nobody reads hahaha. I think this will be a reverse transcendence, for you need to come back to earth and find a different launching pad.
It’s okay, your feelings are safe with me. I tend to trudge the straight and narrow. (There are those who would laugh I said that.) Maybe I’ll gather a few obscure stories from you for my grandchildren? They should be so lucky.
You have lived as a leather eggshell for so long, it won’t take much for you to find your solutio. Life may be your solutio!
I need to tell you, I changed my mind about my wish. I desire to integrate compassion, not power. I leave the power in your hands, individuated power of integrity, wielded with wise authority. Albedo? You’re incubating. Oh! and it’s your novel that will hatch!
And! Since you’re The Magician, you can call upon the powers-that-be to influence the literary agents to actually open, and even read, your query letter. I’m so delighted! Can you tell?
From one who has been magically manipulated,
Katherine
P.S. Here’s one for the grandkids. This is how you opened our conversation. But I have to cite Fowles.
It’s all about the story. We both know that.
You might enjoy this:
The Prince and the Magician ~Reprinted from The Magus, by John Fowles
Once upon a time there was a young prince, who believed in all things but three. He did not believe in princesses, he did not believe in islands, and he did not believe in God. His father, the king, told him that such things did not exist. As there were no princesses or islands in his father’s domains, and no sign of God, the young man believed his father.
But then, one day, the prince ran away from his palace. He came to the next land. There, to his astonishment, from every coast he saw islands, and on these islands, strange and troubling creatures whom he dared not name. As he was searching for a boat, a man in full evening dress approached him along the shore.
“Are those real islands?” asked the young prince.
“Of course they are real islands,” said the man in evening dress.
“And those strange and troubling creatures?”
“They are all genuine and authentic princesses.”
“Then God also must exist!” cried the prince.
“I am God,” replied the man in full evening dress, with a bow.
The young prince returned home as quickly as he could.
“So you are back,” said his father, the king.
“I have seen islands, I have seen princesses, I have seen God,” said the prince reproachfully.
The king was unmoved.
“Neither real islands, nor real princesses, nor a real God, exist.”
“I saw them!”
“Tell me how God was dressed.”
“God was in full evening dress.”
“Were the sleeves of his coat rolled back?”
The prince remembered that they had been. The king smiled.
“That is the uniform of a magician. You have been deceived.”
At this, the prince returned to the next land, and went to the same shore, where once again he came upon the man in full evening dress.
“My father the king has told me who you are,” said the young prince indignantly.
“You deceived me last time, but not again. Now I know that those are not real islands and real princesses, because you are a magician.”
The man on the shore smiled.
“It is you who are deceived, my boy. In your father’s kingdom there are many islands and many princesses. But you are under your father’s spell, so you cannot see them.”
The prince returned pensively home. When he saw his father, he looked him in the eyes.
“Father, is it true that you are not a real king, but only a magician?”
The king smiled, and rolled back his sleeves.
“Yes, my son, I am only a magician.”
“Then the man on the shore was God.”
“The man on the shore was another magician.”
“I must know the real truth, the truth beyond magic.”
“There is no truth beyond magic,” said the king.
The prince was full of sadness.
He said, “I will kill myself.”
The king by magic caused death to appear. Death stood in the door and beckoned to the prince. The prince shuddered. He remembered the beautiful but unreal islands and the unreal but beautiful princesses.
“Very well,” he said. “I can bear it.”
“You see, my son,” said the king, “you too now begin to be a magician.”
Edit: Readability
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Katherine Brittain 
