F3 Touch of Magic

     Card tricks. Illusions. Sleight of hand. Daring escapes. Misdirection. Trapdoors. Custom-engineered rigs. All tools of the trade for a magician. So as I made the ball disappear up a sleeve, coins appear out of ears, swap places with an assistant through a door, and even more elaborate, spectacular tricks, I did nothing that a well-practiced magician on Vegas couldn't do. This was not real magic, though many claimed to have that ability.
     Magic was real, though. I never used much, and almost always on a trick most thought they could explain, or at least one that was so ordinary as to not be worth real magic. But the most ordinary circumstances required real magic.

F3 Riding the Lightning

     "You never forget your first time," Jack shouted above the wind.
     Rain soaked and plastered clothing against skin. Trees bowed in obeisance to the storm's fury. The two of us stood waiting at the edge of clouds.
     "There. Aim for that bank." He pointed to another set of grey-black clouds limned with pulses of lightning.
     I poised, ready, feeling the cloud beneath my feet become electric. I reached a hand back, like a runner prepared to receive a baton. Fingers tingled as I flexed them, the energy gathering. I stretched out my other hand aimed directly at the bank Jack had pointed at, creating a channel with my arms. I glanced out the corner of my eye to see Jack doing the same, but he looked more practiced.
     "Ready?" He grinned.
     I swallowed. "Ready."

F3 Famous Face

     "I like it not!" The prince shouted.
     There was a surprise. The plain, brown cloak I held out to him might as well have been plague and lice-riddled rags for the way he looked at it.
     "Listen," the patience in my voice was thin after four times of explaining this, "you want to rescue Princess . . ." my mind fuzzed on the name. There were too many royals in the Realms. "Cleo."
     "The Fair Princess Chloe." The perturbed handsome prince tossed his head back in the way that made his golden hair fly up, but curl back down exactly where it had started.
     "Right. My mistake. The thing is, we don't know where she is."
     "She was taken by a vile—"

F3 In the Shade

     The shade of the pear tree felt wonderful to Arcus. The time for the blossoms perfuming the autumn breeze had long passed, but fruit plump from the ample rain and sun bowed the smaller branches down. Arcus had liberated some of those pears, two cores lay on his right while half a dozen fruit nestled in an open burlap bag on his left. I might just stay here tonight. I can unroll my blanket, and enjoy the pears for breakfast, too.
     "Are you Arcus of Thallory?" Stewards protect me. Not again.
     Arcus pushed up

The Horror of Revision

     I love writing. I love the creative process, and how satisfying it is to look back and say "I wrote that." I feel productive after having done it. It's something measurable and achievable. I can set a goal to write X number of words per day, session, week, whatever. It all adds up in the long run, too.
     Revision is not so fun. It takes a different part of the brain, and is a different skill altogether. I have to somehow merge

F3 Discord

     Chaos. Dissent. Anarchy. Discord. The goddess Eris would sow discord purely for her own pleasure. However, discord is a far more potent weapon to be wasted purely on entertainment. The wise conqueror did not use strength of arms to force his foes into submission. Hitler, Napoleon, Stalin, Khan, and Alexander were inelegant bludgeons. For all their efforts, they have become nothing more than names in a book of history.

F3 The Road

     One more mile.
     One more mile behind, one more mile to go.

Writing Tools: OED

     A post on Query Shark by Janet Reid (with an update on her other blog here) got me thinking. She's talking about vocabulary and voice. People have different vocabularies. There's all the words we know, and then there's our working vocabulary, which is all the words we use regularly. Obviously the working vocabulary is smaller than all of the ones our noggins can hold.
     The post made me think of just how much we rely on certain vocabularies to establish voice. Characters have their own way of saying things. Speech patterns and words establish character and narrative voice, so the usage of words is absolutely essential.
     As writers, we need to know words. Lots of words. Huge Mack truckloads of words, but that's not all. We need to know the permutations and histories. The meanings of words changes over time. Yes, a simple online dictionary can give a list of current definitions, maybe even suggest slang usage, but most of those won't tell the etymology of the word. There are a couple of online etymology sources, but none of those compare to the definitive source for the English language: the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
     There is only one OED. Oxford University Press puts out many dictionaries, but only one of which is the OED. Nothing compares to how thorough the OED is in chronicling the language. In print form it is over 20 volumes, and it does much much more than simply give definitions. This is a resource which peels back the layers of the language to show off its roots. It is now available online, so writers need not devote shelf space (or backpack space) to the 20+ volume set. It is accessible anywhere in the world.
     Now, it's not free. In fact, its cost is prohibitive for most writers to purchase on their own. However, most university and public libraries purchase access to the OED, so it may be freely available via library web portal. Go forth and explore the wonderful language. Bonus points for those who knew the picture was of a noggin.

F3 Unrestrained Power

     Power. Unyielding, wild power crackled the air around him. Through gritted teeth and clench fists he tried to wrestle the power to his will. The effort appeared to shrink the crackling aura some, but tendrils still flailed about. Like an oiled eel the power writhed and slipped away from his will.

Standing Out

     Agents get a lot of queries, on the order of Douglas Adams's description of how big space is. Agents report on inboxes stuffed with hundreds of emails every week, and often get over ten thousand queries a year.
     Agent Jessica Faust recently posted about her conference swag. Before going to my first writers' conference, I did some preliminary research, and came to similar conclusions. There are too many bookmarks, postcards, fliers, and business cards overstuffed with information. The glossy, graphic-laden, quote-filled, testimonial-by-friend-filled swag is simply too much. They're everywhere. They're all the same. I remember the amount of swag I got just in the bag at registration, and immediately had to winnow it out. I dumped most of the cards and bookmarks right away, barely sparing them a glance.
     With all the various queries, with all the bookmarks, cards, pens, etc. out there, how does a writer stand out of the background? I'm not entirely sure, (as I'm still pounding the pavement) but it's an opportunity for creativity. It needs to be outside the box, though (the trash can, I suppose) in order to get the requisite attention. My gut tells me that less is more. To do something simply will yield more results than filling every nook and cranny with graphics and information. Something o think about, at least.