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hi,
This essay i wrote for school. I was not allowed to use any form of the word "to be." So no Is, are, been, be, am.... were allowed to be anywhere.
Most people assume that my profession consists of a tuxedo, top hat, a black stick with two white tips, a pet rabbit, sleeves, ropes, some pocket change, and a deck of cards. However these people do not know the truth. Magicians put much more effort into their “tricks” then people believe we do. We need to practice, practice and practice some more until we can do it in our sleep. Then we need to practice some more. Luckily, the hard work we do makes a pretty penny, or does it?
I make about nine times as much money per hour as other kids in my grade make. However, I do not have work every day. I usually do not work more then one hour at a time. On a rare occasion I will work up to three hours. So even though I make more money per hour, I cannot make it as frequently because I do not get to choose when I work. My clients have to assign when I work.
Other jobs people make money and get to keep all the money because they don’t have any expenses. I, on the other hand, have lots of expenses. I need to buy new tricks or the magic that I do will get boring. If I constantly keep doing the same tricks, then people will not rehire me for repeat shows. If I do not get repeat shows then my rate of gigs will greatly decrease and I would lose my income. When I decide to get a new trick, I do not just buy a trick. Tricks cost a lot of money. I first have to do research on which good tricks to get. This requires going through customer reviews and looking through their specifications. Some possible problems with tricks include angle sensitivity, how long it takes for their reset, the fragileness of the trick, how long it will last, how much sleight of hand it takes, difficulty level and many other problems that could occur. Searching for plausible tricks may take several hours. Then once I pick out a trick I wait five to seven business days for the trick to come to my door shipped before I even get to touch the trick. The next step comes at this time; I have to learn how to do the effect. This will take another few hours.
Now, comes the hardest part of the entire creation of the effect. I need to come up with the patter, or speech of the effect. The patter helps engage the audience in the trick. Usually I try to make it as funny as possible because when people laugh their minds constantly tell them, “Wow, this rocks!!!” (And then I can get rehired or tipped). Laugher also helps create psychological misdirection which can prove very useful. I also need to create as much audience participation throughout the trick as possible to keep them connected to the trick. At the end of the trick if you have enough audience participation they will believe that they did the trick which will help them remember it even more. Creating patter takes about five minutes, creating a good, exciting, funny patter can take weeks. You cannot make good patter quickly because good patter comes with time. It just comes to you one day. The total process lasts anywhere from one day to a month or even longer at times.
I now finally have everything that I need, a good trick and patter to go with it. The last step consists of many intense hours of practicing. Let us jump ahead all of these days. Yay! Now I get to perform for people. Uh-oh! I need to wait for someone to call me. Now I have a show where everything goes great, everybody enjoyed it, I receive my pay and I record the show on video. I record the shows because it helps make the next shows better. I will watch myself perform and try to spot every mistake. This requires me to watch it many times, which includes many more hours.
Many children my age make money through a summer job, while I have a year long job. I make much more per hour then they do, but does this compensate for the time and energy that I devote. I take my job seriously just like others and this means that I have lots of expenses. Some of these expenses do not even include money. Time can over power the value of money, and I spend lots of time on what I do. After the process with all of the time and money used, people can say that the overall salary I make has a lower value then what other people get per hour. But so what! I enjoy what I do. Lifeguards sit around in a chair watching other people having fun in a pool. I watch people’s jaws literally drop, kids and adults alike falling over with laughter, people just generally enjoy watching things that only I can bring them. This makes my job much better then any other job I would get at my age. I would never change my profession, even if I could make thousands of dollars doing something else.
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Because it was one of the first main essays of the year they allowed us to rewrite it by correcting the teacher's errors. So i did. I got an A on the rewrite and averaged the 2 together so i got an A- in the end.