Is There Magic in the Everyday World?

 When I watch an old movie, or television show, I try to imagine what life was like then. The plethora

of gadgets and technology we have at our fingertips today weren’t even considered a possibility. 

Some resisted bending their imagination and may have even considered new amazing technology as inconceivable, or sorcery. 

Nowadays, most of us are more accepting of new technology every day. It’s almost as if we expect the unexpected to become part of our lives. Things that we may have never believed were possible in the past, that we may have thought we’d need a little magic to create, have become part of our daily lives. 

My Children Were Amazed

It’s possible that we’ve begun to incorporate magic into our everyday world. A few of these things are so ingrained into our reality that it’s almost hard to imagine that not too long ago, they may have been considered a fantasy. It takes more and more to impress us and stir the wonder we felt as a child. 

My daughters are teenagers. They grew up in this magical time. As children, I could amaze them with my magical abilities. 

•     I could slide open the van door with a wave of my hand, and occasionally I might toss in an abracadabra! (As I secretly pushed the key.)
•     I had eyes in the back of my head and could tell when they were getting into trouble in the other room. This was so convincing that they searched for eyes buried under my hair to no avail. (I viewed their reflection on the television screen or the microwave.)
•     I had the hotline to Santa, the Easter Bunny and all the magical creatures of our world. It came with the parent handbook. (Don’t I wish there was a parent handbook!) 

Now I’m Amazed

As teenager, my daughters, and most people, would find it hard to imagine a world without the technology they’ve grown up with. I find it hard to amaze them anymore, things that may have once been considered sorcery or magic, are expected. Instead I find myself amazed at what magic the world has to offer and can hardly imagine what will be available next.  

•     The way we can instantly connect with people around the world with computers, cellphones or technology in all shapes and sizes. There’s no more busy signal, or waiting for a letter to arrive when there’s email.
•     How my phone seems to know where I’m going and tells me the distance and time to get there or the GPS that’s now part of almost every car.
•      Self-driving cars and gadgets that can mop and vacuum my house are now available. I don’t have either yet, but I hope one day I will.

We Want to Believe in Magic

It’s harder to be amazed and wonder if magic might be responsible, although I think most of us want to. Even as adults we may still flock to movies and stories about extraordinary people and things. We dress up for Halloween and go to parks that let up suspend belief in the world we live in for a bit and escape into the books that we love.

I think even as we grow and mature that magic doesn’t leave us. It’s still around us in our everyday world. We just must open our imagination, look a little closer, or when the world gets too serious we can find it in the pages of our favorite book.

Don't lose your sense of wonder, it's what makes the world wonderful.

What in the World Do You Find Magical?

 

P.S. Like Magic? I’ve got tons of fun this month with lots of spooktacular giveaways and events leading up to my new release. You can find out more about them on my Facebook page, newsletter or author website. 

Author Bio: Maureen Bonatch grew up in small town Pennsylvania and her love of the four seasons—hockey, biking, sweat pants and hibernation—keeps her there. While immersed in writing or reading paranormal romance and fantasy, she survives on caffeine, wine, music, and laughter. A feisty Shih Tzu keeps her in line. Find Maureen on her website, Facebook& Twitter

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Of nooks, Vooks and the Changing World of Books

A few days ago, I blogged about my reading slump. I’ve been picking up a lot of newish paranormal books and some contemporaries but I’m not seeing anything really unique and new (save for my fellow PRomantics upcoming works ;-)). In talking with my mentor, I find that a lot of these are books that have been in the back burner of publisher queues (aka legacy) and is just now being released all at once. But there’s a deeper problem as well.

The sameness is safe.

A recent Publisher’s Weekly article talked about this and the comments were really telling. Thus, reading book after book gets tiring if every story seems just like the last.

At the same time, my reading hasn’t stopped. I'm addicted to publishing related news sites like Pub Weekly, Huffington Post’s publishing section, blogs like Teleread, Booksquare and my new favorite podcast On the Media. I read tons of things on the internet and some great fiction from my fellow author friends who look for crits. But pleasure reading as I used to do as a kid has changed dramatically with the new changes.

It got me thinking about the future of the book. There’s no doubt that things are changing in the industry and it seems like it all charged ahead in just the last few months. With this generation’s e-readers fast becoming the new “it” toy of this year’s Christmas rush, a new trend in reading will begin.

What else will change? As things become even faster paced, I wonder how our reading will change. It’s already been said that the next generation of e-readers will be nothing like this generation’s. Will we see readers than can double as audio books? Barnes & Noble's nook is in high demand so much that orders are on hold. Amazon's Kindle and Sony's eReader continues to be popular among ebook lovers. The Vook (yes, a portmanteau for “video” and “book”) recently launched with the iPhone and as a web version. I’m not sure I, as a reader, would jive with this because of the fact that I use different neurons for watching tv than I do for reading a book, but I’m sure an audience is out there somewhere. Netbooks, tablets (Apple, do you have something up your sleeve over there?) and the continued sophistication of cell phones are becoming strong competitors for ebook devices. All of this, along with my own current experience, makes me believe that there still are a bunch of people reading in some way or another. Just maybe not books and not in the numbers they used to, which is a bummer.

(In considering all of this, one small part of me muses over the fact that everyone is preoccupied with how the books will be read rather than trying to get more folks to focus on telling a darn good story. But I digress.)

Social networking sites like Goodreads, Shelfari and LibraryThing are bridging the gap between authors and their readers so instant feedback on newly released works are immediate along with excerpts giveaways and other reader goodies. Reading has become a community focus again. Maybe we'll see a surge of reading groups with youths. Laptops are being given to some school kids in Canadian schools and ebook readers are being handed out in others, both with the curriculum's books inside. We know how we're going to read. Maybe we can now focus on what to read and how to bring those to readers.



Bob Stein of The Institute for the Future introduces his view of how things will be once the shift occurs.





Do you see your reading habits changing in the near future? Any future e-readers on the list who have one of the gadgets on their wishlist?