On liminal spaces and Pagan altars

Magick and writing. How are they linked?

Recently, I’ve been thinking about all the places I have written my books:

• The Wheel was written on an antique writing desk with a pull-down lid given to me by my husband’s aunt. It felt like a fitting place to daydream and conjure nature into poetry. The editing was done at my Grandma’s beloved round kitchen table where I have played thousands of games of gin rummy.

• The Witch’s Survival Guide was largely written at my dining table one winter, while swaddled in blankets and hot water bottles, my back pressed squarely to the radiator.

• The Black Air? Perched on the end of my bed in the bedsit I rented for £375pm back in 2013-14. The house was an old Victorian mansion and I lived in a room on the top floor, in what would have been the servant’s quarters. At night, the cherry tree outside the window would tap on the glass and I would drift between dreams and waking in the blue light.

• The Second-Hand Boy was written mostly on the frayed pink and white sofa in my Grandma’s spare room, where I lived for six months after finishing university. There was no internet there and I would nip down to the library to apply for jobs during the day, then write my book in the 70s dormer bungalow until it was time to go to bed.

I have often found that when I am writing I am lucky enough to access an altered state of consciousness, much like the theta state needed for shamanic journeying or deep meditation. My perception shifts, words flow freely, time dissolves, and I can see with a kind of second sight as if I am re-living dreams from long ago and pressing them onto the page.

It is a state I also often access in my witchcraft practice.

It is one akin to magick.