Beginnings*

*on the occasion of Issue Zero of Specter Literary Magazine

You’re here for a reason. Not on this planet, though I’m sure reasons exist for your, well, existence. I’m talking about Specter Literary Magazine, which launched its issue zero today (well, late last night) in a cacophony of tweets, retweets, and general positive hullabaloo.

But something brought you here, to this blog, to this Web site. Maybe you’re here by accident, and maybe you’re here for an awkward reason, or maybe you’re here because you’ve heard that this site is where all the cool kids hang out. And maybe each of these reasons are your reasons, or maybe none of these reasons are your reasons, or maybe you’ve already clicked away from these words, convinced that you will not find the droids for which you are looking.

Nobody knows what force draws two people together. Plenty of people have offered explanations and theories: astrology, chemistry, mutual need, biological drive.

Magazines and how-to manuals offer up tips for picking your perfect partner.

Dating services promise to do it for you, if you can afford the luxury.

Reality shows make a game out of making matches.

Romeo and Juliet were star-crossed, but found each other and loved each other and married in secret and were happy until they died.

Cinderella lost a glass slipper; Charming found it and fit the shoe to her foot; the pair, as in most fairy tales, rescued each other.

If you’re here to get laid, you may want to look elsewhere. As far as I know, Specter has not led to the conception of anything more than can’t-look-away fiction, and nonfiction, poetry, and, in some cases, swag.

Swag. What a great word.

Maybe you were pulled to this site.

Sir Isaac Newton, three centuries ago, discovered gravity. Newton was a mathematician and a physicist. He discovered that a specific force, which he called gravity, can change the speed or direction of objects in motion. He theorized that that force caused apples to fall from trees. He tested the theory, and wrote the law of gravity, which is a mathematical explanation for how and why things attract.

He wrote that gravity is an invisible pulling force between two objects. These two objects can be anything, from a grain of rice to a planet in our solar system. These two objects can be men who never would have met if gravity hadn’t pulled them together. Nothing can escape gravity.

An object’s size affects the amount of gravity something or someone has. The bigger the object, the more gravity it will have, and the smaller the object, the less gravity if will have. The distance between two objects also affects how much gravity exists between the two objects. The closer the objects, the stronger the gravity.

How close are you to your computer screen RIGHT NOW? Or, if you’re like me, you’re reading this on a smart phone (remember life before smart phones? Yeah, I don’t want to either.). Come closer. That’s what Specter is inviting you to do. Come closer. That’s what Specter is inviting writers to do. Divide your life, pre- and post-, with Specter and its living denizens as the demarcation of everything before and everything after.

If not gravity, then what? The movement of electrons creates a magnetic field around a magnet. A magnet’s magnetic field will attract or repel certain metals and other magnets. Magnets have two poles. Connect two magnets by their opposite poles, and the magnetic field brings them together. Connect two magnets by their same poles, and the magnetic field pushes they apart.

There are three types of magnets: permanent, temporary, and electromagnetic. Permanent magnets maintain their magnetic properties for an extended period of time; temporary magnets lose their magnetism more quickly; and electromagnets are created by and with electricity.

At the beginning of a relationship, you have to wonder if you’re in love with the person or in love with how love feels. Loving for love’s sake never works. When you seek love, often you find something you didn’t even know existed. Often, you don’t even know until time has passed what you have found. Occasionally, you know right away.

I’ve had to ask people (OK, mostly men) to fall in love with me, not with my words. How easy to fall in love with words on the page. I’m guilty of doing it. Do you know how many characters I’ve wanted to meet (and, to be honest, I thought this blog post was going to be about the fictional people I wish were nonfictional; maybe next week)? And do you know how many authors I thought were capable of being my best friend based on how well I loved their words?

Several. Too many in fact.

But, anything can be a beginning as long as you call it one.

Even an issue zero of a literary magazine that endeavors to be more than just a place where you occasionally come and find a little something you like. Fresh content daily. That should be somewhere in the masthead. As should, come for the appetizer, but stay for the meal. Or, if you like, come for the high-octane, low-calorie offerings from some of the mightiest word chefs on the planet (ask any of us why we’re here, and I’m guessing we would all say something along the lines of being unable to do anything but write).

Trust nothing to memory, Charles Darwin said. Each moment and experience in life can feel like the best, and the past fades with time. Memory isn’t always accurate. Darwin kept lists to help him remember. All that remains: photographs and memories. But both fade in and with time.

Rebecca Stead, in her Newbury-award winning When You Reach Me, posits that time travel is much like the arrangement of diamonds on a ring. Jump from one diamond to another diamond, and you can travel through time. The diamonds (read: these moments in time) exist alongside the next diamond in the chain. In other words, the moment before you found Specter exists alongside the moment during which you decided to read Specter, and this moment exists alongside the moment after you finished Specter and decided to tell someone you love to check out this fledgling literary endeavor.

Which you should be doing.

Right now.

Tell them to come and stay however long they want. A porch light is always left on for the explorer who gets caught in these words – our words – long past bedtime and long past the time in which all good exploring must come to its end.