Mes Chers Readers Who Write,

I am sure I do not need to remind you of who I am at this point in our relationship, but I will acknowledge there may be a handful of benighted individuals who have yet to make my acquaintance. So for their benefit, I will again mention that my name is Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV and I am the renowned author of both the speculative fiction classic ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’ and of this ‘The Thinking Quill’ which offers insight into the mysteries of the authorial craft.

Indeed it was only yesterday Mummy observed: ‘You spend too much time in that coal cellar. You should get out more.” But I assured her the reason I was committing so much of my life to my literary sanctum, was both to progress my own literary offerings and to selflessly share of my copious pearls of wisdom with you, oh Reader Who Writes.

So, without further hesitation or procrastination on either side, let us undress the goddess of literature and peer beneath the skirts of her most intimate places. In brief, dear RWW, let us consider the very building-blocks of her DNA – the tools with which one has wrought such wonders – words.

How to Start Writing a Book – The Write Words

It is a truth universally acknowledged that paucity of vocabulary is the fence at which a multiplicity of putative novelists fail. Gird up your loins my children and do battle with the twin dragons of over-simplification and ugly language. Let that duo of decrepitude be downtrodden under the heels of linguistic loveliness. Let your Muse speak to you in honeyed prose. Let the thesaurus be your Bible and let not the commonplace leave your fingertips. Never say that your grass is green, rather enchant your readers with the verdant viridian vegetation. Let them inhale the aroma of the recumbent emerald as it is crushed beneath the bare toes of powerful simile.

Let your doting following bask in the sunlight of your fertile poesy. Let your words be as sunlight to the face of the damask rose. Let your adjectival imagery lift your readers from the commonplace to the heights of quasi-sexual ecstasy. Let your voice be as the zephyr of a southern breeze carrying the redolence of olive groves and lemon trees and the salt tang of mare nostrum.

Lead your interlocutors along primrose paths of erudition and titillation, and do not cease in your endeavours until your mind’s ear can hear their sighs of replete completion. Only then have you begun to understand the manifest prognostications of your craft.

To encapsulate this vital educational epistle:

1. Never use a simple word where a periphrastic locution can be set.
2.  Never use a sole descriptor – a lonely adjective should be a contumely maxim! Instead, allow the perihelion swirl of elucidatory and expressive ornament to embrace each noun and verb.
3. Seek always the etymological road least travelled and endow your audience with rare gems mined from deep archaisms and seek the perfect bon mots from languages few speak. Thus you will both educate and impress.

Consider my words with care.

Until next mes enfants, adieu and may Erato and Calliope attend your dreams.

Bon Ecrit!

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Built upon an asteroid, these mighty habitation towers are the final stronghold of humanity in a star system ravaged by a long-ago war. Now, centuries after the apocalyptic conflict, the city thrives — a utopia for the rich who live at the top, built on the labours of the poor stuck below. Starway Pathfinders is a science fiction show that entertains the better off and brings hope to the poor…

After the others had gone, Joah sat with Zarshay in the closed and silent booth, wondering if she had made a good choice. It was a dangerous game to play and one where all Joah and her crew could call upon boiled down to smoke and mirrors — illusions. And, she was very aware, they would be no defence if things went wrong. Upsetting the president or thwarting him in his plans would be an interesting, but certain, way to commit professional suicide. Indeed, if rumour spoke true, it might not just be professional.
Zarshay squeezed her hand, bringing her back to the moment. She saw the look of concern on the other woman’s face and managed a rueful smile.
“We are doing the right thing,” she said, careful not to make it a question.
Zarshay nodded. “Yup. Do you think the others are going to manage their part?”
“Oh, Heila will. I think she’s seen where this is going and that it’s in her self-interest to keep with us. For now at least. And no one can doubt her acting ability to pull it off.”
“And Dog?”
Joah pulled a face.
“Hengast is not the material of which conspirators are made, we both know that. But he’s loyal and he can act — and I think this cause is one even he might be willing to set aside his integrity and lie for.”
Zarshay squeezed her hand again and smiled. “Then we don’t need to worry about it, do we?” She released Joah’s hand and stood up. “I’ll go see how Wilf is getting on and let you get on with making some techno-magic.”
Dropping a kiss on Joah’s cheek in passing, she left the booth.
Joah sat there for a few more moments stifling the doubts, before leaving herself.

The magic had to begin in post-production, and the perfect excuse was provided by the alien attack. A week later, Joah was fairly confident she had the right way to do it and she was smiling at the screen as she pulled in a few more of those ideas. Although they could be powerful tools, Joah was not a fan of subliminals, but here she could work some in with the very reasonable excuse of heightening audience anxiety about the Kyruku. She had kept the aliens offscreen so far, quite deliberately. It was to be a huge reveal at the end of the season. They were now undergoing a slight redesign…
A small beep alerted her to the time, and she turned her seat to watch the live coverage of the big event. There was President Toros Strand in front of a huge projection of The Golden Strand, and he was flanked on one side by the glamorously uniformed Captain Gervain and the towering figure of the half-masked Sub-Commander Stude.
The announcement ended to applause, and just as Heila stepped forward to speak, Zarshay joined Joah in the booth.
“So you were not tempted to go along as Xexe?”
“I was not invited to go as Xexe,” Zarshay said, her eyes on the ceremony. “I was invited to go as me and I refused on the grounds of ill health.”
Joah shot her a look.
“Ill health?”
“Yes. On the grounds that spending any amount of time in the company of Toros Strand would make me vomit. Oh look, isn’t that sweet.”
Joah looked back to the events unfolding above and saw the president take Heila’s hand and kiss it.
“I see your point about ill health,” she murmured, and Zarshay grinned.
“I came to tell you, Wilf had a good time out with his ex-colleagues from Undergrove, swapping stories.”
Joah caught the sparkle of pure mischief in Zarshay’s eyes and found herself grinning too. She looked back to the screen just in time to see the elegant Heila sashaying from the front of the platform and tripping to sprawl full-length. The commotion was brief and ended with Dog helping her back to her feet and, although they were not being broadcast, Joah could see her mouth the words, her face looking as if fear was just a breath behind the composure she had regained.
“You don’t think this is going to overplay the—?”
Zarshay was shaking her head.
“No way. My worry is we are not playing it up enough; this is all too subtle. We may need to do something more obvious. But I have an idea, if it comes to it.”
Pulling her close for a quick hug, Joah sighed.
“It’s early days. I better get some work done. I’ll need the three of you tomorrow. And if Wilf’s ready…” She let her voice trail off.
“Show time,” Zarshay finished for her and slipped from the booth, pausing only to blow a kiss from the door before she left.

Star Dust by E.M. Swift-Hook, originally appeared in The Last City, a shared-universe anthology. This version is the ‘Author’s Cut’ and differs, very slightly, from that original. Next week – Episode 1001

Things are not quite how you might remember them in the 100 Acre Wood for Christopher Robin, Pooh Bear and their friends…

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Pawprints in the kitchen
Pawprints on the floor
Pawprints on the furniture
Pawprints on the door
Pawprints on the patio
Pawprints from the shed
Pawprints running up the stairs
Pawprints on the bed
Pawprints on the landing
Pawprints in the hall
Pawprints by the front door
Pawprints on the wall
Pawprints running everywhere
I don’t know where to start
I’d curse the mangy mutt but he’s
Run pawprints through my heart.

E.M. Swift-Hook

It was an unseasonably cold, wet August morning, and Julia was in her sitting room watching the sun try to break through a veil of black cloud, with her two wolfhounds Canis and Lupo asleep in a twitching heap by a small simmering fire. Their usual keeper, her personal bodyguard Edbert, was busy about some other business, so the dogs stayed close to her. Julia was breaking her fast in the British manner, seated on a chair with both feet on the floor. As she had a sneaking preference for that manner of dining, she wasn’t making an issue of it. Instead, she smiled sunnily at her beloved who sat opposite her eating bread and honey.
“You,” she remarked with mock severity “have honey on your chin.”
“Do I?” he asked. “It’s probably because I was looking as well as eating.” His startling blue eyes met hers. “Isn’t the love of my life sitting opposite me dressed in silk and looking good enough to eat?”
She felt the blush running up from her throat to her face and he leaned across the table and placed a chaste kiss on one burning cheek, then he chuckled.
To her intense irritation, the sitting room door banged open and the burly, hook-nosed figure of Decimus Lucius Didero, Tribune in charge of the praetorian guard in Britain, stomped into the room.
“Do come in, Decimus,” Julia said coolly.
“I appear to be in,” the big man spoke mildly. “And now I am, I will have some of that bread and honey and some words with your man.”
Julia gave up the attempt to bring her foster brother to a sense of his own impropriety and spread honey on a hunk of crusty bread. She handed Decimus the bread and grinned at him.
“What do you want with my betrothed?”
Decimus masticated carefully before answering her.
“I’m in the nature of a supplicant. Being as how your man is now, thanks to his deeds of extraordinary valour, a Roman Citizen and a submagistratus-in-waiting to boot, the civilian authorities in general, and that stupid cunnus of a prefect in particular, can’t just order him to look into something. They have to ask. And it goes against the grain. They’d sooner lick my arse than his. So I get to ask.”
“Ask what?” Julia didn’t like the sound of this at all. “Today and tomorrow are public holidays and Dai and I had plans on how we wanted to spend them.”
Dai patted her hand.
“Hush, love. Let the man explain.”
She snarled at him, but subsided.
“Dai, do you remember Lugh Tasgo’s designs?”
Julia looked into Dai’s eyes and saw a slow flare of anger in their depths.
“Oh yes. I remember. I remember a dead Briton and a fat Roman bastard. And an investigation called off because nobody cared that a woman died.”
Decimus met his eyes.
“So you wouldn’t mind another look at the case?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
Dai got up and went around the table to where Julia sat. He lifted her out of her chair and sat down with her in his lap. She could feel the tension in his lean body and turned her face into his neck. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged tightly.
“Grainne Cathan died trying to protect those designs for her employer and he called the investigation off. So it depends,” he said harshly, “on me being permitted to actually investigate no matter what the outcome.”

From Dying to Alter History a Dai and Julia mystery by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook, one of the fourteen alternate history short stories in Tales From Alternate Earths III from Inklings Press.

Surprising though you may find this, the elderly do not live on cups of tea and Bourbon biscuits. Our diets are a little richer and more fulfilling than that. And one day I may even entertain you to my opinions of sushi and sashimi. But not today.

Today we are taking a stumble through the confusing and mind-destroying maze of the soft drink.

By which I mean fizzy stuff. Squash and fruit juices have their own horrors and hieroglyphs, of which I am quite aware.

However, we will concentrate our minds on the job in hand. Fizzy drinks.

Lemonade. Dandelion and burdock. Tonic. Bitter lemon. Ginger ale. Ginger beer. Cola (may whoever invented it be eternally damned). And Irn Bru (whatever the fuck that is). Of course there are more sorts out there. Many more. The above are just what reside in my under stairs cupboard. Obviously I’m an adult so I don’t drink the cola, or the dandelion crap, or the volcanic orange Caledonian stuff, but I do drink the others.

I have made quite a study of them. Particularly the ones you mix with booze.

And I have sad news to impart to you all. With the introduction of the ‘sugar tax’ to ‘curb obesity’ many soft drink manufacturers decided to cut their products with artificial sweeteners.

*pauses to evacuate bit of sick at back of throat*

The results are spectacularly vile.

The great grandchildren inform me that one of the reasons they love me so extravagantly is that I have not succumbed to the ‘reduced calorie’ craze. The little sods come to mine and we have a bloody good walk and then Gyp kicks their asses at football. After which I think chips and full-fat fizzies are perfectly in order.

Which deals with kiddy drinks and leaves us with what the trade so coyly calls ‘mixers’. 

The tonic in your gin and tonic. The ginger ale in your Horse’s Neck. The lemonade in your mojito. And so on…

As the fizzy bit can be anything from a quarter to three-quarters of the drink, if it tastes like shite the whole drinky will be ruined.

Take my word for it.

My advice when making a purchase is as follows:-

Walk right past the own brand, and even eschew the one we always used to buy. No. Sadly the only one worth drinking these days is the hideously expensive one that has No Artificial Sweeteners and no strange plant-based crap neither. It’s delicious. And it won’t fuck up your evening snifter.

Bite the bullet peeps.

Unless you want to spend all evening burping up bitterness and having your mouth go dry because of whatever cactus leaf has been added to fool your head into thinking ‘sweet’.

In the end, sugar still has no rivals. Cut the quantity. But go for something whose taste doesn’t make you want to run screaming from the room…

And finally.

When the world turns and we can get back into the pub. Before you order a large G&T ask the barman who the fuck makes their tonic. You really don’t want to be spending better than a fiver on a drink that tastes like shite.

You can now have a collection of Granny’s inimitable insights of your very own in Granny Knows Best.

Did you know waiting has claws
That scratch your skin
And lack of knowledge grows jaws
That drag you in
And hours become too long
While imagination
Sings a bewitching song
Of icy temptation
And a voice inside of your head
Whispers away
How does it feel to be walking dead
Better learn to pray
Did you know that waiting has claws
You must learn to ignore
Clamp bright hope around its jaws
And you will hear no more

©️Jane Jago

Beloved Readers Who Write,

Although a reminder of my superb credentials and exquisite sensibilities is becoming increasingly superfluous, it is possible that a tiny minority of the denizens of cyberspace may, as yet be unacquainted with the masterful intellect that is Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV the renowned author of both the speculative fiction classic ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’ and of this ‘The Thinking Quill’ which offers insight into the mysteries of the authorial craft. Ecco, mes estudas, here one is. Prepared to pedagogueise…

How to Start Writing a Book – Refining the Write Character

For today’s little tutorial, one’s fickle Muse leads one further along the bridleways of characterisation and the building of those sprites which shall infuse your works with life and loveliness. Follow in one’s footsteps, mes enfants, and you will surely find that the strength of one’s pedagogical peregrinations shields your tender little souls from the hurricanes of blandness, excessive ‘realism’, cold bare prose, and that all-devouring vampiric creature whose name is critic.

Ergo, mes enfants, when you have your protagonistic personifications placed in your psyche allow them to speak within the pristine pergola of your mind. Listen as they tell you of their lives and loves and leisure pursuits. Speak with them aloud as their insubstantial forms draw flesh from conversation with their creator. Fear not the idle sneers of ignoramuses, listen not to well-meant advice wherein those less sensitive to etheric beings counsel against speech with those entities none else can see or hear.

Be brave and enter into such dialogues as the children of your encephalon will vouchsafe to you. Dispute with them, should that be their will. Declaim aloud your fractious floccinaucinihilipilification. Shout to the skies when Erato and Calliope send unto you an actor of such ferocious intractability as to madden the very core of your sensitivities. Sing lullabies to soothe the merciless breast of your insubstantial interlocutor. Eat only that which their nourishment requires, abstain from tobacco, strong drink, and hallucinogenic substances so that your soul can be pure and your psyche open to the voices from beyond.

In the ultimate analysis, when you have a protagonist who walks by your side directing your steps you have succeeded beyond mere measure, and you can allow yourself to be led by the hand into the labyrinthine lusciosity of lustful lubriciousness that is literature lubricated by genius.

Ah yes, mes estudas, when your careful construction takes breath into its own lungs your work is done. Cry tears of joy as you inscribe into insubstantial cyberspace the passages of pusillanimous prose your protagonists dictate to you.

When their clamour will not let you sleep, you will know you have achieved the ultimate in character creation!

I shall conclude with advice on antagonists. They are the bad people, everyone knows what a bad person is like, we all have neighbours, work colleagues or relatives we despise. So there is no need to explain them or their motives in more than the briefest of detail. Less is more.

Écrit bon…

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Built upon an asteroid, these mighty habitation towers are the final stronghold of humanity in a star system ravaged by a long-ago war. Now, centuries after the apocalyptic conflict, the city thrives — a utopia for the rich who live at the top, built on the labours of the poor stuck below. Starway Pathfinders is a science fiction show that entertains the better off and brings hope to the poor…

For some reason the meeting was taking place in the sound recording room. After they finished the visual side of it, Joah usually insisted the human trio recorded their speech again. They were, after all, not word perfect and inflection precise in the same way their virtual co-stars could be. It was built with special insulation to eliminate any sound leakage in or out.
It was a bit of a squeeze getting them all inside and the door closed, especially for Dog who always found he took up more space than anyone expected. And Joah looked less than her usually confident self. That troubled Dog. He trusted Joah and if she had reason to be nervous it made him unsettled. At least Zarshay seemed at ease, she grinned at Dog as she squashed herself in beside him.
Heila looked long suffering and slightly bored, but that meant nothing, of course.
“So what is this about?” she demanded and then pulled a face. “Someone did not use deodorant today.”
“Shut up, Heila,” Zarshay said in a pleasant tone. “Before we start talking about anything else — are you staying with the show or are you jumping ship to Undergrove? Now we don’t mind if you are, but Joah and I would like a straight answer, please.”
Dog gave a small bark of surprise. He couldn’t help it. Not that anything Heila did should surprise him anymore, but that took a lot of beating.
The blue eyes instantly filled with moisture. “How could you think such a thing? I’m a woman of my word and I signed for five seasons.”
“You signed for six with Hopeless Hearts Hospital and walked out to join us after three,” Joah pointed out and the threatened tears seemed to reabsorb themselves somehow.
“That was different,” Heila snapped. “That show was going nowhere fast. SP is in a different league.”
“So why were you flirting with Lon Undergrove?” Zarshay asked.
Dog wondered if she also caught the brief look of cold calculation on Heila’s face, smothered stillborn by a wounded smile.
“Talking over old times, darling, that is all. He and I were almost an item once.”
It was pretty clear neither Joah nor Zarshay were buying that. They just looked at Heila. Dog was glad he was not the one getting those looks. There was a hollow silence of expectation that hung in the room.
“Alright,” Heila lifted both her hands. “Yes, I was talking with Undergrove. They have a new show and want me for it. Nice money. Very nice. But only if they get Dog too. Lon says he likes our chemistry on screen. I told him there was no way Dog would leave SP, but he wanted me to try anyway.” She crossed her arms and huffed out a breath glaring at Dog as if it was all somehow his fault. Then she looked back at Joah and Zarshay and her expression changed again. “I’m sorry, alright? It won’t happen again.”
Joah’s face tightened.
“I’m serious here, this is something we need to take on as a team or it’s going to sink us — and maybe sink a lot of other people too. If you are going to play on being the spoilt brat Hiela, walk now because things are going to turn very nasty.”
Dog shook himself and earned an elbow in the ribs from Zarshay. But Joah’s words had the desired effect and Heila looked strangely expressionless for once.
“You’d better tell us,” she said, the usual childlike singsong she managed to make into a mature sultry roll for her Captain’s voice, was suddenly absent.
“This is not going to be easy to explain,” Joah said, “but it’s us against the President.”

Dog felt the furrows on his brow deepen as Zarshay and Joah went over what had happened and his mind flipped back to that evening out with Teram and his salvage crew. It was like taking the hopes and dreams of half the city and whoring them out for cold cash.
“We’re not going to do this thing, are we?” he asked as the two women finished talking.
Zarshay patted his hand reassuringly. “Do you really think me and Joah would buy into something like that?”
“But you left them thinking you have and you’ve signed us away — me and Dog — without so much as a do-you-mind?” Heila sniffed and crossed her arms.
Dog barked out a laugh. “You mean like you were going to do with me if I’d gone for your dinner dance date?”
At least Heila had the good grace to avoid his eye and study her fingernails intently. Then she looked back at Joah. “So what do you want us to do? I assume you have a plan?”
Zarshay grinned broadly and Joah nodded her expression grim.
Dog leaned forward as they started to explain.

Star Dust by E.M. Swift-Hook, originally appeared in The Last City, a shared-universe anthology. This version is the ‘Author’s Cut’ and differs, very slightly, from that original. Next week – Episode 1000

Things are not quite how you might remember them in the 100 Acre Wood for Christopher Robin, Pooh Bear and their friends…

***** ***** *****