What is your superpower?

As many of you know, I have a world where most of the inhabitants have superpowers. The point is that it is the people without superpowers who are different, and they have to find their way in a world where being normal isn't considered normal. Did I also mention that this is a world of unicorns, gryphons, and dragons? Anyway, I decided to come up with a comprehensive list of all the different powers that people in this world could possess, and realized that I only have thirteen different ones. Even if I come up with twice that, this world isn't going to be very diverse. So I beg your aid to come up with more. What are some common powers super heros have, some uncommon ones, and what power do you really wish you had if you lived in a comic book world? Tell me all your ideas!

So far I have:
Telepathic
Telekinetic
Super Hearing
Create objects (I guess it'd be kind of like alchemy)
Super Voice
Can locate anything
Invisibility
Super Jumping
Wall-Crawling (like Spider-Man)
Healing (they don't have great medicine)
Speak/understand any language
Fire manipulators
Lie Detectors

Many magical musings

"If you must know, I didn't know he was the fiance when he plopped." --Alex
In this movie, Emma is confused how Alex's plot and characters can develop even while he's in the middle of writing the story. Two pages before, the main character meets John Shaw. Then he conveniently finds out that Shaw is planning to marry the main character's new employer. Coincidence? Definitely not!

Although it's a bit contrived in Alex and Emma, and the plot ultimately reflect's Adam's past and poor life descisions, this spontaneous working of the plot with convenient results often happens in real life. I was just thinking this morning about my character Mr. Lukas from my nanowrimo 2009 novel. By the year 1194 in the land of Pocatello (when this novel was set), it's very, very unusual for someone to not have magical powers. But I had already developed the character of Lukas without detirmining what his power was. When I got to his part of the story in November, I had to quickly come up with some passive power for him that wouldn't detract from who he was or his function in the plot. I couldn't give him charisma, because that would make his rise to fame seem fake, and I wanted him to be a strong character who worked his way up the social ladder. He couldn't have anything active (like tekenesis, fire manipulation, or even telepathy) because then the enemy would take him way too seriously and lock him up tight, or even kill him after they had all the necessary information from him.
So I decided to make him an Earwig--I have idea where I got the idea that one could have super hearing, but that's what I gave Mr. Lukas. And suddenly, it solved some problems.
It explained why the Flubberians had left him locked up alone (so he couldn't hear any enemy plans).
It explained how he found out that Phillip was still alive (the two assassins who didn't know where Mr. Lukas was held slipped into a back corrider to discuss the operation where King Carlos wouldn't hear them).
It explained how he managed to escape the castle and get out of Flubber (he could hear their footsteps in the hallways in enough time to go down a different corridor).
And it didn't take away from his natural leadership abilities, it didn't hinder his loyalty to Phillip, and it didn't make him sympathize with the Greens (Lukas' three main character traits).
In fact, I like this power so much that I gave it to another character Last night I indulged myself in looking through my other stories from Pocatello (yes, sigh, there are more) and realized that my hero from another time didn't have any powers yet. The main character trait of this man was that he was a war veteran from the Flubberian civil war, but even by the year 382 (the year of the war), many people had powers, and it would be just ignoring the whole point of the war not to give him one. So what do I do? I make him an Earwig. Now he's essentially the same person, didn't really improve his fighting all that much (maybe even hindered it if the sound of all those bullets gave him a headache) and then the introduction scene to the other main character doesn't have to be an awkward outburst in a bar, instead he can just overhear her heated conversation with the bartender in the back.
Don't you love it when things turn out like that? Unless you're a writer, probably not :)
*For more information than you ever wanted to know about magical abilities and the Flubberian civil war, feel free to ask me, I love rambling about my made-up world*

In other news, first two PAID days at Tate went very well. Working on reading more slowly and getting to know the other girls at my table without sounding intrusive. Sean is trying to get temporary security clearance so that he can start working on stuff at his job, and then I'll never get to know what he's working on because it's a SECRET.

come to the poll!

I think one of my originals purposes in this blog was to do post bits of my stories on here, like I used to do on myspace. But I keep putting it off becuase I know that I can post a lot more story than I can write, and I don't want to get to the end of what I've written and leave everyone hanging. So I've told myself that I will wait until I finish one of my novels to publish it, one chapter (or half a chapter) at a time, on this blog. I don't know why I'm posting this except maybe that it will make it a more concrete goal. So here I am, committing to finish a novel for you, my few readers. Now, I have two stories that are my most complete, and I have most of the plot of both worked out in my head. I just need your votes on which to dedicate myself to, because I can't decide!

Vote! Either:
1) City of Orphans. Affectionately mentioned in conversation as "Pocatello," this story has been ruminating within me for over a decade, undergoing so many changes that you wouldn't notice anything similar about its current and present forms except the name of the countries Umberland and Windswept. I worked on this story this November to win NaNoWriMo 2009 and have been slowly revising it for the past three months.

2) Into the Flames. Also a story I've been working on for at least eight years, although Rahab was originally a secondary character, Into the Flames is near and dear to my heart. I worked on this story during Creative Writing in the Spring semester of 2009, and was very pleased with the positive response I received among my peer reviewers.

If you need any more info (such as plot elements) to make a decision, ask me. But you must vote! It is your duty as a supporter of the Arts!

Mr. Lukas, Nobbian Minister of Foreign Relations

This is why Mr. Lukas is quickly becoming my favorite character in my novel:

As the Princess Adana stood over him, he trembled and kept his eyes on the carpet. He could only hope for mercy or a swift death. He didn't see any point in begging either way.
“You be Nobbian,” she said finally, and it wasn’t a question. “That is why Papa hates you.”
“Yes, I would think so,” Lukas managed to say.
“Quid are you doing here?”
“Eating.”
“No, I meant in Flubber.”
“Highness, leave him alone. Why are you questioning him so?” Dita asked, now wringing her cap in woe.
Lukas strained his ears to listen if the alarm of his escaped had been raised yet. He wanted to give up, lay himself down at this lady’s feet and wait for death to come. He didn’t want to run any more. Why was he? Oh yes, because Phillip was still alive. Little Prince Phillip, whom everybody believed was useless.
“Answer me,” Adana commanded.
Painfully Lukas lifted himself to his feet. He stared Adana in the eyes. “You be wasting my time with all your petty questions. I be going now.” And he pushed past her back into the hallway, his heart beating quickly.
He knew that in a few seconds she would regain her footing, and she would call out to the others that he had escaped. He knew that he would go down to the stables, saddle a horse, and gallop through the palace gates. He knew that they would come after him, but he would escape. He strode confidently down the hall, feeling as he did the day he strode into the throne room in Disco to receive his maroon ministerial epaulets. Phillip was alive, and Mr. Lukas was going to put him back on his throne. And if Mr. Lukas had set his mind to do something, it was certain to happen. They didn't call him The Bulldog for nothing.

Thought of the Day:
chocolate-covered raisins....mmmmmm.....good choice, Mar.

And the topic for November is...

So I spontaneously decided to jump on the band wagon and participate in NaNoWriMo this year. (Click here if you don't know what that is.) I'm very nervous about this because not only have I only finished about three stories in my life, all of them have been worthless and very short. I've never written more than 20,000 words in a story, and even when I was on a roll it took me all summer to get that far. It's a good thing I don't have any school work to do, because other than work, I'm going to be writing a lot. Hopefully this will be a good exercise in accomplishment.
The reason I didn't sign up for it a long time ago was becuase I knew that there is no way I could write 50,000 words in a month, much less a year. But then I told myself, I guess I will never know until I try. So here's just another reason to put off "Into the Flames," because it's almost done so I can't use it for NaNoWriMo. Instead, I have chosen "The City of Orphans," a tale from the fantastical land of Pocatello. Which, in case you were wondering, was named after a random city in Idaho that I found while perusing my states puzzle when I was younger.
And so, into the melee!

The closed door

Lately I've been writing with the door closed (read King's "On Writing" to know what that means). King says that's a good thing, that authors should write for themselves first, and write for readers the second draft, but lately I've been feeling that if I keep writing for myself I won't ever get up the motivation to even get to the second draft. If I keep writing things I want to write about then it'll end up sounding like Twilight--a perfect indulgence of my favorite fantasies, but not a very good, hard core, realistic story that deserves to be published.

Once Upon a Time, In a Galaxy Far, Far, Away... (an idea that needs a response)

Magic was discovered by some lame explorer who stumbled across the Dragon’s cave. The Dragon, whose name is yet to be revealed, is sort of like the god here, protects the power of magic and many other powers that he believes that humans aren’t ready to handle just yet. This lame explorer from Flubber had heard rumors of the dragon and had gone out to see if they were true. When he found the dragon, he became greedy and wanted the magic for his people. The dragon told him that it was unsafe and warned him of the years of strive and hardship that such power would bring them, but the dude wouldn’t listen so the dragon, always an advocate of free will, let him take the magic back to the humans. That was how it came into Pocatello. The dragon found a different cave, farther away so they couldn’t find him and steal the rest of his stuff, but close enough so that he could keep an eye on them whenever they needed his help. But they never called on him because they thought that now that they had magic they could do it by themselves.