New to this and looking for advice

[Timewise64]

Welcome....starting_up!
Two years ago, following my retirement, I decided to move back into magic as a hobby. As a kid I had a friend who's older brother was a magician. We lived in a small town and his brother was doing shows all over town, including at the local Grade School! I got very interested by him sharing his love of performing with me.

I then started shopping for books and tricks and over a few years I accumulated a number of magic tricks that I did shows with to other kids and parents, grandparents, etc. Later as I moved into high school, I put it all away intending to get back to it later in life. Well I finally made it back, and like you, I now have the time and resources that I did not have as a kid! I am focused on kid magic! I have 6 Grandkids ranging from 21 to 3 years old. They are my audience including of course, their parents (my kids and spouse). Maybe some time I will go to Boys Clubs, Children Hospitals or YMCA's to do shows, but right now I am working to perfect my showmanship....which still has a way to go....

My tricks that I started with are sponge balls, rope tricks (Professors Nightmare and Cut and Restored Rope), work with an egg bag, and self working card tricks....I now have many more tricks and gimmicks but these were the foundation that I started with....kids love them and each of them led me to learning new tricks and gimmicks.....One thing I really use a lot is my book of Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic....search on eBay or amazon used copies are available....this will give you tons of stuff to learn! Good Luck

 

[starting_up]

Thanks all for the advice. I took a look at these starting points, and call me a dreamer, but after reading a book by Guy Bavli, I guess I just wanted to start with something bigger, although after 3 months of working hard (harder than I worked in my career), I am still a good bit aways from being able to debut the trick even in a garage demonstration. Being perfectly honest, the engineering of the trick has been complete, but actually delivering it in the form of an act, and how to present it are my biggest challenges.

 

[Timewise64]

Like all things I am sure you have experienced, the more you work at it the sooner it will start to come together for you. The fun is in the process of learning to perform. Once you get it, you will enjoy performing, but will have to push for more complexity to keep the real fun going...