Jack Smith and the Theory of Charms: Chapter 1: the Tawny Owl: Part 3

What in the world? Jackson thought as he finished the letter. Are Tom and Mitch pushing their trick even further? But how would they ever even think of such a thing, much less pull it off. Reading through the letter again, Jackson remembered the look of surprise on his dad's face when his birthday candles had lit back up, and how Tom's face had turned white when he saw the cards.

"Hoo!" the tawny owl called again.

Jackson realized his breathing was too rapid, and he was getting light headed.

"Hoo!"

"Wait!" Jackson yelled at the bird as he rushed to his dad's office. He wasn't supposed to go in there during the day, while his dad was working, but right then Jackson didn't care. "DAD!"

"Jackson, what's the matter?"

"Dad, look at this," he said, holding the letter out to him. He found himself bouncing on his heels while he waited for his dad to reach the end.

"It looks like someone's playing a joke on you, son," his dad laughed.

"You didn't put trick candles on the cake," Jackson blurted.

His dad thought a moment before saying, "You're right, I didn't. I forgot to buy new ones. But your mom must have got some."

"I don't think so, Dad," Jackson said, shaking his head. "And Tom and Mitch's cards."

"What about them?"

"Suddenly they all changed to be my card, and when they saw it they were so terrified they left without having cake."

"Now, that was odd, but how do you know this isn't all a trick from them."

"The cards changed back to normal about ten minutes ago!" Jackson insisted. Then he took the letter back. "And look at this. 'Please send back your response by owl'." Jackson pointed back toward the library. "There's an owl outside the library window that's been looking at me since the letter arrived!"

"Hmm!" Jackson could tell his dad was chewing on the inside of his lip as he thought. "Now that is strange. Tom and Mitch couldn't do that, but maybe somebody else is helping them. But why don't we write a response saying you'd love to go. We'll give it to the owl and see what happens. If it flies away with it, then we can try to get the books and things it says you'll need. By the time we're done doing that we should know the truth of the matter."

Jackson smiled as they typed up a response, printed it, folded it up, and slipped it into an envelope. Then they walked to the library window. Jackson's dad carefully opened the window and the tawny owl hopped in and held its leg out toward Jackson. Jackson hesitated, uncertain what to do. Finally, the owl hopped closer to him and took hold of his letter with its claw before leaping into the air and flying out the window again.

Jackson grinned as he looked at his dad, whose mouth hung open as he stared after the owl. "I guess we need to go get my books and equipment."

Jack Smith and the Theory of Charms: Chapter 1: the Tawny Owl: Part 2

A week later, Jackson sat at his computer working on his homework. His dad had asked him to make a program to generate the nth fibonacci number. Jackson knew he could make it simply do it with brute force and go through every fibonacci number before the one chosen, but his dad had hinted that there was a faster way. Jackson was getting frustrated with himself for not being able to figure it out.

He looked at the deck of cards on his desk. His cousins had left it behind. Why would they do that? Now they can't use it to trick anyone else... Unless they're just still trying to trick me. Jackson took the deck of identical cards and began shuffling them to clear his head.

Maybe it has something to do with Pascal's Triangle or something like that. Or maybe...Jackson clenched his jaws and gripped the deck of cards. Then he threw it against the wall, and the cards scattered all over that side of the room. Jackson took a deep breath to calm down and stood from his chair to go pick up the cards.

He stopped as his eyes fell on one of the cards. Three of Hearts. Jackson looked at the others. Each card was different. He'd looked through them dozens of times since his birthday. He knew they'd all been the King of Spades just a few hours earlier. Did Tom and Mitch come and switch it? No, I looked at them this morning, and I've been home the whole time since then. There's no way.

He kept thinking about it as he picked up the cards.

The sound of the post arriving in the front hall came to him, but he ignored it and kept picking up the cards.

"Hoo!" Turning, Jackson saw an orangish brown owl looking at him from the window. "Hoo!" it said again.

"Isn't it a little bright out for you?" Jackson asked.

"Hoo!" the owl said again, turning to look toward the hallway. Jackson looked toward the hallway for a second then back to the owl. Jackson had the strange sensation that the owl wanted him to get the post. Shaking his head, he began putting the cards back into a neat stack. "Hoo!" the owl repeated, tapping the window with its beak.

Jackson looked back at the owl, which looked annoyed with him. "Fine," Jackson said, standing up. "I'll get the post." Jackson walked into the hallway and found the post lying by the front door. He picked it up and walked back toward the library, looking through it as he walked. Bills, bills, my dad's tech magazine... Then he found a strange letter with a handwritten green address on the front:

Jackson Smith

1123 Stone Henge Way

London

There was no return address, but the back of the letter had a wax seal with an H and some animals. What is this? he thought as he popped the letter open and pulled out two sheets of paper with a strange but comfortable texture. Jackson opened the first paper and read:

Dear Mr. Smith,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Due to your heritage you are likely very confused by this, so allow me to explain.

Magic is a very real part of the world, but most people are unaware of its existence. Non-magical people, commonly called muggles, are subject to all manner of spells that have been developed over the years to keep them in the dark. Some muggles are aware of magic due to magical family members, or run-ins with members of the magical community, but for the most part we find it in our best interest to keep ourselves hidden. While your parents are both muggles, you are in fact a wizard. You may have difficulty believing this, but if you open your mind and think of times when you have been frustrated, angry, or afraid, or even excited, you will recognize your unconscious use of your abilities. It is the responsibility of Hogwarts to educate all the magical youth in the British Isles to properly control their abilities that they may know how best to use them in their lives.

Enclosed you will find a list of all the books and equipment you will need for your first year and instructions on where you can obtain them, as well as your ticket for the Hogwarts Express.

The term begins on September 1. Please send back your response by owl (simply write a letter and give it to the tawny owl I used to send this to you).

Sincerely,

Filius Flitwick

Deputy Headmaster

Jack Smith and the Theory of Charms: Chapter 1: the Tawny Owl: Part 1

Disclaimer: I didn't do any research into England or British culture for this story. I wanted it to be fun, but I didn't want to spend time on research. I'm just going on what I already know, which isn't all that much for that kind of thing.

Second Disclaimer: Also, as my wife tells me, this is an abnormally long blog post. I'll try to break it up more for the next part, but I couldn't think of a good way to break this one up any more than this, but this doesn't actually take long to read. It's like two and a half pages in a normal book.

"Make a wish, Jackson," Jackson's mom said as she set the birthday cake on the table in front of him.

Jackson smiled as he absent-mindedly counted the candles. Eleven. Eleven years old.

"Did you make a wish?" his dad asked.

Jackson had decided on his wish the day before. Not that he believed in that kind of nonsense, but he figured it couldn't hurt. So, he'd decided to wish for the one thing he really wanted. Friends, Jackson thought. I wish for friends.

Jackson didn't really know what it was like to have friends. He'd always been curious about them, but there were no other kids near his age in their London neighbourhood, and his parents had decided they were better suited to teach him than the public education system.

He had to admit that his parents were excellent teachers. His mom was actually a music professor at the university, but she also taught him language and history. His dad was a software developer and taught him math, science, and computers. The plan was for him to get his diploma in about another year and a half, and everything looked to be on schedule, but of course that was part of the reason he never got more than a two week break. Even now, the rest of the country was beginning their summer break, and he was still having his daily lessons. Not that Jackson resented his studies. He actually enjoyed them. But he did want to know what it was like to have friends.

Jackson looked over at his cousins across the table. They were his dad's brother's, and they were the only other kids at the party. They were older than him, but he thought they were kind of slow. They were always showing him card tricks, but Jackson always figured out how they worked before they finished. He couldn't think of them as friends.

Sighing as he turned back to the cake, Jackson took a deep breath and blew out the candles, making sure to get all of them so he could get his wish.

Everyone clapped, and Jackson smiled. Then the candles sparked and all lit back up. Jackson laughed as he looked up at his dad, but his dad looked surprised. Hmm, Mom must have done the trick candles this year.

They put the candles out again in water, and his mom cut the cake and dished up ice cream with it while his dad began bringing over presents. Jackson looked at his cousins as they came at him with a deck of cards.

"Have you got a new one?" Jackson asked.

"Yeah, and it took us forever to get it," Tom, the older one, who'd recently got glasses, said as he shuffled.

"You'll never figure it out," Mitch, the younger one added.

"Well, let's see it then," Jackson leaned forward in his chair.

"Okay, pick a card." Tom held the deck out toward him, spreading the cards out like a fan face down for him to choose one. Jackson noticed that one of the cards in the middle was slightly farther out than the others. That had been their trick two years before. He hadn't fallen for it then either, but his cousins weren't so dense as to think it would work this time. It was a distraction.

Jackson took a card to the left of the middle. He carefully covered the back so his cousins couldn't see it in case it was marked. He pulled it out of their view and searched the back before looking to see what card it was. King of Spades. He looked around him for any other way they may have been determining what card it was, but he couldn't find anything.

Tom adjusted his glasses before he cut the deck and held the bottom half out for Jackson to put his card on top. Jackson did as he was supposed to, carefully watching both Tom and Mitch. Tom put the other half on top, then began shuffling. Jackson watched as carefully as he could, but he couldn't spot anything out of the ordinary.

Finally, Tom stopped shuffling, then he flipped over the card on top. "This is your card."

King of Spades, Jackson thought. How did they do that? They've never stumped me before... How did they... Jackson felt himself getting frustrated, and he looked at the cards. They must be trick cards. There must be something I missed. Something... An image popped into his head of an entire deck full of the King of Spades.

Jackson reached for the deck, his anger building at their trick. As he grabbed the cards they felt momentarily warm to the touch. He flipped the deck over and laid them out on the ground. All of them were the King of Spades. "You guys are such cheaters," Jackson mocked.

"What are you talking about?" Tom asked before looking down. Tom's face flushed of all its color. "Wha- How- How did you do that?"

"Do what?" Jackson asked. "All I did was turn your cards over. You had a deck of all the same card."

"No, I didn't."

"No, he didn't," Mitch put in. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything," Jackson insisted. "You did."

Tom stared at the cards on the ground, his eyes wide. Then he looked up at Jackson, fear in his eyes. Finally, he stood up and walked back to his dad. "Dad, can we go now?"

"Are you sure? You haven't even had cake yet. And Jackson's going to start opening his presents."

"I wanna go now."

Their dad looked at Mitch, who was nodding his head. "If you really want to, we can go."

Jackson watched them pack up and go, feeling confused. What was that about? Are they just still trying to trick me?

Bonus Post

To make up for not posting last week, I'm doing a second post today. Woo-hoo! Yes, thank you the hordes of my non-existent followers applaud and cheer. Oh well. I do hope to have followers in the not-too-distant future. Maybe I'll tell some friends and family about my blog. I do hope that it spreads and that I get lots of followers because I've been hearing that this is something publishers look for. Followers on social networking sites apparently equate to free advertising to publishers. So, this brings us to the crux of the matter:

What can I do in my blog to get people to come here, and to want to come back. An author I know is planning to do a monthly contest for people to submit scenes they've written to his blog and then let other people vote on it, and then he plans to send the winners gift cards. Neat idea, but, as I said in the previous post, I'm broke. Plus I don't even have an agent yet, and he does.

I'm thinking instead I could write little short stories. The problem there is that my wife got me paranoid about plagiarism. So, that severely limits the kind of story I can put in a public place like this. The only kinds of stories I feel comfortable putting here are things that could never be published anyway, and then I'll have to make sure not to do anything particularly original in them.

So, what I'm thinking I'll do is write *shudder* fan fiction.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love fan fiction. I've written a fair amount of it in the past, and have read some that are quite good. I've also read beginnings of dozens of REALLY BAD fan fictions.

I'm doing this to give people a taste of my writing style without exposing any original ideas. Once I finish my current novel and get it copyrighted, I'll be willing to share tidbits of that, but for now I'm going to let my paranoia reign, and limit myself on here to fan fiction.

You can expect to see things in the Potterverse, the Dresdenverse, the Marvelverse, the Star Wars-verse?... Basically any fantasy or sci-fi setting that is already out there. I might even do some video game fan fiction.

Don't expect my writing style to be like anyone else's. For example if I write a story in the Dresdenverse it will most likely be in third person, though Jim Butcher always does it in first person. Also I probably will mostly use characters I make up myself rather than the main characters from the original story. Don't expect my stories in the Potterverse to follow Harry, Ron, and Hermione. They might be mentioned. I might even have my characters meet characters from the book, but the focus will be on my own characters.

Again, I'll try to do one a week, but remember that I've got a full-time job, a family, and I'm writing a novel. This isn't high priority. It's something I'll work on when I've got a few spare minutes and I need a break from my novel, so don't be surprised if I miss a week here and there. That being said, I will try to do a story every week.

So, the first one will be next week sometime.

cya

Edit: Okay. I've had some criticism that I'm not writing short stories. I guess what I'm really writing is an old school serial. It's like a novel that's released one chapter at a time. I'll try to do some actual short stories, but I generally don't think that way.

New Job

Okay, so I skipped last week, and I'm late this week. So sue me... On second thought, don't. I can't afford to get sued. Of course, I don't think I have anyone actually following my blog (particularly since I haven't told anyone about it yet because I don't want to be like all those friends I've had who say to read their blog, and then quit writing in it after five to ten more posts) so I don't think anyone cares. But in any case, I've got a good excuse, and I'm betting you can guess what it is. If you can't then please take my advice: NEVER VOTE!

That's right, I started my new job. So far it's great, though a little annoying that I haven't got my computer yet. They're building me a new laptop, but until it's ready I've got a desktop to use. It's still programming, and it's still transportation stuff, but I think it's more flexible with what I'll be able to do. Plus my commute went from forty-five minutes to about three seconds (I roll out of bed, take two steps, sit at the desk, and turn on the monitor). Working from home is awesome. We're still working out the bugs, like how to keep S and V from interrupting me all the time, but that'll be easier once my laptop gets here and I can work from anywhere in the house.

Writing Methodologies

I was talking with my sister-in-law the other day about what methods I use to write. Some people just sit and write, others map out everything in notes before they even start writing.

I find myself somewhere in the middle. I keep a folder on my computer for ideas. As new ideas come to me I write them down. If I think multiple ideas go good together I'll put them in a sub folder. Then when I think I've got a combination of ideas that would make an interesting story I sit down and write a chapter or two, just letting the muse take me where it will, but using that set of ideas as a foundation. Very often by the end of two or three chapters it becomes clear to me that either the story won't work or that the ideas need more work.

Sometimes I find a story that feels like it'll work. When I decide the story works I sit down and figure out how I want the story to end. That gives me a starting point and an ending point. Then I write a few notes to aim it in that direction. Then I begin writing chapters again, occasionally stopping to write more notes to keep track of plot elements I plan for the future.

I find that this makes my stories seem more natural. They're not chaotic like when people just sit down and write, but they're also not like reading directions. Instead I let the characters and the world direct itself in my head, and I just have to give it nudges to keep it going in the right direction.