Lari’s Writing blog

Every time I read How to Make a Heron Happy out loud, I feel slightly guilty. Because there’s a line, near the end, about the heron flying away if it isn’t happy in the park.  And in between me writing that line, and the book being published, the heron in my local park DID fly away. It wasn’t happy, I assume, because all the ice last winter made it impossible to hunt. But it never came back.  And I felt slightly responsible, or at least, slightly embarrassed that here was a book about my favourite bird, set in my favourite park, and the bird was no longer there.  Was it my fault?  Was it some dreadful coincidence, or actually a consequence of my book?  That’s called magical thinking, apparently, according to a psychiatrist of my acquaintance – thinking that your actions could cause or affect something totally unconnected.  I do know that the heron didn’t fly away because I wrote a book, that it wasn’t divine punishment for hubris, or fate’s practical joke.  It flew away because we had a very bad winter.  I also know that when I used to produce radio programmes for the BBC, and once in a while some terrible social or health issue that I had researched then subsequently happened to me, or someone I knew, it wasn’t actually connected.  Because that’s magical thinking.  And therefore it must be a total coincidence that this week, when I’ve just done my last event to promote the Heron book, and I am about to move on to the very first event to promote Storm Signing, THIS VERY WEEK, I saw five herons in the park.  Five.  I ran round an extra lap just to count them again to be sure.  Magical thinking?  I suppose that if you write about selkies, centaurs and dragons, you do need to think magically!  However, just to prove I am not superstitious, I offer as evidence the fact that I’m entirely delighted to be meeting pupils from how many different primary schools in North Ayrshire this week, on the Storm Singing tour?  Thirteen.