A made-up proverb from Dreams of the Compass Rose says, "In the desert, the only god is a well." I love exploring the intensity of such juxtaposition, the dangerous edge.

At some point, sitting in the school library, during reading period, I looked up from my leopard print hardcover composition notebook where I was scribbling a derivative [John Ronald Reuel ] Tolkien epic full of purple prose in tiny handwriting and thought to myself, "Damn! I am a writer! How did that happen?".

A boomerang returns back to the person who throws it. But first, while moving in a circle, it hits its target. So does gossip.

One true king knew when to step aside and give up the reins of power—to remove his crown and relinquish his kingdom—all for the sake of glimpsing, just once in a lifetime, the face of a holy child. He was the Fourth to follow the Star. His gift was a secret. The rest of his journey is unknown.

No waving of enchanted wands but heightened perception. No magic objects, but a transformed and enhanced reality. No spells or chants, but the raw power of the human will to enact supernatural change upon the universal fabric. This is the kind of "magic" that fills Lords of Rainbow - elemental, organic, humanistic - an extension of reality.

Instructions are never included. They vary with the strength of your ability to see, the measure of your selective blindness, the limits of your mercy, and the intensity of your desire.

One of the things that I've noticed over the years is that I seem to be fascinated as a writer with the notion that we already have all that we need.