An extract from  How To Start Writing A Book brought to you courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Here we go again.

Yes, it’s me Jacintha Farquhar. I had hoped that I’d not have to come up with another one of these. I was kicking back with a Pernod and Pimms spritzer enjoying the blazing sun in the back garden and admiring the abs on my new next-door neighbour as he was up a ladder fixing something on his roof, topless. But then the peace was broken by a call from that pompous prat I have the misfortune to have to claim as my son. He is back to being his obnoxious self as if nothing had happened to dent his massive ego.
The good news is I am spared his presence for another week, as he has decided to take a short ‘cultural cruise’ of some other Greek islands with someone called Stavros. The bad news is that it means I have to get out my iPad and come up with something vaguely intelligent to say to you lot.
I hope you bloody appreciate it!

Life Lessons for Writers – Three: People

And by ‘people’ I also mean aliens if you write that science fiction stuff Moons is so fond of. They are people too. And so are those elves and dwarves – and vampires. In fact, any character you ever write, even a talking computer, is going to be people. So you might as well listen up as too many of you wannabes don’t have the first idea about any kind of people except those who are exactly like you.
Oh yes, you might write about some poor orphaned starveling who is abused by the world, but does she think and act like someone who’s been through that kind of experience? Or just your weak and idealised imagination of what it might be like? I mean, how many genuinely damaged people do you count in your close circle? If the answer is ‘Well, Olivia’s parents divorced and she had to give up her horse riding lessons which left her traumatised for life’ or something similar, then you need to rethink writing that starveling. You. Have. No. Idea. And if you don’t, then no amount of effing imagination is going to fill in the gaps.
And, no I’m not saying you can only write about your own level of privileged life, I’m saying get out there and meet the kind of people you want to write about. Go to that dive bar, visit that job centre, help out at that homeless shelter, and find out what the people you want to write into your stories are really like. And the same the other way around. You want to know how the better off think, go along to the local posh golf club and listen in on their banter, hear what they really talk about. A useful tip here is go volunteer to visit an old people’s homes – chat with them. You’ll get the full monty on life across the spectrum, I promise you.
Don’t be like my naive and self-righteous prig of a son who firmly believes that he understands all people because he is one.
Oh, if you can’t bring yourself to actually go to those places and interact with real people, then you can at least read about them. That’s what the more precious twonks amongst those who call themselves writers (yes Moons, I’m looking at you) that I know seem to do. Most are too bloody afraid of real people to go out and actually talk to them.

Right. I’m done. If my sodding son is not back by next week I’ll be posting cocktail recipes with naked pictures of me drinking them. You have been warned.

Now bugger off!

Jacintha Farquar, unfortunate mother of Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

With the biggers around all the time, gnome life was shit. Elmo lost it first. He threw himself into the cement pond and sunk to the bottom where the heavily chlorinated water began peeling off his paint.

His peers stood around the edge of the unnatural blueness.

Big Edna broke the silence.

“We needs a game to play.”

“We does?”

“Unless we wants to wind up like Elmo.”

“What game?”

Eric grinned.

“A pissing contest?”

When the biggers awoke the next morning, there was  gnome in the swimming pool and about a hundred circles of dead grass in the lawn.

©️jj 2020

She struggled into wakefulness, aware in every fibre of her being that something was very wrong. She was laying on what felt like a wooden bench with her hands crossed on her stomach. Some effort had been made to make her comfortable as there was a cushion under her head and a light blanket over her body. The sound of feet on a wooden floor cautioned her to lay doggo.
“She’s still asleep.”
“Leave her then. Orders was not to touch her. Ole Eagle Feather wants her for himself.”
The feet retreated and she heard the sound of a door being shut. Not being anyone’s fool she kept herself still and her breathing even, her patience was rewarded by the creak of leather as whoever else was in the room breathed quietly. In the end he moved over to her and she could feel the weight of his stare.
“Durn fool woman,” he muttered, “why’d you have to go and make an enemy of that evil bastard.”
Then he moved away and Mir heard him go out and shut the door behind him. This time there was also the unmistakable clunk of a locking bar.
Mir sat up cautiously to find herself alone in a wooden-walled room. Alone. Where was Cuchilo? Worry for him settled on her like a heavy cloak threatening her ability to breathe properly. She was afraid and she badly wanted to cry but she pushed those weaknesses roughly aside. Wherever Cuchilo was he was almost bound to be needing her help and a hysterical woman would be no help to nobody. No. Right now she needed to think. To her surprise she wasn’t tied up and, aside from taking away her boots, and the knives hidden in them, it seemed like very little attempt had been made to secure her.
It went without saying that the knife sheath at her belt was empty as was the one between her shoulder blades. On the bright side, though, whoever had searched her had been too polite to find the slender blades sewn into her stays. She crept over to the window to find it glassless but barred with stout black iron. Her spirit sunk. How the hell was she going to get out, and what had they done with Cuchilo?
Her head dropped and she felt the cold hand of despair at the back of her neck. For a second she was almost done, but then logic raised its head. There was indeed a cold breeze playing with the hair at the nape of her neck, but where was it coming from?

The Redhead, The Rogue & The Railroad by Jane Jago is now available on pre-order.

Pearls of wisdom from an octogenarian who’s seen it all…

Excess Packaging

I. Do. Not. Believe. This!

Arrived, today, a huge cardboard box from that online shop that sells everything  (we used to have door stop catalogues that did much the same but now it’s all instant and online).

Within said box, twenty-three yards of brown paper packing material scrunched up to carefully cushion the contents should the box be shaken up or dropped. 

And the contents? The precious cargo that needs such delicate care and protection?

No. Not the new pottery plant holder for the cheese plant in the tiny glass-roofed extension my late husband insisted on investing in and I laughingly refer to as ‘the conservatory’. Not even the set of glass tumblers I have reluctantly ordered, having had the last one go the way of all glass.

No. The contents was…

One pillow. Common or garden ‘use with bed’ variety, stuffed with foam and about as fragile as my dog’s rubber throwing toys. 

Come on people, get a grip!

The words of the incantation whirled through the trees on the brisk wind. Branches creaked and groaned as they came to life, turning into limbs, shrinking down to size. Skin replacing bark, and feet replacing roots,  when they freed themselves from the ground. The feeling of being able to move, to walk away from a spot the they had been rooted to since being planted. The feeling of the wind in their newly formed hair. Being able to touch their new skin, soft and smooth. Being able to touch anything, if the truth be told, was a wondrous, but daunting feeling – something that would take time to get used to.
In their human form, the tall fir trees of the Sarandorn forest, led by the only female among them, came to stand before the man who chanted the spell that woke them. The female had been blessed with the looks of an angel, and the others were built to cause damage. The man, dressed in black, his head concealed by an overhanging hood, stood silent as the female and her army stopped in front of him. His job was almost done. It only remained to issue them an instruction, as they were now his to command.
The female, who the man in black named Saphira, stepped forward on the wave of his hand. She didn’t need to be told, she knew the signal was hers as she felt the pull from the flick of his wrist. She watched him warily as he stepped into her eyeline and took down his hood, revealing the thickest head of black hair. His face bore scars so deep that you could see the cheek bone in some areas. Saphira gazed on the man who’d become her master with a sense of pity and wondered why he had used the incantation to wake them. She tried to find her voice, but only a whisper came from her newly formed lips.
“Your voice will come, my child, but first I need you to listen to me.”
His tone sounded soft, but there was a certain coldness about it.
Saphira stood and absorbed the man’s words and prepared for more words to fall from his lips.
“My name is Brum Inkle. I come from a long line of druids who have, over the years, tried to rid ourselves of the ones who are trying to kill our natural way of being. I have brought you to life for one reason, and one reason only – to avenge my people and your own brethren, your saplings and all that nature has given. For too long, I have watched you and your kind suffer at the hands of humans. it is now your time. Go forth into the night and gain your revenge.”
Saphira tilted her head in confusion. She didn’t know what he was saying. No one had harmed them. They were fine, and she knew of no harm coming to her brethren. She had only been in human form for a few brief moments.
“I see from your confusion that you have no idea what has been happening to the trees on this world, so let me enlighten you. For centuries now, humans have been chopping the forest trees down for their own use. You have thus far been lucky. It was only a matter of time before you felt the woodman’s axe, and now you can gain the upper hand. The incantation has given you and your army the power to turn anything you touch into wood, then revenge is yours for the taking.”
Saphira and her army accepted Brum’s words in their minds and headed toward the nearest village, where Brum had said that most of the occupants were woodsmen and that the whole place had to be destroyed before anymore of Mother nature’s majestic firs were lost to their axes. Screams began to ring out across the small valley where the village sat, and shadows of men lined the border. Each wielded an axe, and waited.
Observing from a distance, but never turning back, Saphira continued her charge, although her head was telling her that something was wrong. Even to her new mind, the villagers seemed a little too prepared for their arrival, but the opportunity to turn back was gone, they had been seen.
Saphira and her army found themselves surrounded. She knew then ithad been a set up from the start, as Brum ran to join the axe wielders for the impending battle of wills. The woodsmen surged forward, and others approached from behind, hemming in the transformed firs, who rooted themselves to the spot and waited for what fate had in store for them.
Brum approached Saphira, a twisted, evil smile dancing across his lips.
“You didn’t really think this was about you gaining revenge, did you?” His voice was colder than the night air. “It was all about us getting you closer to the village, hence the spell to set you free from your wooden prisons. Winter is drawing near, and the villagers need wood to burn on their fires. Why should they have to endure the deathly cold temperatures to venture to the forest, when they can have the source of their warmth here?”
Saphira gasped and a single tear ran down her cheek. Helpless and trapped, as her family turned back to the firs that they once were, by the touch of one finger on their skin. They had no chance to fight, as the touch came from behind. Brum looked on Saphira and brought his hand up to touch her face, pausing for a moment before breaking the spell by the touch of his fingers. The next screams she heard were her own as she began the painful transformation back to a tree, ready for death.

LN Denison is a writer of near-future dystopian sci-fi. You can catch up with her on Goodreads, Facebook and Twitter.

Big bigger got someone to come and make a mess of the orchard. There was sandpits and holes with plastic cups inside.

He spent hours there hitting a ball with a stick.

The gnomes were fascinated, but the moles were incensed. It seems them cups echoed something rotten and woke up baby mole.

They stood it for a week.

Early one morning Big stuck his hand into a cup to get the ball he had just knocked in there.

His screamed and ran with blood pouring from his hand.

Mole looked out of the cup and showed his sharp teeth…

©️jj 2020

Above, clouds scudded across the sky, and sometimes darkened it. The land ahead of them was green and the sea more grey than blue. Almost completely green. So many trees and bushes and even the ground itself was covered in low growing grass and flowers. So very different from the familiar yellows and browns of home that she drew in a sharp breath of surprise and delight.
“You alright?” Pew was still gripping her hand and there was real anxiety on his face. He was worried for her. That made her feel warm inside and she found she was smiling back at him.
“I’m fine. But this place.” She gestured to the approaching coastline with a sweep of her free arm. “It’s amazing.”
Glory made a very unelven snorting noise. “Not so amazing when you have to spend day after day grinding here.”
“I like Barren Steppes,” Pew said. “It’s kind of like where I live.”
Milla blinked. “You live in Barren Steppes?”
“No. Of course not. I just meant…”
But whatever he just meant Milla didn’t find out as Glory was suddenly shouting and reaching for her bow.
“Incoming! Firedrakes! Don’t let them get close!”
Milla instinctively clutched at her pendant and looked up to see half-a-dozen dark shapes with leathery wings circling around the top of the mast. They looked much too small to be dangerous. Then one opened it’s oddly shaped beak and a massive gout of flame shot out, engulfing the rigging and setting it alight.
A moment later the flying creature shrieked and plummeted to the deck, pierced through by the shaft of an arrow. It vanished before it landed. The others swooped down to attack in a tight V formation. Milla found herself being pushed roughly behind the other two by Pew as Glory drew her sword.
“By the power of My Skull!” she yodeled, slashing at the nearest one and slicing into it. Pew had raised his hands and pushed them outwards, just as the drakes breathed their fire. It hit Pew’s invisible shield and barely any of the flames got through, enough to singe Glory’s eyebrows. But Pew’s shoulder’s were slumping with the effort of maintaining the shield
“Powerfeed me, Milla!”
Without really thinking, Milla grabbed her pendant and sent the magical energy it contained towards Pew. He straightened up almost immediately and keeping the invisible shield raised with one hand he threw out a series of small fireballs with the others.
A few moments later the last of the drakes had exploded into nothing and Glory was counting coins she had found somewhere. Pew wiped his brow.
“Where the frack did those firedrakes come from? I’ve never been attacked zoning here from WBS before.”
Glory looked up. “Oh yeah. Sorry about that. Just a class quest I’m on. I get randomly attacked now and then until I’ve finished.” She tipped the coins into her pouch and looked about as un-sorry as it was possible to be.
Pew drew a breath and Milla thought he might be about to say something very rude, but at the last moment he closed his jaw with an audible snap. She felt oddly proud of him and squeezed his hand to tell him so.

From Return to Wrathburnt Sands by E.M. Swift-Hook which is in the Game Lit anthology Rise and Rescue Volume 2: Protect and Recover. 

Pearls of wisdom from an octogenarian who’s seen it all…

Assumptions

I’m fed up with being told how I should be and what I believe – or don’t believe.

For example, if you are to believe the present-day mythology, everyone over the age of eighty voted for the same political party has identical ideas on topics such as immigration and same-sex marriage and is technophobic.

I say meet my circle of friends and aquaintances and weep at the diversity of our views. We often do.

And it’s not just us.

All between forty and retirement own their own homes and shell out funds as a ‘bank of mum and dad’ for their less financially fortunate offspring. All, that is except the third who are still scrabbling to make their own ends meet.

And young people get painted with any number of negative assumptions which most I’ve ever met disprove in five minuted of conversation.

So don’t do it. It’s prejudging people – and that is prejudice.

Remember. To assume makes an ‘ass’ of ‘u’ and ‘me’.

The Rabid Readers Review Little Book of Verse which is a collection of both humorous and sincerely heartfelt poems from award-winning author Claire Buss.

Seventeen poems giving us a window into the life of a young mother. There is emotion here, pathos, humour and joy. Claire isn’t sugar coating her life, instead she allows us in to see and feel her struggles and her triumphs. 

I might have thought the quality of the verse was occasionally a little uneven, but I was pulled in enough for that to not matter.

Favourites?

Six weeks old

And

My Feet Hurt

Four stars and a definite recommendation.

Jane Jago

Soul-Songs both Profound and Mundane

It is the most phenomenally hard task to review a collection of poems.

Poetry is not prose which has a simple and clear purpose, it is the soul-song of the author, coming forth as delicate or sturdy ink-blossoms upon each page. So to judge a poem, say ‘here this one is good’ or ‘there this one is not good’ is like trailing your hands through the mist and scooping what you hold into a jar. Pretty much impossible. One can only let it roll through the mind and impact as it will.

Each poem with each mind a unique interaction.

This collection is that of someone whose life is, like all our own, filled with love and worry, burdens and joys and each poem is a profoundly personal response to that – but made universal through the medium of print.

I enjoyed far more than I found left me unmoved and only a few were so far from my own expectations that they resonated not at all.

You should read these, find your own moments in them, see which touch you and speak to the greater truth as only poetry can, giving meaning to the mundane or exploring powerful truths.

If you do, I am sure you will find poems there which speak to you as powerfully as ‘Late Night Delivery’ and ‘Haiku’, amongst others, spoke to me.

E.M. Swift-Hook

 

He waits on a high branch in the forest with every nerve on alert. The young are hungry and if he cannot find food they will have to move on. Again.

The woodland falls silent, as prey approaches. He synchronises his breathing with the pulses of the earth. As the creature comes level he gives voice to the earsplitting shriek that is the primary weapon of his kind. 

Horse rears and bolts, leaving he who rode so lazily in a heap on the loam. 

Ninja mouse cuts his purse and returns home bearing bread and cheese enough for a week.

©️jj 2020