346 words at least so far.

[kiya]

May stop and think about the next bit; this is a short story, so I need to be fairly tight and get to the important bits now that I've set up the world and narrator with my first four paragraphs. Which means I need to figure out how narrator winds up running into other characters, and that's something that hasn't been revealed to me as of yet.

I do love having . . . entertaining critics. I shared my first four paragraphs with oneironaut and annwyd. . .

Tesla says "Dude."
Tesla says "Go write the rest, I'm ready to read it."
Eastman says "Oooh, it's really neat."
I say "It's good to have a helpful and detailed critic. ;)"
Tesla says "I'm waiting! ;)"
Whitney tries asking a more specific question than just soliciting comments. "What would you say you know about a) the narrator and b) the world?"
Eastman says "The world? Magic is probably a good deal more common (or at least more publicly accepted) there than here. The narrator? S/he is a scholarly sort, thoughtful, studied magic in college."
Tesla says "I gather that the narrator has a primordial avatar. I gather that the setting is approximately present-day but that magic is a known thing, if recondite and probably not well-understood by the common man, like neurobiology."
Whitney cackles. Like neurobiology. Yes, exactly.
Eastman hees!
Eastman imagines a magazine called 'New Magician'.
Tesla cackles.
I say "Thaumaturgical American."
Eastman says "The other one I read is _Nature_. (And occasionally _Scientific American_, yes.) I wonder what the equivalent of that would be. ;)"
I say "Don't forget the headlines on Cosmo, things like 'Seven new charms to make you irresistable this summer!'"
Eastman cackles.
Tesla cackles.
Whitney ponders snagging this conversation and posting it to her journal. ;)

And so I retain it for posterity, or something.

Incidentally, teinedreugan, I've had "Happiness Is" floating in and out of my head since our conversation earlier. Charlie Brown continues a good man.