Here's something that you may not know about me: I used to be a fairy.
For two years.
It was my first job. I needed a job because I was a poor university student, but I didn't want to work at a supermarket (or anything along those lines). Spending most of my teen years in Zimbabwe meant that I had never had a job before, and I therefore had no qualifications nor experience. Quite the catch.
Still, I needed gainful employment, and I stumbled across it quite by chance when I got off my bus at the wrong stop and discovered Once Were Angels, a fairy shop. Magical. Glitter varnished into the floorboards, silver-painted tree branches hung with ornaments, swags of sparking green velvet looped from the ceiling, forest murals on the walls, toadstools on the floor. And fairies, of course, in the form of mobiles, paintings, ornaments, toys, books and sculptures. The place was gorgeously, luxuriously cluttered. I loved it. And I loved the white-haired lady behind the counter: well into her sixties and dressed in a pink satin fairy costume.
We chatted. She told me that they held fairy-themed birthday parties there, in the fairy garden and the grotto. The garden was at the back of the shop, and was just as flower-and-toadstool-and-statue-and-fairy-filled as you can imagine. The grotto was in a room above, filled with enormous papier mache trees. A team of fairy princesses ran the parties and provided the entertainment. And I had found my college job.
Here's how the parties went in the grotto:
1) A shop assistant led an excited, giggly crowd of girls aged anywhere between four and eleven up the stairs, and stopped outside the closed grotto door. She informed them with great solemnity that there was a fairy inside, but that she was very shy, and would probably be hiding. She also told them that only children could see her, and, even then, only when they had been sprinkled with fairy dust.
2) The assistant opened up a tiny wooden chest filled with glitter and sprinkled it on the girls' heads.
3)The door opened. The grotto was almost completely dark, with just a couple of small lights twinkling. The assistant pressed a button on the wall behind her and all the thousands of fairy lights looped over the walls and ceiling bloomed like white flowers, glowing brighter and brighter, lighting up the branches and leaves and glittering green carpet.
4) The girls fanned out into the room, looking for the fairy. One of them would find her hidden inside the trunk of a papier mache oak tree, behind shining leaves. And the party would begin.
We played games, sang songs and ate delicate party food (like fairy bread! Does anyone remember that? Slices of white bread spread with butter and sprinkled with hundreds-and-thousands). Those first few minutes were always the most magical for me, though: crouched inside the tree trunk, hearing the whispers and giggles and excitement, remembering how it felt to be that age. It really did feel like magic, and I was caught up in it as well. I also liked the story-telling session that came after lunch, when the children were full and a bit more relaxed. I'd ask all of them for different elements, and then piece those elements together into a story. The birthday girl was always the main character, naturally.
So why am I talking about this today? Well, I have been thinking about magic, and the kind of spell that is woven when you are completely immersed in something; the 'fictional dream' (John Gardner) from which you never want to awaken. It is something you experience when you are reading, and it is something you can experience when writing, too. If, that is, you are approaching the magic as an excited child and not as a cynical grown-up.
At the parties, there was usually one parent in the room - to supervise and make sure that the children were happy and staying safe. That was fine. In fact, it was fun: the grown-up had to play along with the 'only children can see fairies' story, and pretend to be amazed when a plate the fairy was holding seemed to hover in thin air. In theory, no other adults were allowed to attend. Sometimes, though, the parents would get bored and wander in to watch. They would finger the papier mache tree and laugh; snicker at the games; chat amongst themselves. Their palpable unbelief made the whole party seem like a cardboard cut-out: something sparkling, but also thin, and false. These parties never went as well as the ones where just one grown-up was in attendance.
I remembered this yesterday as I was writing a scene that flew along so fast that my fingers couldn't keep up. I was completely immersed in the story. And then the line of grown-ups showed up in my head, wandering around and examining things with critical fingers.
"Hey, didn't you just change that character's eye colour? Better go back and sort that out now."
"Where is this scene going to fit in? Bet you didn't think about that when you started."
"Whoops, typo."
"This really isn't all that good."
Not helpful: not when you are completely absorbed in the magic. My scene turned from something vivid and real into a cardboard cut-out, and I stopped, discouraged.
Not today, though. I gave into them yesterday, but today I've hung a wonky, hand-painted sign saying "No Grown-ups!" at the door to my brain. Don't want them, don't need them. They can have a cup of tea in the kitchen and grumble all they like, but they're not getting in.
They'll be useful when I get to the methodical, frowning-at-the-screen stage of revision, of course. Until then, though: no grown-ups allowed!
