Magically Delicious or What's Your Lucky Charm?(Joy Preble)

Rather than talk about me and when I have and haven’t felt like a lucky person, I’ve decided to approach this post from a different angle: Things I used to do when I was a kid that I felt would bring luck. Hopefully some of you gentle readers will remember your own weird luck rituals and we’ll have a little chat about this when you comment. Yup. That’s what I hope.

We’ll call it: Stuff Little Joy Did (And sometimes still does) That She Thought Would Bring Her Luck

1. I used to have a green rabbit’s foot key chain. Not so lucky for the rabbit, huh? The chain part was stuck into the rabbit’s foot at the top where I guess the foot used to be connected to the rabbit. I was too weirded out to actually put my house key on it, so I kept it in my underwear drawer. (What is it with underwear drawers, anyway? Why do we hide stuff there? )

2. Wishing on a star. I still do this sometimes when I see the first star in the sky at night. Have you ever done this? “Star light. Star bright. I wish I may. I wish I might find a star to wish tonight.” And then you wish.

3. Searching for a four-leaf clover. I have never found one. But in Lincoln Park in Chicago where I grew up, there was a lot of clover. I looked a bunch. Sometimes I pretended that a three-leaf clover had four leaves. Yeah. I was that geeky.

4. Knocking on wood. Yeah, I still do this. Lots of stories about where it came from, some folkloric, others religious. But if you ask me how the books are going, I may indeed answer, “Good, thanks. Knock on wood.” I know this isn’t totally rational. But it pops out of my mouth.

5. Letting a ladybug land on my finger and then blowing it away and making a wish. There was a rhyme, too – although I don’t know what it had to do with luck: “Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away home. Your house is on fire, your children will burn.” (See #1 above. Not so lucky sounding for the ladybug) Are there ladybugs in Houston? I haven’t seen one since I lived in Chicago.

6. Wishing on: birthday candles and wishbones. Doesn’t everybody do this? I loved wishing on that wishbone at Thanksgiving, my brother and I grabbing that creepy slimy thing and trying to snap it. Once again, not so lucky for the turkey, eh?

There’s more, but that should get you guys thinking.

Today I'm feeling lucky that Sourcebooks just revealed the supremely fabulous cover for Anastasia Forever. Scroll down the sidebar of this blog and you shall see!

But what I really want to know, is how about you? What were your lucky charms?

If you write, have you ever included some of your luck-bringers in your stories?