Saturday, March 26, 2011

Nature of Magic Blogfest

Thanks to Tessa Conte, who prompted me on Facebook to participate!  I would not have wanted to miss this one.  But it has been an absolute hell of a week.  I can't even describe the overlapping, intertwining layers of stress that have converged in the past three days, except to say

"Big Presentation to Entire Company + Severe Cold +  Loss of Voice + Child with stomach virus + No Sleep + First Writer's Conf Ever + Unprepared Pitch = ACK!"

But thankfully, we have magical worlds to escape to.  Here are the instructions:

Write or share something you've already written that, to you, shows the nature of magic. It can be an excerpt from your WIP, something you've written especially, poetry, whatever strikes your fancy. It just needs to show the nature of magic as it exists for you or for those you write about. Unless you're writing poetry, try to keep the entries somewhere between 250-1000 words.

So, here is Marenya's first experience with creating an orb of light.  She can light a fire, which any Hanorja can do, but only the elevja, or magically-gifted royals, can do more sophisticated magic.  Or so she thinks.

* * *

The cavern was dark. Raynor had completely disappeared, taking the light with him. She called out, but her voice was swallowed by the sound of the water. What do I do now? she thought.

Cast a light.

The words came unbidden to her mind. She raised her eyebrows in surprise. Could she do that?

If you can make a fire, you can make a light.

She tried what Raynor had done – opening her hand as if throwing something into the air. Nothing happened. She tried again, but as she did so she thought of fire. Again, nothing happened. Frowning, she thought for a moment, and tried again, this time thinking not of fire but of the yellow sun. To her amazement, a small, bright orb left her hand and floated above her.

Perhaps all of the magic didn’t belong to the kings.

15 comments:

  1. Oh,how cool. It seems like this is both great and trouble-inducing.
    Edge of Your Seat Romance

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  2. Discovery of hidden talents; awesome. Short, but character revealing. Ah, and she's in Raynor's cave. Super.

    ........dhole

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  3. I loved this bit! It was yet another small turning point for Marenya, where she grew just a little bit by following her instincts, rather than the information she'd been given her entire life. A small step toward controlling her own being and destiny.

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  4. Isn't it amazing what you discover when your character's discover something that they didn't know they had, or could do.

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  5. Hello, new follower and fellow blogfester.
    It's always fun to read about a character discovering a new power.

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  6. Hello Lindz, Thanks so much for stopping by! I want to read the other entries but I'm swamped this weekend. I have to finish my editing pronto.

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  7. I wish I could do that!

    I always loved the scene in LOTR where Gandalf is trying to elad everyone over the mountains and even he can't make a fire because everything is too wet and cold. This sort of reminds me of it.

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  8. Oh, yeah, Morning! I love that part. And when he can't open the doors of Moria because he doesn't know the password. I love magic with practical limits.

    I have a line in my book that "even a wizard can't control the weather."

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  9. Love this. There is a message here, as long as we believe, we can do anything. (Hugs)Indigo

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  10. Love it! So magic isn't as exclusive as she thought it might be... cool.

    Thank you for joining in and listening to me on FB!

    Tessa.xx

    ps. do pop in on the 30th to vote on the finalists

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  11. LOVE this! Short and sweet and totally on target. Nice. Thanks for participating!

    I hope you get a break from all the stress. ;)

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  12. I missed this before. Short and sweet.

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  13. Super short, but super cool! :D This was pretty awesome, I enjoyed it a lot.

    ~TRA

    http://xtheredangelx.blogspot.com

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  14. Oh, goosebumps. I really like this. Short but very full of magic!

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I apologize for the word verification. I hate it, but the spammers made me do it.