I’ve been entranced by the magic of words since I was very young.

Words were my protection and my refuge while I was growing up. When I needed to escape from the relentless prodding and bullying of my brother, who had serious behavioural problems, I built a wall of words around myself. First it was a literal wall of cereal boxes around my place at the breakfast table that the two of us shared; soon, as I learnt to read, I disappeared into the worlds created in stories and books.

When I was reading, I was distracted from feeling what it was like to be me. The comforting effect of a good story or a beautiful piece of poetry seemed to allow my agitated and jangled brain waves to settle into a soothing rhythm, and I sought out words at every opportunity.

The capacity that words gave me to take refuge inside my head became even more important when my brother’s behavioural problems morphed into severe mental illness during late adolescence. Exposed to his increasingly irrational and frightening behaviour, I turned inwards for comfort and distraction. If I was travelling to another time or place through the pages of a book or an idea – if I was imagining or thinking – I couldn’t be feeling.

Inevitably, I found myself making a living from words, first by teaching them to my students of French and English, and then by acting as a domestic servant of sorts, cleaning up other people’s words instead of their homes.

My shift from teacher to textbook editor happened several years into my long and unhappy marriage; without knowing consciously that that was what I was doing, I welcomed the opportunity to numb my pain and panic at the conflict in my marriage by throwing myself into the hours of (often) mindless work required by my new job. And I liked editing: I knew I had the skills to lick other people’s words into shape, but I didn’t believe I had anything to say that would be of interest to the world. The idea of writing something of my own (other than a textbook or a teacher’s guide) simply didn’t occur to me.

It was not so much a case of hiding my light under a bushel as that my light – my life force – burned so very dimly while I focused on surviving. All my energy went into my work and my animals, especially my horses.

My need for distraction from my life was mirrored in my choice of books for my own reading pleasure. I sought out fast-paced novels – never non-fiction – with such a strong plot that they drew me in. It was safe to feel vicarious terror or excitement, but not to read anything that made me pause for long enough to take a real look at my life.

Eventually some survival instinct broke through the numbness. I realised that divorce was not the worst thing that could happen to me; rather, staying in this marriage was. Now I was the one pushing for separation and divorce.

Then I found myself drawn by an intuitive wisdom to an extraordinary man who was unlike any other I had encountered previously. And in this remarkable relationship, parts of me that had been dormant for years – playfulness, sensuality, intelligence, creativity, a wicked sense of humour – were awakened.

Through this magnificent relationship, I gradually came to see my own magnificence. The walls of my life shifted and a world of possibilities opened up before me.

Over the next few years, I underwent a process of massive personal transformation. I began to access my life force, my power. They started to flow more strongly.

I came to life.

Slowly I stopped numbing and learnt to feel: deeply, an ever-broadening range of emotions and physical sensations. I began to listen to and trust my body, my instincts, my intuition.

Words were a vital part of that process. When my partner pointed out that for someone who made a living from them, I found it hard to use words to talk about my feelings, I practised doing it until I got better. More specific. More in touch. More honest. More aware.

Even my reading patterns changed. To the shock of my fellow book-club members, I no longer grabbed the serial-killer thrillers before anyone else could reach for them. For the first time, I found myself reading – and enjoying – narrative non-fiction as well as different fiction genres, including literary fiction. As my world expanded, I began to explore books written by people who lived beyond my narrow area of experience, often written in styles that broke the conventions of what I’d been taught was ‘good’ writing in the most disturbing and thrilling ways.

Some of the books triggered me, making me aware of what had been buried in my unconscious because an event had been too painful to look at when it happened. Some made me mindful of parts of myself I hadn’t known existed. Some helped me see my prejudices and my unconscious conditioning. Some made my heart and soul sing. All of them – even the ones I didn’t enjoy – enabled me to fine-tune my understanding of the power of the written word.

I started writing myself, short pieces at first, discovering how much I had to say and how much I enjoyed sharing what I’d learnt. A snippet in a news article, things people said, every-day events and happenings – they all sparked ideas and questions that puzzled and excited me, and made me want to write. I wrote for pleasure and because something inside me insisted on coming out and being heard. I wrote about whatever caught my attention, with a particular focus on personal transformation, sexuality and relationships.

I began to think deeply about my life. Once I had seen that writing was the way in which I best processed events, I wrote my memoir, and through it came to truly understand and work with the influences that had shaped me.

I found my speaking voice too, moving with increasing confidence into profound and beautiful conversations where my vulnerability and willingness to talk openly about what usually stays hidden invited others to look at their lives in different ways.

Through it all, I learnt about the power of words to heal, to inspire, to connect, to transform.

And then I realised that I no longer wanted to edit only textbooks, to set myself up as the authority on what was right and wrong. I was more interested in considering possibilities and subtleties, in opening up and expanding. I began to explore different ways of making a living from my gifts with words … and Word Magician and this website were born.

The magnificent peacock on the home page of this website honours the little girl who has come out from behind the cereal boxes to show herself. The light in me that was dimmed for far too long burns now, fierce and glorious. I no longer need to lose myself in words or use them as a shield. Instead, my new aim is to wield words with pride, courage and heart in service of clear, boundaried communication and connection.