Despite living in Wilmington, Delaware for over a decade, Moira had never understood the point of Thanksgiving. She was a proud Scot by birth and she came from a long line of proud Scots. Not that she was unfriendly or anti-social, her knitting circle and reading group were always well attended and her role as librarian was highly respected.
She had moved to the US from Linwood in Renfrewshire when her husband died. Her only daughter being, at that time, herself a widowed single-mother living in Wilmington.
For a few years, Moira had spent Thanksgiving with her daughter and grandchildren, always a bit bemused at having another major family festival so near to the one she saw as more traditional – a secular Christmas. But, when in Rome, she told herself.

Then three years previously her daughter had remarried to another man in the armed forces and was off to live where he was based in California. Moira looked at the climate charts and decided that she was most decidedly not going to move to anywhere like that. She liked the climate in Wilmington, it made her think of her childhood home.
So for the last two years Moira had not celebrated Thanksgiving and had been happy to stay at home for the holiday, Skype with the grandchildren and catch up with her reading. This year, however, it was not proving so simple. Anna, who attended both Moira’s knitting circle and her reading group, started asking about what she would be doing for Thanksgiving.
“Oh, it’s not my festival is it?” Moira said, and gave a short laugh. “It’s for you who had ancestors here in sixteen hundred and frozen to death. The ones who had a big party with some local inhabitants who saved your ancestors, helped them survive and then came to celebrate. Or something like that. Nothing to do with me, really. I’m Scottish.’
Anna had put down her knitting, a sharply orange and cream acrylic and wool mix which she was turning into a bolero, and stared in disbelief.
“Now where do you get that from? My ancestors didn’t move to the United States until early last century. In fact, if only the descendants of those who were at the original Thanksgiving ever celebrated it then I would think it had died out as a custom long since.”
Moira’s lips twitched into a tight line.
“You have been brought up with it, Anna. You were born American.”
The other woman stared a little.
“Part of Thanksgiving is celebrating a welcome to those from other cultures. Even Scots!” she added the last tartly.
“It is a classic family festival,” Moira said, “and my family is in California, not Delaware.”
Anna looked as though she was going to argue but instead gave a small sigh and returned to her knitting.

Thanksgiving came and Moira had enjoyed a brief Skype with her family and was just wondering what to eat when the doorbell rang. A little irritated as today was not a day she had planned for visitors and so her usually immaculate bun was replaced by a cascade of unruly wavy hair, Moira answered the door.
Outside stood Anna, her husband their children and the grandparents. All of them burdened by savoury-smelling boxes or bags. Moira opened her mouth to speak and Anna gently grasped her arm and led her back inside her house. As Anna’s family unpacked the beautifully cooked, Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings, Anna hugged Moira.
“The local inhabitants have come to save you and celebrate,” she said, “and we are not taking no for an answer.”
It was the best kind of Thanksgiving for all of them – but for Moira the first of many more.

Eleanor Swift-Hook

Writing inspired by the art of Ian Bristow

They said she was too young. Too inexperienced. That she was an untried Wiccan who would never succeed in such an endeavour. But they underestimated her determination to carry on her beloved grandmother’s work. 

A single tear ran down her face as she picked up grandmother’s wand and stroked it lovingly. She closed her eyes and drew the necessary serenity about her.

Lifting the wand to her face she opened her eyes and blew gently.

The air about her filled with the delicate beauty of hope, joy, laughter and happiness. The bubbles flew gently away, bearing dreams for sleeping children.

Jane Jago

Ian is an awesome artist and cover designer, you can find his work at Bristow Design.

Songs from a Tone-Deaf Minstrel, poems from love songs to limericks by Jane Jago

Do you find life both amusing and frustrating? Are you an oddly-shaped peg in a regular hole? Do you march to the tune of your own band?
If any of this is familiar the poetry of a tone-deaf minstrel may be right up your crooked alley.

Ghost 
Creature of mist
Dances with night
Flirting with death
Flees from the light
Cries in the wind
Sings to the grave
When morning arrives
Dies like a knave

The poems take a somewhat skew-whiff look at life through the eyes of a person who doesn’t take herself too seriously, though not all is humorous.

So pop along and have a look 
Within the covers of the book 
And if you like the things you see 
Chuck a couple of quid at me 
And that is all I have to say 
Support a sad old bat today!

Songs from a Tone-Deaf Minstrel is out today. Just in time to pop in the Christmas stocking of someone you love. Or someone you dislike?

Jacintha Farquhar, maternal parent of Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV offers important life lessons to those who like to think they’ve got what it takes to write a damn book…

Yes, it’s me, Jacintha Farquar, the unfortunate mother of the abominable Moons – that’s Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV to officialdom and ‘IVy’ to those fools who think him capable of stepping out of his self-centered and self-satisfied little world long enough to offer them some tenuous parody of friendship.
Well as always I have to go around behind him like the proverbial pooper-scooper cleaning up the mess he makes and, specifically, I have been asked to contribute to this blog to try and remedy some of the dreadful drivel he spewed here in the past about how to write.
He has no fucking clue – seriously!
Go read his book if you don’t believe me, no not that god-awful supposed sci-fi thing ‘Fatswhistle and Bucktooth’, I mean the laughably titled How to Start Writing a Book . I did my best to try with that too, but you’ll see if you take a look at it.
Anyway, back to the task in hand and one thing I see many of you writers struggling with is people having social intercourse. No, get your minds out of the gutter the lot of you! That means conversation, discussion, argument – communication between people.

Social Intercourse

In the world of writing you don’t call it that of course, probably because the schoolboy giggles would get the better of you and then you’d not write a bloody word for the next week. You lot call it ‘dialogue’.
Do I really need to take you back to school, sit you down and explain simple things like where to put commas in dialogue and the difference between a speech/dialogue tag and an action tag? I hope not, but if you need that then stop trying to pretend you are writing a book and go and look them up so you have the faintest notion of what I’m on about.
Let’s assume you are over the baby gate and romping along at least at school pupil level here.

First thing to remember is to avoid ‘talking head’ syndrome when the reader has no idea of where/how the conversation is taking place. Begin by setting the scene, tell us where the chat is happening and who is present:

Mary and Tom sat down for dinner at their dining room table with their daughter Ella and her new boyfriend Paul.

Next important point ‘said’ is good. Consider:

“This tastes lovely,” Tom exclaimed.
“Thank you, dear,” murmured Mary.
Ella tapped her plate with her fork. “Well done, Mum,” she cheered.
“What is in the pie?” Paul wondered.

You get the point. Of course you wouldn’t just put in ‘said’ for all those which brings us to the third point, use action to indicate who is talking where you can:

Tom smiled across at his wife. “This tastes lovely.”.
“Thank you, dear.” Mary blushed, she had been working on the meal all day in honour of this special occasion.
Tapping her plate with her fork, Ella drew everyone’s attention. “Well done, Mum.” She lifted her glass in a toast.
But Paul didn’t seem to notice, he was poking at the food on his plate. “What is in the pie?”

Hardly brilliant prose, but you can see how it brings the conversation to life.

Next point, try to keep your conversation appearing real. Now that means you leave out all the repetitions and ‘um-ing’ and ‘er-ing’ that we all do in natural speech, but it also means you don’t have your characters declaiming speeches full of posh words at each other either. If you have a character who does that they will seem like a pompous twat to your reader!

Oh yes, one more thing. Don’t do this, it drives me bloody potty, like scraping a fork over a plate:

After the happy couple had left Mary and Tom cuddled up together on the sofa.
“Oh Tom, do you think they will be as happy as we are?”
“I’m sure they will, Mary, they seem made for each other.”
Mary sighed and looked thoughtful.
“Well, Tom, I am not so sure of that as you seem to be.”
“What do you mean, Mary?”

People do not use each other’s names all the time in conversation when it is obvious who they are talking to.  Do. Not. Do. It.

Alright, that’s your bloody lot. I’m not paid by the word for this you know, so bugger off the lot of you and let me get back to Netflix and pernod – one of my favourite cocktails…

Jacintha Farquar, unlucky to be mother of Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV.

As mentioned above you can find more of my son’s ramblings in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago, but if you do have a bloody stiff drink before you read it!

The streets are a-dancing in autumn’s lost gown
A scatter of leaves that sprinkled the town
Blown with the crisp packets to catch on a hedge
Swept with the dogends under each ledge.
Played with by the children, in drifts in the park
Lifted by blustery winds for a lark
Packed by the tramp of feet, wet from the rain
Swirled down the gutters and blocking the drain.
Golden and orange and yellow and brown
Streets filled with the beauty of autumn’s lost gown.

Eleanor Swift-Hook

Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in an alternative modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules.

Another tap came on the door and a sentry stuck his head in.
“Bryn Cartivel, dominus.”
“Who?”
“My decanus,” Dai provided.
“Send him in then.”
Bryn came in looking, Julia thought, a bit nervous. Dai obviously agreed with her because he barked out a laugh, which he covered quickly.
“What is it?” Decimus shot a disapproving frown at Dai as he asked the question, but from the way the decanus’s face froze and he straightened up, Julia realised Bryn thought the frown was aimed at himself.
“It’s them toughs we apprehended, dominus. We’ve been talking to them nicely and they decided to come clean, in the interests of furthering justice, you understand. But I don’t really want to repeat what they said.”
Decimus looked at the decanus and then smiled – the one Julia recognised as his nice smile, the one without wolffish overtones.
“I don’t shoot messengers,” he said mildly.
Bryn took a run at it. 
“It’s all very well to say that, but I never expected to ever be in the same room as you even, dominus. And now I am, I have to tell you that the street toughs who attacked my boss and domina Julia were paid by your lady wife and another woman. A veiled woman with two of them little pompom dogs.”
At which point Julia got up and stomped around the room kicking furniture.
“I’m guessing that those two women didn’t want us investigating the murders.”
“No domina,” Bryn was polite, “it doesn’t seem like they did. According to the vigiles we are also talking nicely to, they expected Titillicus to be in charge of the case. And they had him precisely where they wanted him.”
“They did. Thank you, Bryn,” Dai spoke softly.
Instead of subsiding, Bryn stuck out his chin.
“That’s not all. Them Vigiles reckon that the woman with the dogs paid a couple of junior investigators to pass on details of which Game players were in trouble with the big betting syndicate in Rome.”
Dai swore and he met Julia’s fulminating eye with some embarrassment.
“Now I feel responsible too. I’ve been blaming it all on Rome, but now…”
Julia decided not to belabour the point, just shrugging eloquently.
“This smells very bad. We should all be very careful.”
Decimus rang the bell at his elbow and when the sentry poked his head around the door frame he spoke briskly.
“I think we will double the guard for a while.”
The sentry saluted and could be heard outside relaying the order. Decimus turned to Bryn.
“Thank you, decanus. I would prefer it if you and your men remained here until we smoke out the last of the rats. I hope that isn’t a trouble to you.”
Bryn’s face and voice were wooden.
“No sir. Thank you, sir.”
He saluted awkwardly, as if he had not had much practice at making the gesture, and backed out of the room.
Julia looked at Dai to see him battling some powerful emotion. He managed to keep a straight face for a few seconds then started to laugh.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped, “but Bryn has been my decanus since I was promoted, and I’ve never managed to get the better of him. Not once. It’s probably petty, and entirely out of place in a murder investigation, but I did so enjoy watching him squirm.”
Decimus actually forgot his woes sufficiently to snort out a laugh. Julia looked at the pair of them with at least an attempt at proper Roman dignity and gravitas.
“Behave, you two.”
Dai went so far as to poke his tongue out at her, so she gave up trying to bring them to a sense of decency and went to look out of the window into the parade ground. That proved too much for her hard-won composure as Bryn was standing in the middle of Dai’s posse, waving his arms and mugging frantically as he related what had transpired in the Tribune’s office.

Part XXI will be here next week. If you can’t wait to find what happens next you can snag the full novella here.

Things that make us go poop…

Granny and the ‘ladies’ darts team of The Dog and Trumpet alphabetically collate their collective contempt for the inhabitants of the twenty-first century.

G is for: Greedy bastards (yes, I changed it in the title for those of a delicate disposition)

Having no wish to stray to deeply into the faeces infested water that is politics, we will, for the purposes of this rant, make the sweeping generalisation that all those with political ambition see their political careers as a way to line their pockets and the pockets of their families/friends/bedmates/etc.

So, with apologies to the honest brokers out there beavering away for the common good …

We have questions:

How can you ‘forget’ to pay tax on squillions of pounds?

How can a married couple who work in the same building think it okay to claim mortgage allowances on two properties near their work?

How can a person whose whole avowed purpose in life is to bring down an institution happily claim an inflated salary for being a part of said institution?

How can you forget about your own property portfolio that is worth millions of pounds, while demanding that a colleague face the strongest possible sanctions for an unproven underpayment of about fifteen hundred quid?

We could go on. But I think you have our drift.

Add to this the perfectly legal ‘benefits’ of travel and office allowances, subsidised food and booze, annual above inflation pay rises, and it is little wonder that the population at large is extremely sceptical of our political masters and the circus that performs daily around them.

Particularly when the greedy, sweaty-palmed, self-serving little dickwads scream poverty and take on immensely lucrative ‘consultancies’. Or host radio shows for weirdly well financed niche broadcasters. Etcetera 

Just stop it.

If you can’t live on £91k, don’t stand for election to Parliament.

It’s nothing short of greed and absolutely symptomatic to try and stamp on the poor and weak and ill in order to camouflage your own shortcomings.

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

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

Jane Jago

Writing inspired by the art of Ian Bristow

About his feet the little people quaked and cried. He curled his lip in scorn. 

He felt a strong desire to cook the soldiers in their metal cuirasses but chivalry demanded that he kill only where necessary so he reined in his fury.

Instead, he turned his face on the invading king and allowed himself one roar of rage.

The man fell to his knees and covered his eyes.

“Die infidel.”

As the king grovelled, a ballista twanged thickly and the iron bolt buried itself in Draco’s noble heart.

His dying flame razed a swathe of death a mile long.  

Jane Jago

Ian is an awesome artist and cover designer, you can find his work at Bristow Design.

Telling an entire story in just one hundred words…

It’s been cold in the house since Karina left. There’s an emptiness. A Karina-shaped hole through my heart, just as the cushions on her favourite chair still show the marks of where she sat.

I never stop regretting the argument. What did it matter she’d bought herself a new shawl? 

If I could take it back…

I still light the lantern each night, I’d not want to think she might pass this way and miss the house.

Footsteps outside.

A knock.

I rush with hope to open the door.

No one’s there.

Just a basket – and a smiling infant within.

E.M. Swift-Hook