Research, imagination and a glass of wine

Now that I've found an agent willing to try and place the Luke Ballard books, I must make sure that I have everything sorted for consistency. So, I've been through "Duty of Evil" and the 30,000 words of "Treasons, Stratagems & Spoils" to make sure that I have a list of spells. Well, that's how it started, honest.

It really began with Paul saying I ought to use the Word Shed as it was a nice day, just to have the heater on and air it out a bit. Of course, I made him vacuum it out and do a spider search first, but I've been in here over an hour and the spells research is turning up some absolute gems, from spells you can buy to ensure a lotto win, to spells involving black candles, three rusty nails and the grave of a murder victim, just to bring a mountain of bad luck on someone who has offended your sensibilities. Then there's the Nights of Hell spell, which will give the receiver three nights of pains of the flesh, skin lesions and other pleasant distraction. So I've been indulging in that pleasurable hobby known only too well to writers, called distraction therapy as research.

Actually the consistency thing is a real nightmare for writers. For example in Duty, it is a revelation spell. Somehow in Treasons, it has morphed into a reveal spell. I had no idea how many spells poor old Luke had to remember, so I have made some of them journeyman spells that can be souped up when the elemancer is a master, such as the Clarifying Spell to make people tell what they don't really want to, which a journeyman elemancer can perform, but which turns into a Veritas Spell, which only an elemagus can perform.

If you've been following the Treasons blog, you will know that the one inviolate rule of elemancy is BALANCE. So, I now have to formulate a set of spells that sunderers will use. This was where the Internet search began and disintegrated into helpless laughter. I expect if I could charge $35 for a lotto spell, I might make as much as a lotto winner. Sadly, there are always people who are so desperate to believe that some magic force can shape their life into the way they want it. If only they could gather all that energy and put it into something positive, they would see that they are indeed powerful, but not in the way some of the magic spell salespeople mean. I hate to use the word gullible, because it is a seriously unkind word, so I will substitute vulnerable. If any vulnerable people are reading this, then all I can do is implore you to find the intention we all have inside us, however deeply buried and draw your strength to change your lives from that, not from some charlatan making thousands swindling you out of cash you probably don't have.

And the glass of wine? Well, isn't research always more profitable when accompanied by a nice sav blanc?