"So You Want to Be a Wizard": a moment

[dianeduane]



INT. NITA'S BEDROOM -- NIGHT

She's hidden by the tented-up blankets on her bed.
The dim light welling out from underneath would make
you think she's doing the reading-by-flashlight thing.

              NITA (O.S.)
     I don't get why some spells call
     for these weird objects. The knotted
     string you were using. Batteries.
     Sugar cubes! Who needs this stuff
     when you have the Speech?

              KIT (V.O.)
     It's something to do with the way
     they bend space around them.

INT. NITA'S BEDROOM -- UNDER THE COVERS WITH HER -- NIGHT

She's reading the Manual by Fred's light, while using the
Manual to talk to Kit. We can see his face in a WINDOW
on the open page.

              KIT (V.O.)
     They're shortcuts. You could do it
     with words, but it'd take more
     energy.

              NITA
     Today took plenty. I feel like I
     had three gym classes in a row.

              KIT (V.O.)
     The Manual says it's like exercise.
     It takes time to get in shape.

             NITA
     I can't wait forever for my magical
     muscles to bulk up! I've got to get
     my pen back before Joanne loses
     interest and ditches it.

              KIT
     We'll start Operation Frustrated
     Bully first thing Monday morning.
     Did you look up Fred's "advisories?"

              NITA
     Yeah. They're other wizards! Older
     ones, here in town.

              NITA'S MOM
     Nita?

Nita's eyes go wide in reaction.

              NITA
       (whispers)
     Fred -- !

INT. NITA'S BEDROOM -- CONTINUOUS

Her mother stands in the doorway.

              NITA'S MOM
     Who are you talking to? Don't say
     "nobody."

              NITA
     Uh, a kid I met today. A friend.

              NITA'S MOM
     Fine. Come out of there.

Nita's head pops out from under the covers.

              NITA'S MOM (CONT'D)
     You know the rules about phone
     calls after lights out.

Her mom holds her hand out. Nita grimaces, SIGHS
an exaggerated teenage sigh, reaches under the blankets
and hands her mother her CELLPHONE.

              NITA'S MOM (CONT'D)
     And on the subject of lights...

Nita reaches under the blankets: the light under them
GOES OUT. Nita pulls out a FLASHLIGHT and hands it to
her mother.

              NITA'S MOM (CONT'D)
     Thank you. Now get some sleep!

She goes out, shuts the door.

INT. NITA'S BEDROOM -- UNDER THE COVERS -- CONTINUOUS

Nita ducks under the blankets again.

              FRED
     Is it all right now?

              NITA
     Yeah.

Fred's light FADES UP. Nita opens her Manual
again: Kit looks out at her.

              KIT (V.O.)
     Everything okay?

              NITA
     Yeah, my mom thinks I've been
     disarmed. Where were we?

              KIT (V.O.)
     The third part of that repulsion
     spell. Let the seventh-graders
     deal with that.

              NITA
     Right. Fred, a little more light
     here?

              FRED
     Sure.

              KIT
     Don't think you're gonna hog him!
     I get him tomorrow night.

              NITA
     So I keep hearing. Now about the
     rest of these ingredients…




Etc...

Comments

[talon.livejournal.com]

*applauds*

I don't want to ask for more — but I do at the same time.

Hopefully, these tidbits will keep coming until the movie/tv show?

[dduane.livejournal.com]

Alas, no. See here (http://dduane.livejournal.com/99130.html) for details: specifically question 7a.

[talon.livejournal.com]

Oh. I mean, I read it, but I didn't expect this tidbit to be the last one!

...but on the other hand, this means you've signed a contract? Again, I'm torn as to be happy or sad. More happy, though, I think.

[dduane.livejournal.com]

Oh, no contract as yet. When that happens, these will have to stop. You did see the earlier extract, though?

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

I didn't... can I get a link?

[tortoises.livejournal.com]

You didn't? :O

http://dduane.livejournal.com/99051.html

♥

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

Nope... I somehow managed to miss it :(

[talon.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes.

I just thought you meant that you already signed and this was the last one. *wipes brow*

:)

[agawa-jean.livejournal.com]

Wow, that sounds fantastic. I wish I had wizardly powers back in jr. high, it certainly would have made my school life easier, and well, the rest of it more interesting.

Good luck, and I hope this all works out!

[genmaicha.livejournal.com]

These tidbits are...well, delicious!

[dreagoddess.livejournal.com]

Aw, that's great! I love the part about "Mom thinks we're disarmed." Although seeing Nita's mom again makes me sniffle.

[girasole.livejournal.com]

This is so cool!!!!


I so love that book, and that series. I teach it in children's lit in the unit "characters every kid should know." I love watching them grow up, book by book. I can't wait to see the movie.

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

LOVE it. Love it.

[selenialeopard.livejournal.com]

SQEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[seldearslj.livejournal.com]

Loving this!

*waits for the movie*

[wolf-moonshadow.livejournal.com]

Hmmm… I don’t seem to recall Nita having a cellular in the original book. ;-) Of course, at the rate that computers and tech seem to evolve in the Wizard-verse, Nita’s sure to have an i-phone already. Now we just need to find a way to buy that little pocket of time that’ll zip us forward a few years so we can see the final product.

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

Well, I assume that the movie'll be set in the present, instead of in 1983 when the book was originally published :P

[azurelunatic]

It's weird to watch them time-stretch from the 80s to today. They age only as their time passes, but they're always current.

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

Yeah; it's particularly strange to see the change in technology, in my opinion.

[azurelunatic]

I think it's particularly cool to get this chance to see Kit and Nita using the technology they would have been using if it had been around when they were actually that age and that inexperienced. They're still themselves, very much so, and the transition doesn't look strained. They're not tied to a decade, and I can't think of any plot devices offhand that depend on the lack of technology in order to work.

Though it's amazing how easy it is to get around cellphones these days when it's necessary to have someone be out of contact. I was waiting somewhere and the movie they had on was one of those creepy slasher (knife-guy, not the fandom kind) flicks, and the girl was baby-sitting and couldn't get in touch with any of her friends, because they were all at a wild party on a remote hill with very spotty cellphone coverage. The plot device devisor in me approved.

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

one of those creepy slasher (knife-guy, not the fandom kind)

If you hadn't felt the need to clarify, I wouldn't be picturing a horror movie about fandom slashers now ;) I have nothing else to say, except "word".

[azurelunatic]

Can't you just see the cute male characters huddled in fear, wondering which of them would be paired together next? Oh, the creepy music! Oh, the pretty boys! Oh, the Deep and Manly Love! Oh, the slashing!

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

And imagine the sequel: a femslash horror movie!

...which would probably sell a lot more tickets to the young heterosexual male demographic than its predecessor, come to think of it, so I bet the executives would approve.

[azurelunatic]

...I came back here intending to make a witty follow-up, but your icon has slain me with serious amounts of grinning.

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

Why thank you! ^_^ I made it myself, as a matter of fact. (Can't remember where I got the picture, though - my photoshop-fu isn't that good.)

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

The Madeleine L'Engle "Kairos" books do the same thing, although I didn't notice it until my second or third rereading. (Perhaps the L'Engle time-stretch is less obvious to me because when L'Engle was writing her best work, I wasn't born yet!)

[replica.livejournal.com]

heheh. I wish I'd been able to do that at her age when caught reading/talking after lights out.


much love for these tidbits <3 Though in a way I'm also kind of looking forward to when they stop, because then that'll mean signed contract, right? :D I'll probably squee for days then.

[kayshapero]

heheh. I wish I'd been able to do that at her age when caught reading/talking after lights out.

Dunno if my folks never caught me reading that way, or just figured that the way it got kinda stuffy under the blankets I wouldn't keep it up long enough to lose too much sleep. :) OTOH, I'm fairly sure they never realized that I could hear their TV quite clearly though the wall, so if they were watching something that sounded interesting I'd turn the old one that had gravitated into my room on with the sound off, fish around until I found the channel and watch too.

[replica.livejournal.com]

I was never much one for tv, but there were many a night where my mother would yell at me to put the book down and go to bed already. At least until I realized that turning on the hall light and using that after she'd gone to bed made it much less likely for me to be caught. Still... a Fred light would have been nice ;)

[kayshapero]

I was probably more interested in news than most kids my age. Then again, this may have been because they did let me watch "That Was The Week That Was" with them, and parody is more fun when you know what's being parodied.

Agree re Fred - no worry about batteries running out, variable light, and a friend to talk to all at once!

And Penny. We mustn't forget Penny.

[bobcat2022.livejournal.com]

Before I clicked the cut, I was picturing some kind of Wonder Years-style voice-over narration for the movie. Which made me think of Michelle Trachtenberg as Nita, except she's too old at this point. She was so great as Harriet the Spy (the only book I considered to be on a par with SYWTBAW in fourth/fifth grade).

And Dawn, too! Who was like Fred! So it's all one big circle of too-bad-she's-trying-to-be-a-"grown-up"-actress-now.

[nightskywarlock.livejournal.com]

She needs a 'cone of silence' spell.

[ncdsbookworm.livejournal.com]

HAHA PERFECT!!! Oh Fred. :)

[childthursday.livejournal.com]

SQUEE!! *dances around happily* I really really really want to see this...

Although it is so weird to think of Nita being that little girl again; she's grown up a lot in the rest of the books and in my head. (She's only a year or two older than me!)

[redlily.livejournal.com]

How old is she now? (In the books, I mean, not assuming she was 12 in 1983.) I've lost track, but I agree, it's odd to think of her as a preteen!

[childthursday.livejournal.com]

I think she's fifteen in the books, now? Huh. I didn't realize the book was published in 1983! By that date, if she was twelve, she was born in 1971 and is actually eleven years OLDER than me. (I first read it when I was twelve myself.) Oh, weird. I always think of them as 'my age.'

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

If I remember correctly, Nita was 13 in SYWTBAW, not 12. Kit was the 12-year-old.

[firedrake-mor.livejournal.com]

Good stuff! I like the window in the book page, and the light going out and her handing the flashlight to her mother. Neat phrasing -- the voice for Fred needs to be at once childlike and powerful, somehow.

[jaebird.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, that reminds me of how I used to keep spare flashlights under the blankets with me, just in case. :)

[tortoises.livejournal.com]

*drools*

This just keeps getting better. I used to get in so much trouble for reading with a torch under the covers.

[peachpastiche.livejournal.com]

I love you more and more every day.

[kayshapero]

Grin. Thanks for the peek!

[starkruzr.livejournal.com]

WIN.

[lunalovegoddess.livejournal.com]

*sigh* brings back memories...

My husband and I both grew up on your series, and now we have introduced our 10-yr-old to them. I remember sneaking off during recess to read Deep Wizardry in junior high. I got in trouble for that, but it was worth it. For the first time, I had really connected with a character. I was bullied for a long time and wished that I had magic to protect myself with. Your books are dear to me for this reason: when I had no friends, I could count on Nita and Kit. I lived in your world far longer than in my own. The Wizard's Oath became sort of a guide for how I chose to live my life back then.
Later on, I would meet real witches, of both genders, and find my niche, but your message stayed with me. Your books inspired me to step out of my comfort zone and start living in this world.
So, quite honestly, you are my hero... (^_^)

(15 years later, being unconventional and bit geeky is actually perceived as a good thing... go figure.)

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Whoo, clever! Some serious forethought went into having a flashlight and cellphone under the covers just in case that happened. Quite creative.

[cee-m.livejournal.com]

It's funny to be a 27 year old and only have read these for the first time this year. Go 14 year old cousins!