The first time it happened, I figure it was a great coincidence. I took a break from my writing and while walking my dogs through the park an injured crow showed up on our path. The coincidence, of course, was that I’d been working on my novel Black Crow White Lie and there was a scene where I needed to describe a crow. The one I came upon that day was very calm and slow with his movements. He was either injured or very old, or a bit of both. He let me watch him and didn’t show the usual agitated crow behavior at someone being nearby. This seemed like amazing luck and so I took my dogs home and went back up to the park to observe him alone.

By the time I got back to the park, I found that the crow had crossed the street to a neighbor’s house. He was in the planter. I carefully approached him and sat on the walkway just a few feet away. It was a strange experience. He watched me and I watched him for about a half hour. Not much happened, but it was enlightening. Having never been this close to a crow, I discovered that when he blinked his eyes, the lids moved from the sides inward instead of top to bottom. It was curious and cool and in our half-hour relationship, I felt like I’d learned enough to properly describe a crow in my book.
 
A couple months later, I had just dropped off my kids at school when I noticed something black in the middle of the street. As I got closer I found it was another black crow. This one’s wing was so injured, it couldn’t move. There were two men outside their houses talking and I asked if one had a shoebox I could use. I wanted to take the crow home and call animal control to see if they could help it. One of the men brought me a box, and I was able to transport the crow home. While waiting for animal control to come, I had yet another half hour relationship with a crow. This one was more vulnerable than the first. Instead of learning about the crow and analyzing him up close, I felt for him. It was more of an emotional connection, as animal control had explained they might have to euthanize him. Spending his possible last moments with me, I hoped I could comfort him with calm energy.
 
That should have been enough coincidences while writing a novel about a crow, but it wasn’t. The next time, I was specifically writing about a dead crow when I took a break from my computer and walked my dogs around the block. On a grass area near the park, one of my dogs approached something black and stopped to examine it. I froze in disbelief when I saw what it was—a dead black crow. Now it was just getting strange. I actually looked around to see if anyone was there, setting up the scene for me. And yet how could someone have done that? No one knew what I was writing about. So instead I looked upward. And I nodded.
 
I was familiar with the law of attraction but I thought that it simply meant ‘think positive and positive things will happen, think negative and negative things will come your way.’ What I began to learn through my writing experiences—with the crows and then with other strange synchronistic occurrences—was that thoughts are far more powerful than just floating ideas in our heads. Motivational author Louise Hay says, "The law of attraction is that our thinking creates and brings to us whatever we think about. It's as though every time we think a thought, every time we speak a word, the universe is listening and responding to us."
 
I understood this in a brand new way. It inspired me to write about things I wouldn’t mind showing up in my life since it seemed that there was a good likelihood they would. It also made me more careful about what I allowed into my mind. My thoughts did more than just float. They opened doors to the outside world and let into my life the things that I attracted.
 
As I went on writing Black Crow White Lie, the crows continued showing up. Though later experiences weren’t as intimate as the three I described, there were still unusual chance encounters relevant to the novel. I came to like their visits. They were a reminder that the universe was listening and responding to me. When I began my next novel, I fit crows into the story again, knowing that if I kept my doors open, I could keep the black birds coming around.


(This post first appeared on the Long and Short Reviews website)
http://www.longandshortreviewsya.com/?s=Candi+Sary

 
When I was a kid, if a black cat ran out in front of our car, my mom would pull over to the side of the road. She would wait for someone else to drive by and cross the black cat’s path before we could go. If no one else drove by, we would turn around and go another way. Why? Because black cats had the power to send bad luck our way if we dared to be the first to cross their paths. There was no logic to this theory. There was just a story. And the story was enough for my mom.
 
I remember keeping my eye out the back window of our station wagon, waiting for the car that would allow us clearance to move on. Those moments were kind of exciting as a kid, when I witnessed my mom taking steps to keep our family’s luck safe. And it wasn’t just with black cats. When we spilled salt, the potential for bad luck arose, but my mom taught my sisters and me to throw a little salt over our left shoulders to neutralize the situation. We learned to never open an umbrella in the house, never walk under a ladder, never shake out a tablecloth or a rug after dark, and be careful not to crack mirrors. My mom taught us well, and because of her solid grasp on keeping our luck safe, we ended up being a lucky family. Our home was filled with happiness and we didn’t have to go through any terrible misfortune. (Just to keep my mom from cringing, I knocked on wood after writing that.)
 
When I left home and went away to college, I spent a lot of time re-thinking the things I’d learned in my childhood. I took a discerning look at the superstitions my mom had taught me, and I came to the conclusion that they were not only untrue, but quite silly. How could throwing salt over my shoulder or knocking on a piece of wood alter my life? I decided to rid myself of those wacky beliefs and take life rationally. As a college student, I sometimes went as far as opening my umbrella inside the house just to get it ready for when I stepped out into the rain.
 
Fast forward several years… I was pregnant with my second child and my due date was just days away. In the mail, I received a chain letter that said at the end: “Send this to 20 people or something bad will happen in a week.”
 
There I was, no longer superstitious—and yet this letter just ate at me! The timing was eerie. I knew in my rational brain that there was no truth to it, but any mom knows rationality gets thrown out the door those last days of pregnancy. I couldn’t take the chance that something bad could happen in a week—one of the most important weeks in my entire life. I knew I had to get those chain letters out to 20 people. The only problem was I didn’t want to risk mailing the letters. My baby could come any day, and what if the letters didn’t arrive in time?
 
My patient, understanding husband helped me do what I thought I had to do. Keeping his mouth shut, and wearing the slightest smile that said, “My wife is crazy but I still love her,” my husband drove me to the spot I requested. There, in an underground parking lot, with 20 copies of the chain letter, my husband and I went from car to car, tucking the letters under windshield wipers. My stomach was huge, but I managed to be quick and even discreet as I weaved through parked cars, getting the chain letters off my hands. Once the twentieth letter was on a windshield, I jumped back in our car, and took a huge breath. I held my hand over my tummy, feeling my baby kicking, knowing I’d successfully taken charge. Just like my mom had done when I was young, I was keeping my family’s luck safe. And it worked! My daughter’s birth went smoothly.
 
Since that incident, I was never again faced with such an extreme test of my superstitions. I am much more laidback about them now. I even have two black cats and I let them run in front of my car when I drive up to the house. I don’t follow all the rituals my mom once taught me, but I do have some of my own. I’ve been known to change seats at a volleyball game, hoping to change our team’s luck. I drink my tea from a lucky mug when I have an important day ahead. My husband claims it’s superstitious the way I never pass up a dandelion when we walk our dogs. I see them almost daily as I pick them and blow away their seeds to make a wish. I just consider that being hopeful, but maybe he’s right.
 
While random and nonsensical, superstitions do have one powerful thing going for them—they give the perception of control in this otherwise uncontrollable world. The illusion that putting chain letters on cars in an underground parking lot could keep my daughter safe at birth is ridiculous. I know that. Maybe my mom even knows how absurd it is to pull over to the side of the road because of a black cat. But sometimes a little, manageable, made-up story with invisible forces helping us out is comforting as we stand up against the immense, unmanageable realities of life. It’s like a small act of hope playing along with these fictions that promise good fortune. Since real life makes no such promises, it’s hard not to be wooed by superstitions at least now and then. I will admit that scientifically, dandelions have no power to make my wishes come true, but when I see them sprouting up from the earth, tempting me to make a wish, I always give in. 
​

I'm pretty good at taking a tough situation and looking for the life lesson in it. I try my best to keep the perspective that every quandary I find myself in is like school for the soul. And so when a stray dog held me hostage in a tree one morning while I was on a run, I challenged myself—from my lofty and leafy classroom—to figure out the possible lesson. 

It was a brisk, sunny morning in my Southern Californian suburban neighborhood. I was running and my iPod was too loud to hear the dog coming at me. Something in my periphery made me turn my head. That's when I saw him. He was big, and running right toward me. All I could think about was how I would handle the pain when he bit me, and what my chances were of fighting him off before he ripped me apart. My fight or flight instinct kicked in. When I noticed the tree nearby, flight looked like the better option. The tree was tall—really tall, but climbing it would definitely be easier than trying to overpower this dog. I'd had at least five seconds of adrenaline rushing through me, and that ended up being enough to help me scale the big tree like a kid instead of the forty-something woman I am. 

Perched in the heart of its thick branches, I had to catch my breath. Looking down and realizing how high up I was, I couldn't believe I'd actually climbed it. Fear had brought out strength I didn't even know I had in me. I almost wished my teenage kids could see what I'd managed to do, but the dog, who was now jumping at the base of the tree, reminded me that all things considered, this wasn't really a proud moment.

After a very long minute, the big dog finally gave up jumping. He sat down on the grass with his nose in the air, and just stared up at me, waiting. "Go," I yelled, pointing away. "Go, go, go!" His head tilted a little each time I shouted, but then went right back into place as he continued staring.
The tree stood in a quiet residential area, on the corner of a four-way stop. I'm tall, and I was wearing a bright turquoise top. There was little chance of me blending in with the tree. I was certain that someone would notice me and would stop to help. I was right on one account--I was noticed. 
The first guy drove by, slightly slowing down, lowering his head to see me through the passenger side window. As his car eased on, he kept twisting his neck, as far as it would reach, to watch me. It was like he hadn't seen the dog and thought I'd climbed the tree for the fun of it. One misunderstanding was expected. I let it go and waited for someone else to show up.
It was a few minutes before another car drove by. The driver did a similar slow down and strain of the neck, but this one had a passenger who saw the dog. Still, they didn't stop to help. Blown away that they both passed me by, I gave a laugh. Where was the sense of neighborly support in my community? The astonished expression I wore must have been mistaken for a smile as the next car drove by and the guy seemed to smile back.

Apparently the dog was finally getting bored with me. He started roaming the grass area beneath the tree, smelling its history. When I heard the next car approach, I turned back to the street. The driver glanced up, and did a double take before quickly looking away, as if to mind her own business. Now it was getting kind of funny and I was wearing a legitimate smile. I was still annoyed that no one would help me, but it was hard not to see the humor in this awkward moment. A few more cars drove by, and keeping consistent with those before, none of them stopped either.
It took about fifteen minutes for the dog to finally venture far enough away so that I felt comfortable jumping down and running home. I'll admit I was still a little too anxious after the experience to ponder the life lesson right away. I just needed to talk about it. I told family and friends the story, and spoke of my disappointment over no one stopping to help. Most were too stuck on the humor of the situation to address my disappointment--until one friend posed the question: "But did you ask for help?" Ask? Why would I have to ask? Wasn't it obvious? That question stayed with me a while until something clicked. And the lesson began to unfold. 
I never waved at any of the drivers or called out for help. I assumed they knew I needed help—I was up in a tree and a big dog was watching me from below—but what was obvious to me from my view apparently ended up looking like something else to outsiders. Who's going to stop for a lady in a tree, who seems to be smiling, while her dog waits for her below? People don' t like to interfere--especially if the person in the tree appears to be happy. Those drivers were probably more open to helping me than I give them credit for. I might have found out if I just asked. 

This is not a story with a tragic ending. In fact, it's been a source of entertainment for my family and friends, but in its own creative way, it speaks to a more serious concept for those of us who don't like to ask for help. There are much more critical situations we could find ourselves in than my tree predicament, and yet others might not see that we need help. From deep within our own heads, our difficulties seem obvious. But the truth is, most other people are somewhere deep in their own heads too, with their own situations and distractions. They're not necessarily paying attention to the signs of our troubles, and so we can't expect them to just know we're in need. We have to make ourselves clear. If we want help, we should ask.
​
Once this lesson came to light, I tried practicing it with small requests. I was pleasantly surprised at how willingly people helped out when I made my needs clear. Asking didn't guarantee the response I wanted, but the odds ended up being significantly better than hoping someone could read my mind. Sometimes you just have to go out on a limb and ask for what you want. This revelation has given me a new take on the day the stray dog held me hostage in a tree. Had I waved my hands and mouthed the word "help" that morning, I have a feeling a car would have pulled over, and I might instead be writing an article about how kind and neighborly people are when you just ask them for a little help. 
 

I was asked to write a guest post for Literary Agent Andrea Hurst's blog on my path to publication. I thought I'd share the story on my blog as well. Here is the link:

http://www.andreahurst.com/blog/one-writers-story-to-publication/

I'm giving blogging a try. I planned on waiting until I had something important to say, but instead I'm starting now. I thought I'd get some practice so that I'll be better prepared when something important to say finally comes to me. I'm going to keep this first post simple, a simple request.... Teach me how to blog. My blogger friends on Twitter and WAE Network, I'd love if you would take the time to offer me just one piece of advice. I am a fiction writer, so this kind of writing is new to me. Share some wisdom with me and I will be sure to take a look at your blog, and even Tweet links to your posts. I'm excited to hear from you!