In this episode I chat with Dr Alexander Cummins about magic, inspiration and designing writing rituals. Dr Alexander Cummins is an historian, poet, and consultant whose practice centres around religion, philosophy, medicine, and magic. His work focuses on folk magic, necromancy, and divination. His doctoral thesis from the University of Bristol explored the history of magical approaches to the emotions. We chat about ways of using divination to come up with story ideas or solve problems with your plot, different historical approaches to the nature of inspiration, and ways you can use magical rituals as warm-up and mindset-framing exercises when you sit down to write. This is a great episode to listen to if you want to know: - how can I get inspired? - how can I get myself in the mood to write? - how do ideas work? - how can I solve problems with my novel? - how can I get past writers' block? Al has a fantastic range of offerings on his website, from fascinating online classes about different aspects of magic and magical history, to consulting work for authors looking to research specific areas of magic, to magical readings. It's all here: http://www.alexandercummins.com/ If you'd like to support me, it'd be ace if you picked up a copy of my novels, THE HONOURS, & the new sequel THE ICE HOUSE. THE ICE HOUSE links: Wordery: https://wordery.com/the-ice-house-tim-clare-9781786894816#oid=1908_1 Mr B’s Emporium: https://mrbsemporium.com/shop/books/the-ice-house/ Forbidden Planet: https://forbiddenplanet.com/272064-the-ice-house-hardcover/ Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786894815/ THE HONOURS links: Wordery: https://wordery.com/the-honours-tim-clare-9781782114765#oid=1908_1 Mr B’s Emporium: https://mrbsemporium.com/shop/books/the-honours/ Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1782114769/ Ko-fi page: www.ko-fi.com/timclare

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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