For the most part, I’m not a very superstitious person. I’m not particularly nervous about ladders, although I may avoid walking under them simply because you’re more likely to get something dropped on you if you do. I had a black cat for many years and it never bothered me, although he did cost me a lot of money in veterinary bills (he was the model for Nico in Venus In Blue Jeans). I don’t have any particular rituals I go through in my daily life.

But there’s one big, honking exception to this lack of superstition—my writing. If I’m not careful, I find I can fall into magical thinking about my writing very easily.

Before I was published, when I entered lots of contests, I used to wait to drop my entry in the mail if I’d been having a bad day in other areas. I didn’t want my MS to go out if my mojo seemed negative. Now, when I send most things out electronically, I may wait until afternoon before hitting the “send” button because I want to make sure this day feels like the right day to do it. Or sometimes I’ll send it out first thing in the morning, before my luck has a chance to go bad.

For a while, I even let my morning ritual solitaire games determine how my luck was running. If I won my first game, my luck was running hot. If I lost, maybe I’d wait a day or so before sending that MS off. I managed to break myself of that habit, but it wasn’t as easy as it should have been.

I think the reason my writing makes me superstitious is that it’s one area of my life that’s out of my control. I can polish my MSS to their brightest and send them off, but I can’t determine how the person on the other end is going to react to them. Maybe she just read something very similar and she either hated it or loved it—either way, she’s liable to read my MS a lot more critically. Or maybe she just had a fight with her SO. Or maybe she had a bad lunch or she’s coming down with a cold or she’s mad at her kid. Or maybe she just doesn’t like my style because she’s in the mood for something very different. Any or all of that can have an effect. And there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.

All I can do is rely on the fates and luck. Many of us like to downplay the role that luck plays in our work, but the truth is that luck is a major factor for most of us.

So I find myself going back to practical magic. Rubbing good luck charms. Muttering incantations as I drop something in the mail. Not opening emails until I’ve written my minimum number of words (lest I jinx myself with a rejection too early in the day). None of it has much effect on the ultimate outcome, of course. And in my rational moments, I know that. But writing isn’t always a rational business, and who knows, maybe one of these days I’ll happen upon the right incantation.

Knock wood.