Do you believe in luck?

So much of 13 ON HALLOWEEN explores ideas of luck, good and bad, and lucky charms. Even what it means to be lucky. Our perceptions have a lot to do with luck.

I think positive people get lucky more often. I don’t really have one good luck charm or a lucky outfit like Roxie, the main character in 13 ON HALLOWEEN, but I do have some yellow polka-dot socks like hers because they are adorable. I like to write in them.

My husband and I lived in Big Sur for two years. It’s a very remote place along the coast of central California. It’s beautiful and so rugged even the Spanish missionaries wouldn’t venture into the wild. The Spanish labeled the region El Sur Grande [which means Big Sur] and left it wild. The Spanish settled and built missions in every other part of California but Big Sur. And after I lived there for a while, I noticed that people who live in nature [or make their living in it] seem to have more good luck charms than people who live in urban areas. When I first moved there, a lovely woman named Helga asked if I had a piece of jade. When I said I didn’t, she said I must carry a piece with me all the time. For protection. It wasn’t just Helga that believed this, I found most people who live in Big Sur also believe that jade has the power of protection. I lived in LA up until that time. I’d never lived so remotely in my life. I asked Helga what I needed to be protected from. She said, “Boulders falling. Trees. You never know what might happen.” I bought a small piece of jade that day. I still keep it with me. Sometimes I think people make their own luck. But, after living in Big Sur, I believe that carrying a little something can help too.

There’s a quote in my novel WINNEMUCCA that explains how I feel about luck and lucky charms:

“I scooped up the dirt with my handcuffed hands knowing things that don’t have any power over us do sometimes, if you believe in them. Maybe that was the only kind of magic I’d ever find in the wide world.”