--- title: "Panic Magic: A Hero’s Journey by Clint Sabom" url: https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/post/panic-magic-a-heros-journey-by-clint-sabom/ date: 2025-03-22 modified: 2026-07-03 lang: en author: "Perseus Arcane Academy" description: "My new book, Panic Magic, published by Star Lore Publishing, is now available on Amazon This work moves like a Hero’s Journey of a tormented magician. Troy Abraham, living in..." categories: - "Guest Post" tags: - "Magic" image: https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/71uQI-QKMFL._SY425_.jpg word_count: 1050 --- # Panic Magic: A Hero’s Journey by Clint Sabom My new book, Panic Magic, published by Star Lore Publishing, is now available on [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/Panic-Magic-Clint-Sabom/dp/9696592698/ref=sr_1_1?crid=120TRDQUMX7SG&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.OFeoDdooY_l3Ewoluq_NnQ.fgM-3hTGoPy6CHflA7IHYZ5V4PqDYmAdN8CcRSx3j2Y&dib_tag=se&keywords=panic+magic+clint+sabom&qid=1742568992&sprefix=%2Caps%2C78&sr=8-1) This work moves like a Hero’s Journey of a tormented magician. Troy Abraham, living in current times, remains deeply traumatized from childhood sexual abuse, but he has the power to levitate. He performs at larger and larger venues, asking the audience to check him for any strings or wires in order to prove it’s true levitation. He delivers poignant, mysterious monologues in between levitations, often challenging the elite. He frequently slips into Surrealistic visions and undergoes many life-threatening magical battles with dark magicians. He travels to other dimensions and encounters spirit guides. Eventually, his performances draw the attention of nefarious enemies, and intelligence agencies recruit him to gather intel, all of which culminates in him performing a show in front of The Lincoln Memorial. Since a young age, I have wanted to be a writer.  I began writing short stories as early as 7 years old. Later, especially in high school, my writing moved to poetry.  My initial poems were very symbolic, almost metaphorical renditions describing the feeling of my teenage angst.  They may not have been poems that could be published in highly prestigious literary magazines; however, I managed to get some of them published.  When I sent in my application to the admissions committee at Vassar College during my senior year of high school, I included some of the poems. My acceptance letter came back early, and they were enthused to have me come.  Interestingly, they said poems usually did little to influence an admissions committee, but mine demonstrated philosophical thought to such an extent that they were impressed. I continued writing poetry during my 20s, and unfortunately, I was horrendous at keeping up with them, organizing them, saving them, and trying to get them published. I got big compliments from the people that saw them, and I also wrote poems for people.  However, I struggled with prose.  My prose seemed to come through me at an angle, like I had to dissociate to do it. It felt mentally unhealthy.  Yet I had many ideas for novels, and I would write sentences, paragraphs, pages, solely in my head, never writing them down.  It was weird.  When I took a fiction writing class, I managed to write some good prose down, and the instructor was impressed.  However, I could not manage to just sit down and write the novels of which I had brainstormed. This continued into my 30s, and poetry remained the main pursuit.  Finally, I began to send them off to literary journals, and I got some of them published.  I wrote some articles for magazines, even.  But I practically gave up on writing a novel. Finally, I found my voice in my late 40s and wrote Panic Magic.  I’m not sure how it happened.  I cannot even remember how I started or if I even had a plan.  But the book flowed out of me smoothly.  It didn’t seem to disassociate me like before in my younger years.  I was able to write it and still stay grounded.  It happened.  I hadn’t been sure beforehand where I was going, but the book began to tell me as I continued to write it.  It had become a living organism.  And, most importantly, it was fun!  I loved the process!  I had finally found my voice. One inspiration was the founder of the Surrealist movement, Andre Breton.  A decade before, I had won an award at an academic conference on a paper of Surrealism.  Years passed, and I hadn’t picked up The Surrealist Manifesto in awhile.  Yet in it, there was a novella by Breton, Soluble Fish. It’s prose, with often seemingly disconnected sentences and paragraphs, images that defy the laws of nature, a dream sequence in short.  Yet there is some cohesion.  Sometimes, I would pick it up right before writing and read a few pages.  It got me into the flow, and while my prose is much more linear and sensible than Breton’s, Soluble Fish made me a better writer.  I read it again and again, trying to infuse it in my blood.  It especially helped with the mysterious monologues that my protagonist gives in between levitations at his shows.  And certainly it helped with the Surrealistic visions the main character often slips into. However, all that said, and Surrealism itself aside, Panic Magic moves with a linear story line. Sure, I kept spaces open for more stream of consciousness, but the overwhelming majority of Panic Magic is straight forward.  No way to get lost.  It has a good plot, even a thriller component, if I do say so myself.  Alas, the protagonist, Troy definitely started off as myself. I had to put myself somewhere in the book; it was inevitable. So I began with the first person narration of Troy.  Quickly, though, almost instantly, the character become something else. An idealized version of myself? A more negative version? A situation much more fantastic than my own? A previous version of my lost fantasies? A space to exaggerate and distort all the workings of my mind? The hero that I’ve never been? The dreams of grandeur of a teenage boy? Yes, all of the above, and more could be enumerated. I began to identify with someone else; I became someone else when I was writing the book.  And what an incredible pleasure! To live another life, parallel to one’s own! It was a fun life, and I craved going back to it. So I couldn’t help but sit at the computer and write, write, write. The response I’ve received so far from dozens of readers has been overwhelmingly complimentary.  Even while I was writing this post, one just came in saying that he was loving the book, and it didn’t seem like the work of a first-time fiction author but of a seasoned storyteller.  Most importantly, though, writing became a joy with Panic Magic.  What had previously been blocked and stammered opened up, and the result is an Urban Fantasy novel.  I hope you like it. --- ## Additional Information ##### Clints Free Course - Steps 1 to 3 of Initiation into HermeticsClints Paid Course - Steps 4 t0 6 of Initiation into HermeticsEmotional Release - The Secret of Success with the Elements .